Replies

He was articulating the Islamist threat way before any pol I can think of. Way before 9/11. That was one of the reasons he kicked out Arafat despite the shrieks of the NYTimes.

Daniel Pipes included Giuliani in his article about "ostriches" who denied domestic terrorism.

http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=16926

Key excerpt: Law enforcement seems more concerned to avoid an anti-Muslim backlash than to find the culprits. This attitude of denial fits an all-too-common pattern. I have previously documented a reluctance in nearby New York City to see as terrorism the 1994 Brooklyn Bridge (“road rage” was the FBI’s preferred description) and the 1997 Empire State Building shootings (“many, many enemies in his mind,” said Rudolph Giuliani). Likewise, the July 2002 LAX murders were initially dismissed as “a work dispute” and the October 2002 rampage of the Beltway snipers went unexplained, leaving the media to ascribe it to such factors as a “stormy [family] relationship.”

*****

Here's more from Pipes on one of the pre-9/11 terrorist attacks on NY under Giuliani's watch (which he used as a platform to call for stricter national gun control):

Ali Hasan Abu Kamal, a Palestinian gunman hailing from militant Islamic circles in Florida, took a gun to the top of the Empire State building in February 1997 and shot a tourist there. His suicide note accused the United States of using Israel as its "instrument" against the Palestinians but city officials ignored this evidence and instead dismissed Abu Kamal as either "one deranged individual working on his own" (Police Commissioner Howard Safir) or a "man who had many, many enemies in his mind" (Mayor Rudolph Giuliani).

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0702/pipes1.asp

*****

Here's information on an earlier terrorist attack on NYC while Giuliani was mayor:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9801E2DD113AF936A35750C0A962958260

Key excerpt: The Mayor's urgency to quash the widespread reports of a link between the shooting suspect and the well-known terrorist organization fit a pattern he established immediately after the Tuesday shootings. From the beginning, he personally took control of all briefings on the matter, often appearing with the Police Commissioner at his side, and took pains to dampen the rumors that might pit one ethnic group against another or raise the city's level of fear.

Even now, Mr. Giuliani and the Police Department have refused to discuss the question of a motive in the van shootings, which left one student brain-dead, another in poor condition and two others with less serious wounds. Though many Hasidim say they are certain the students were shot because they are Jews, the police say they have not determined the shooting was anti-Semitic.

Yesterday morning, Mr. Giuliani met for 40 minutes with a group of Arab restaurateurs, business owners and community leaders from Brooklyn. He told them that Arabs as a group should not be blamed for the shooting, and the Arab leaders put out a statement expressing condolences to the families of the victims and noting that Arabs were instrumental in contributing information that led to Mr. Baz's arrest.

*****

This particular attacker was linked to a hotbed of Brooklyn Islamofascism centered in Bay Ridge. But Giuliani didn't follow up to see if there was a wider pattern of Islamofascist attacks being planned/supported/funded there -- he treated the shooting as an isolated crime, tried to avoid admitting any links to terrorism, and met with leaders of Brooklyn's Arab community. Giuliani's record on Islamofascist attacks when he was in charge is not good.