The (Muslim) Hero of Bondi
Mehdi on the Islamophobes' response to the brutal killing of Jews in Australia; how the DOGE folks are headed for Gaza; and the fallout from the Bari Weiss/Erika Kirk CBS town hall.
🚨 Breaking: Famed Hollywood director and actor Rob Reiner and his wife, photographer Michele Singer Reiner, were found dead in their Los Angeles home on Sunday in what is being investigated as an apparent homicide. Rob Reiner, known for directing ‘The Princess Bride,’ ‘When Harry Met Sally,’ and ‘A Few Good Men,’ was also a Democratic political activist who fought for same-sex marriage and early childhood programs.
Good morning! Mehdi here, writing to you from a freezing Washington, DC. I spent much of my weekend speaking at multiple events in wonderfully warm Tampa and Orlando, and I now finally understand why people put up with repellent Ron DeSantis and those horrible hurricanes and choose to live in Florida. It truly is the ‘Sunshine State’ – even in December!
In today’s ‘First Draft,’ my take on the antisemitic terror attack at Bondi Beach and the subsequent ‘Muslim drill’; Prem’s take on CBS and Bari Weiss puffing up Erika Kirk and her late husband; an update on the Brown University shooting; and the latest from Gaza, Sudan, and Ukraine.
Heartbreak and Heroism on the Beach
A decade ago, in December 2015, Muslim-American journalist and current Zeteo contributor Wajahat Ali wrote about “The Muslim Drill.” “It’s familiar to many minority communities,” he explained in the New York Times. “First, I pray for the victims and their families. Then, I start a different sort of prayer: “Oh, Allah, please don’t let it be a Muslim.”
On Sunday, like millions of Muslims waking up around the world to news of a horrific massacre of defenseless Jews on Australia’s iconic Bondi Beach, I did the drill in my head: Oh, Allah, please don’t let it be a Muslim.
In fact, the massacre was perpetrated by two Muslims. A father and son, we’re told, gunned down at least 15 Jewish worshippers who were marking the first night of Hanukkah on the beach. The oldest victim was 87 years old, the youngest a girl aged just 10. A depraved, disgusting, and inexcusable act of antisemitic mass murder.
But, then, a twist to the horror story. An astonishing video circulated online of an unarmed man sneaking up from behind on one of the shooters, wrestling him to the ground, and grabbing the gun from his hands in the process.
A bevy of right-wing pundits rightly hailed the man as an “absolute HERO” and “absolute legend.” British broadcaster Piers Morgan called it an “astounding act of courage.”
The hero/legend, however, turned out to be… a Muslim! (Thank you, Allah!)
Yes, Ahmed al Ahmed, a 43-year-old fruit shop owner and father of two, suffered two gunshot wounds to his arm and hand as he tackled and disarmed the shooter. And he’s not just a Muslim. He’s a Syrian immigrant from Idlib.
My thoughts and prayers go out to the anti-Muslim racists, bigots, and nativists. They were ready to go with their cut-and-paste Islamophobic, anti-immigrant talking points until this Muslim hero complicated everything for them. Muslims are a threat to Jews? But a Muslim saved Jews on Sunday. Immigrants are a threat to our security? But an immigrant heroically stopped a mass shooter on Sunday. Even Benjamin Netanyahu had to hail the “brave Muslim man” who saved dozens of Jewish lives yesterday. (The Israeli prime minister, however, did also try to ludicrously and cynically blame the beach massacre on the Australian prime minister’s recent decision to recognize a Palestinian state.)
Now, of course, a handful of some of the most extreme Islamophobes here in the US didn’t let the Muslim hero of the day get in the way of their relentless anti-Muslim hatred, no matter how dumb or dishonest they looked. Odious Florida congressman Randy Fine’s first reaction to the shooting was not to mourn the dead but to attack Islam and Muslims.
The buffoonish senator and ex-football coach Tommy Tuberville said, “Islam is not a religion. It’s a cult.” The deranged bigot Laura Loomer called Islam “evil” and insisted that Muslim heroes were rare.
As ever, Loomer is wrong. Muslim Syrian immigrant Ahmed al Ahmed isn’t an aberration, nor is he a one-off. As my friend Alonso Gurmendi, the writer and academic, tweeted:
Sorry, Islamophobes! Muslim heroes are an actual thing. (Whether you like them or not.)
However, let me say something that also needs to be said but isn’t being said, even by well-meaning liberals pointing to the Muslim hero’s intervention on Sunday: