October 7, 2010, - 1:31 pm
25 Years Later, Remember Leon Klinghoffer & the Achille Lauro Hijacking
**** UPDATE: Lisa Klinghoffer Responds, SCROLL DOWN TO BOTTOM ****
You’d hardly know it from the scant media coverage, but today is the 25th anniversary of one of the many pre-9/11 acts of Islamic jihad against America. Twenty-five years ago, today, on October 8, 1985, Palestinian Islamic terrorists headed by Abul Abbas a/k/a Abu Abbas hijacked the Achille Lauro cruise ship and murdered Leon Klinghoffer–a 69-year-old helpless man bound to a wheelchair. Klinghoffer’s crimes: being an American and a Jew.
Leon Klinghoffer, Zichrono LiVracha [Blessed Be His Memory]: American Hero in Life & Death
Klinghoffer and his wife were taking the cruise to celebrate their 36th wedding anniversary. After hijacking the ship, cowardly Palestinian terrorists assassinated Klinghoffer by gunshot and threw his body overboard, a plot masterminded by Abul Abbas. I know Lisa Klinghoffer, daughter of Leon Klinghoffer, and she has kept in touch with me regarding her brave father.
Sadly, one of the men involved in his hijacking lives and breathes free here in America, today. I know this because one of my Muslim informant clients was asked by federal authorities to help testify and prosecute the man on drug charges, after the U.S. already shamelessly and knowingly let the man enter and live in America, absolving and agreeing not to prosecute him for his involvement in the brutal Achille Lauro murder of Klinghoffer, in exchange for “information on Al-Qaeda.” No information is enough to justify freedom (or even life) for any of Klinghoffer’s murderers.
And as I told you last year, another hijacker/murderer, Youssef Magied al-Molqui, was freed by Italy. As I reported in 2008, Italy also released hijacker murderer, Ibrahim Fatayer Abdelatif. Grazie, creeps. It’s disgusting. And almost none of those involved paid any price. Only Monzer Al-Kassar, the Syrian arms dealer who sold Abul Abbas the gun used to kill Klinghoffer, was captured by the U.S., tried, and convicted. I heard from a juror in the case, as well as from Lisa Klinghoffer about it. As I wrote on the 20th anniversary:
Unlike Klinghoffer, Abbas led a great life and was never punished. He was allowed to live in freedom–under the protection of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. He died in captivity shortly after U.S. troops captured him during the start of the War in Iraq. Abbas never faced justice.
Lisa Klinghoffer wrote me:
We tried hard all these years to have him brought to justice. When he was caught, we tried to have him brought here to be tried for the Murder of my father, but, alas, he eluded us again and died in prison. If you ask me, he didn’t suffer enough!!!!!!!!!
An Egyptian jet tried to fly the Islamic hijacker-murderers to freedom, but U.S. Navy F-14 fighters intercepted it and forced it to land in Sicily.
When I wrote about the 20th anniversary of the torture murder of Navy diver Robert Stethem by Hezbollah terrorists, Lisa reminded me:
October 8th is the 20 year anniversary of the murder of our father, Leon Klinghoffer, aboard the Achille Lauro. For us, it is so hard to believe that it has been 20 years, and just look what has gone on in the world since!!!!!!!!
Yes, and now it has been 25 years. Sadly, the world has forgotten. America has forgotten.
When I wrote the above, Lisa Klinghoffer wrote again:
Dear Debbie,
Thank you so much! It has been a tough time for me this past week. We went to the cemetery and cried. I have tried to be so brave and stoic over the years and do the work that we do in Leon’s honor and memory. But sometimes, I just have “a moment,” and all families have to go through the same, as we do.
Thanks for remembering. I mean that’s what it’s all about: to remember and to educate so that perhaps one day ……….
Thanks,
Lisa Klinghoffer
Unfortunately, in the few cases where Klinghoffer’s murder was “remembered,” it was nauseating. Despicable Brit John Adams created an “opera” about the murder of Klinghoffer, denigrating him and glorifying his Palestinian Islamic murderers. Here’s what a smart Aussie reviewer said about the film adaptation of this outrage:
Nails scratched across a blackboard. The sound of a dentist’s drill. Plucking nose hairs with a pair of tweezers. All painful experiences but not a patch on watching this torturous two-hour[s].
The disgusting opera is coming to St. Louis, next year.
It’s not just that we haven’t remembered Klinghoffer and his murder with proper attention and resolve. It’s that in the 25 years since his murder, we have empowered extremist Muslims [redundant phrase] and the terrorists they support–the same ones who murdered her innocent, disabled father and threw him overboard. And for more than nine years since the 9/11 attacks, we’ve been admonished–in our schools, our popular culture, our government policy–to “understand” and respect them. “Tolerance.” Tolerance for those who won’t tolerate us. Tolerance for a religion whose many, um, “hijackers” have actually been hijacked by their religion. Hijacked to believe that a helpless 69-year-old man in a wheelchair must be shot and murdered, his body dumped into the ocean from a ship deck several stories above.
Klinghoffer’s murderers weren’t Christians or Hindus. And they weren’t from Samoa or Fiji, either. They were Arab Muslims. The same group we keep denying is after us, today. The same group about whom we must not dare speak the truth and haven’t been allowed to for over nine years because 19 of them mass-murdered 3,000 Americans. Since when do the spoils of victory and politically correct speech go to those who mass murder Americans on American soil? Since not just 9/11, but since the Achille Lauro hijacking, the torture murder of Navy Diver Robert Dean Stethem, the bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks and Embassy in Beirut, and countless other Islamic acts of aggression against America.
Leon Klinghoffer’s murderers are not just the Arab Muslim men who shot him in the head and dumped him in the sea. They are all those who support HAMAS, Hezbollah, Fatah, and countless other terrorists groups around the world. They are Muslims, most of whom support these groups and won’t condemn them.
America, we must remember Leon Klinghoffer by taking steps to finally protect our border, our American culture, and our life as we know it.
Otherwise, he will have died in vain along with all of the other American victims of Islamic terrorism.
Here’s what one of many, who’ve written posthumous notes to Klinghoffer over the years through a cemetery website, wrote:
You are a model of courage and strength for all of us to be proud of. You did not bow to the animal terrorists that took your life, but you, instead, showed them your true bravery, strength, and proudness.
Amen. Time for America to finally wake up and do the same.
UPDATE: From Lisa Klinghoffer, today:
From: Lisa Klinghoffer
Date: Thu, Oct 7, 2010 at 2:56 PM
Subject: Re: Lisa, FYI . . .
To: Debbie Schlussel writedebbie@gmail.comDebbie. Thanks so much for always remembering my father, Leon. Love, Lisa Klinghoffer
Tags: 25th Anniversary, Abu Abas, Abul Abbas, Achille Lauro, cruise ship, Iraq, Islam, Islamic Terrorism, Jewish, Leon Klinghoffer, Lisa Klinghoffer, Palestinian, Palestinian terrorists, Saddam Hussein
Something tells me pigs will learn to fly before Obama’s teleprompter comes up with perfunctory boilerplate phrases to “remember” Klinghoffer’s murder – and even then, with the classic lefties’ moral equivalence.
CP: The 20th anniversary was while Bush was President, and pigs didn’t learn to fly then, either. DS
ConcernedPatriot on October 7, 2010 at 1:51 pm