Posted on 08/31/2006 8:53:25 AM PDT by quidnunc
The story that developed in July was just too good to pass up: a Jordanian-born restaurant owner in Xenia, Ohio had been the apparent victim of repeated attempts to burn down his store. The day after the third attack, when a Molotov cocktail had been thrown through the front window of his business, yet another explosion rocked the store – the second attack in 24 hours – sending the owner and his son to the hospital with burns over 80-90 percent of their bodies. An employee in an adjoining store was also taken to the hospital for injuries.
Just hours before the blast, the store owner had been interviewed by a local TV station vowing that he would never give in to pressure to close the store (video of the interview can be seen here).
Into this situation jumped the Cincinnati-area chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) – the self-proclaimed Muslim “civil rights” organization suggesting that anti-Muslim hatred was at work. An item posted on July 14th on the national CAIR website screamed the headline, “Blast at Arab-American Restaurant ‘Suspicious’ .”
Karen Dabdoub, the local CAIR spokeswoman, was quoted in the local media saying,
“Anytime an attack like this happens, the perception in the Arab and Muslim community is that it is ethnically or religiously motivated. Especially in the absence of perpetrators being caught by law enforcement, that’s the fear. Until that (motivation) is discovered, people speculate, rightly or wrongly.”
The problem with CAIR’s narrative of anti-Muslim hatred in small-town America was that it wasn’t true. Arson investigators have determined that the final blast that severely injured the store owner, Musa Shteiwi, and his son, Essa, was set by the pair themselves. In a performance worthy of a Darwin Award, the Shteiwis were standing in a pool of gasoline that they intended to use as an accelerant in setting their store ablaze later that night when Musa Shteiwi took a break and lit up a cigarette, igniting the gasoline prematurely and causing the blast that inflicted their injuries.
But there’s more: prosecutors claim that Shteiwi had hired a former employee, Joshua Hunter, to commit the previous attacks against his store that CAIR had insisted were hate crimes committed by non-Muslim members of the Xenia community. Hunter has been jailed and charged with arson, and similar charges against Musa and Essa Shteiwi are pending until after they have recovered from their injuries.
-snip-
"Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Qur'an should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on earth"
--Omar Ahmed, Chairman of the Board of CAIR (Council of American Islamic Relations), San Ramon Valley Herald, July 1998
...and then some!
I can't stop laughing!
We need that picture of the Paki protestor that set himself on fire trying to burn the american flag.
Do people know there are about 10 times as many attacks in this country on Jews as Muslims.
Actually, Musa lived across the street from me with his wife, 3 kids, multiple relatives - he died from his burns about 10 days ago and that is when we found out that they were Greek Orthodox.
Imagine that - Greek Orthodox from Jordan. WHat an odd combination. In any case, I did not know him particularly well, and in fact we only found out about the explosion and the rest of the story from the news hounds who tried to interview all of us neighbors about what we knew - which was abosolutely nothing.
I suspect that his wife, who seems like a nice enough person, had no knowledge of the plot. There is more to the story - Musa and his oldest son by a previous marriage, had owned two of these steak sub places which were descended from Great Steak places that used to be in the malls. One of them burned up - not sure how long ago - and it is a question whether that was an accident or not, or if he thought it was a great idea and thus planned the torching of the second restaurant.
All of this is speculation. The fellow arrested for being part of the plot, has now been charged with murder. One article says that he (an ex-employee of the restaurant) did the dousing earlier in the day and planned to return later with the match. That would mean that Musa and his son did not realize what would happen - or maybe just did not think. Probably no one will ever know the whole story.
The apparent truth is that Musa did set up the little rock-thru-window episodes, and tried to make it sound like a 'hate crime' which is when CAIR showed its ugly face, and gee they have been very quiet since all the rest of the story came out.
The restaurant was closer to Cincinnati than Dayton, and the arsonist was from Xenia, which is how that town got mentioned. Most of the articles have been in the Cincinnati papers, so I have only seen them second hand, and my version of what happened is not necessarily accurate. We live on the South side of Dayton, Ohio, in a small suburb called Miamisburg.
I am not faulting anyone's comments in this post, because believe me, some of us HAVE been mentioning Darwin quite often since we found out the entire story. The son is evidently alive, in a Cincinnati hospital that specializes in burn victims, but has not been able to talk to the police and I don't expect he will make a recovery, but who knows.
The story is an odd one, and trust CAIR to rush in and try to make something out of it. Sort of funny how it backfired and how silent they have become. And interesting that they were so quick to defend Christians - I wonder if they were aware of the religious affiliation? I would certainly like to ask them how stupid they feel now -
Imagine that - Greek Orthodox from Jordan. WHat an odd combination.
Its not that odd. Many Arabs are Orthodox. Musa is not an Orthodox name however, so his church name must have been something different.
Never trust a Muslim, NEVER!
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