Noam Chomsky
Mark Kingwell Charles Tayler
Naomi Klein
Arundhati Roy
Evelyn Lau
Stephen Lewis
Robert Fisk
Margaret Somerville
Mona Eltahawy
Michael Moore
Julius Grey
Irshad Manji
Richard Rodriguez Navi Pillay
Ernesto Zedillo
Pico Iyer
Edward Said
Jean Baudrillard
Bill Moyers
Barbara Ehrenreich
Leon Wieseltier
Nayan Chanda
Charles Lewis
John Lavery
Tariq Ali
Michael Albert
Rochelle Gurstein
Alex Waterhouse-Hayward
bourbon street DON'T ATTRIBUTE JIHAD SYNDROME TO MENTAL
ILLNESS
Phyllis
Chesler, Ph.D, is an Emerita Professor of Psychology
and Women’s Studies at City University of New
York. She is a best-selling author, a legendary feminist
leader. This article first appeared in her newsletter:
https://phyllis-chesler.com
The moment
I first heard about the mass murders in New Orleans,
I knew in my bones that the car rammer and shooter was
a Muslim.
Call
me “Islamophobic,” call me “psychic,”
call me what you will.
Or
call it what it is: Sudden, Personal Jihad Syndrome
which has just afflicted yet another American citizen
and Army veteran.
I
am writing about Staff Sargeant Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar,
who served in Afghanistan for a year, and in the United
States Army for ten years–the terrorist who has
just murdered 15 people and injured an unknown number
of others on the first day of 2025. Jabbar had an ISIS
flag “strapped” to the back of his rented
truck. He allegedly had IED’s there as well. Jabbar
may–or may not–have had accomplices or supporters.
Jabbar
lived in an all-Muslim trailer park in walking distance
of a mosque, Masjid Bilal. He quoted from the Qu’ran
online. He recently visited Egypt for ten days. Egypt???
How did he afford the trip given that he’d apparently
maxed out his credit cards trying to keep up with child
support payments.
Yes,
Jabbar is an American citizen, a twice married father,
and an Army veteran. (How do we deport someone like
this before he strikes? Can we?)
Jabbar
reminds me of Major Malik Nidal Hasan who served in
the Navy and who killed or wounded 44 people at Ft Hood
in 2009. Hassan was a psychiatrist of Arab/Jordanian
descent. He was also an American citizen, a religious
Muslim, who had been heard to be shouting “Allahu
Akhbar” before or during his shooting rampage.
Like
Jabbar, Hasan also had Islamic bumper stickers on his
vehicles and argued with people about “radical
Islam” which Hassan favored. He also tried to
convert his non-Muslim psychiatric patients to Islam.
Convert. His. Patients.
The
same Instant Personal Jihad Syndrome also led Palestinian/Arab
Sirhan Sirhan to assassinate Senator Robert Kennedy
in cold blood in 1968 for America’s support for
Israel.
These
three attackers are Jihadists. In radical Islamic circles
they are not seen as mentally ill. Only “woke”
Westerners tend to view them sympathetically as victims,
(of hard times, of alleged racism, of alcohol or of
drugs, of poverty, or of mental illness, etc. ) Some
Westerners glamorize them as anti-racist heroes.
However,
radical Islamists view them as defenders of the faith,
holy warriors, who are martyring themselves on behalf
of a world-wide Caliphate. Islamists only view them
as “victims” if the West dares to stop them,
jail them, try them–or kill them in self-defense.
Israel
is merely trying to defend itself against precisely
such Jihad. Such warriors, whether they act alone or
in concert, are all shaped by an Islamist culture that
is coming for infidels, for the West, and for all non-Islamist
Muslims. Dissident anti-Islamist, Mosab Hassan Yousef,
understand this very well. Just read his book, “The
Son Of Hamas.” Or watch his strong presentation
at the Oxford Union.
I
have been writing about this for nearly a quarter-century.
I am a bit weary of having to repeat myself, again and
again.