#Of course he hated the Jews

The newspaper I edit, London’s Jewish Chronicle, published a global scoop this week: a recording of a British terrorist’s final telephone call to his brother as he held four Jews hostage in a Colleyville, Texas, synagogue.

The contents of the conversation were pretty much as you’d expect — unless you’re a political, media or law-enforcement elite unwilling to admit the obvious.

Toward the end of the 11-hour standoff Saturday at Congregation Beth Israel, Malik Faisal Akram, the 44-year-old homegrown terrorist from northern England, ranted to his younger brother about issues close to any jihadist’s heart.

American imperialism in Muslim lands? Check. The plight of an Islamist prisoner? Check. An optimistic look forward to martyrdom? Check.

“I’m opening the doors for every youngster in England to enter America and f–k with them!” Malik told Gulbar, 33, who was on the line in a Blackburn, England, police station, urging him to surrender after his brother, armed with a pistol, took a rabbi and three congregants hostage.

“Live your f–king life, bro, you f–king coward! We’re coming to f–k America! F–k them if they want to f–k with us! We’ll give them f–king war!” Malik roared during the 11-and-a-half-minute recording, which the Chronicle obtained from a security source.

His family — and the FBI, which was listening in — soon realized that persuasion was pointless. “I’d rather live one day as a lion than 100 years as a jackal,” Malik declared. “I’ve asked Allah for this death. Allah is with me, I’m not worried in the slightest.”

“I’m going to go toe-to-toe with [police] and they can shoot me dead,” he told his brother. “I’m coming home in a body bag.”

The Brit told authorities he would free the hostages in exchange for the freedom of Pakistani terrorist Aafia Siddiqui, who’s serving an 86-year sentence in nearby Fort Worth after attempting to murder US service members in Afghanistan, and he confirmed that to his brother, claiming that “they f—ing framed her.”

But that wasn’t the only thing that led him to choose to take his hostages at a synagogue on the Sabbath, of course.

“Why do these f–king mother–kers come to our countries, rape our women and f–k our kids? I’m setting a precedent,” he yelled on the call. “Maybe they’ll have compassion for f–king Jews,” he shouted.

Naturally, he raged against the Jews. Indeed, the service was being livestreamed, and before the feed was cut, anyone could hear him rave, “But Americans don’t give a f–k about life unless it’s a f–king Jew!”

That matched other evidence our journalists had uncovered, notably that someone who heard Akram saying he wanted to bomb Jews reported him to the police a year ago. The police didn’t deem it necessary to act.

The entire incident was an obvious example of the grossest anti-Semitism. President Joe Biden and UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson called it such. But others were far more reluctant: Even “CBS Mornings,” which aired that livestreamed line, refused to call him Akram what he was: an Islamist terrorist.

But you didn’t need to hear that disgusting statement to know what motivated Akram. Never mind that he targeted a synagogue on the Sabbath. The woman he sought to free is an infamous anti-Semite. She actually demanded during her trial that possible jurors undergo DNA testing so that no one with a drop of Jewish blood stood in judgment of her. “If they have a Zionist or Israeli background . . . they are all mad at me,” she explained. “They should be excluded if you want to be fair.”

Incredibly — but not surprisingly — some Democrats were quick to cite “white supremacism” as a possible motive for a synagogue hostage-taking in the name of a woman dubbed Lady al Qaeda.

“My biggest concern, hearing that it’s at a synagogue, is that this is someone who’s intent on committing hate crimes and an act of domestic terrorism,” Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said on MSNBC. “Now, we don’t know that for certain, but we have seen an incredible rise in rhetoric that is anti-Semitic being trafficked all around the country,” she claimed, adding that we’re seeing “an exponential rise in the formation and the membership of these extremist organizations, many of which are white supremacy organizations.”

Even reporting on our recording, the BBC decided that it principally showed “the efforts made by Akram’s family to get him to surrender — as well as Akram’s deteriorating mental state and the increasing tension inside the synagogue.” The jihadist ideology? The Jew-hatred? Not so much.

But then, Matthew DeSarno, the FBI Dallas office’s special agent in charge, who had to know what the gunman was saying, described the terrorist to the press as “singularly focused on one issue, and it was not specifically related to the Jewish community.”

In this post-truth age, somebody needs to make the case for sanity. Proper reporting goes a long way to providing ammunition when people refuse to recognize the obvious.

Jake Wallis Simons is editor of the Jewish Chronicle.