A Life Sentence Is Not Enough for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

Last week, news broke that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of al-Qaeda’s 9/11 attacks, had accepted a plea deal in an American military court. He agreed to plead guilty in exchange for life in prison, thus saving himself from the possibility of execution. A few days afterward, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin countermanded the deal, requiring the arch-terrorist, known as KSM, to stand trial before a military tribunal. Not among the 2,977 counts of first-degree murder being brought against him is the 2002 slaying of the American journalist Daniel Pearl, which KSM described thus: “I decapitated with my blessed right hand the head of the American Jew, Daniel Pearl.”

Joe Nocera speaks with Daniel’s father, the distinguished computer scientist and tireless defender of Israel Judea Pearl, about the case:

As a moral issue, it is clear that my son’s murder should be part of the charges. . . . Changing the possibility of a death sentence to life imprisonment sounds like they are reducing the sentence, which sends a bad message to the world. It suggests there were some kind of extenuating circumstances, that his crime was not as horrible as we had thought, or that he had expressed some regret or become less inhumane. But all of that is wrong.

A new trial should start with a new charge about KSM’s responsibility for the murder of my son. Witnesses must be called, evidence must be considered, and new charges must be brought. If the allegations for murdering Danny are not brought up in court, then the KSM prosecution will always be incomplete.

The pragmatic fact is that there are thousands and thousands of young Muslims who view KSM as a hero—the one who had the guts to stand up to the evil United States. Our job is to tell those young people that KSM is a criminal, not a hero. He is a criminal, and not only a criminal but a unique type of criminal, and that’s why the death penalty is important.

Read more at Free Press

More about: 9/11, Al Qaeda, Daniel Pearl, War on Terror

Egypt Is Trapped by the Gaza Dilemma It Helped to Create

Feb. 14 2025

Recent satellite imagery has shown a buildup of Egyptian tanks near the Israeli border, in violation of Egypt-Israel agreements going back to the 1970s. It’s possible Cairo wants to prevent Palestinians from entering the Sinai from Gaza, or perhaps it wants to send a message to the U.S. that it will take all measures necessary to keep that from happening. But there is also a chance, however small, that it could be preparing for something more dangerous. David Wurmser examines President Abdel Fatah el-Sisi’s predicament:

Egypt’s abysmal behavior in allowing its common border with Gaza to be used for the dangerous smuggling of weapons, money, and materiel to Hamas built the problem that exploded on October 7. Hamas could arm only to the level that Egypt enabled it. Once exposed, rather than help Israel fix the problem it enabled, Egypt manufactured tensions with Israel to divert attention from its own culpability.

Now that the Trump administration is threatening to remove the population of Gaza, President Sisi is reaping the consequences of a problem he and his predecessors helped to sow. That, writes Wurmser, leaves him with a dilemma:

On one hand, Egypt fears for its regime’s survival if it accepts Trump’s plan. It would position Cairo as a participant in a second disaster, or nakba. It knows from its own history; King Farouk was overthrown in 1952 in part for his failure to prevent the first nakba in 1948. Any leader who fails to stop a second nakba, let alone participates in it, risks losing legitimacy and being seen as weak. The perception of buckling on the Palestine issue also resulted in the Egyptian president Anwar Sadat’s assassination in 1981. President Sisi risks being seen by his own population as too weak to stand up to Israel or the United States, as not upholding his manliness.

In a worst-case scenario, Wurmser argues, Sisi might decide that he’d rather fight a disastrous war with Israel and blow up his relationship with Washington than display that kind of weakness.

Read more at The Editors

More about: Egypt, Gaza War 2023