An Israeli-American teenager is suspected of calling in bomb threats against Jewish community centers across the U.S. - The New York Times

March 23, 2017

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An Israeli-American teenager is suspected of calling in bomb threats against Jewish community centers across the U.S.

Thursday, March 23, 2017 9:30 AM EDT

The Israeli police on Thursday arrested a man believed to be responsible for scores of bomb threats that were phoned in to Jewish community centers across the United States, American officials said.

The F.B.I. confirmed in a statement that the bureau had worked with the Israeli national police to arrest the teenager, who, officials said, holds citizenship in both Israel and the United States.

Read more » The New York Times U.S. U.S. Jewish Center Bomb Threat Suspect Is Arrested in Israel By ADAM GOLDMAN and ALAN BLINDER MARCH 23, 2017 Photo A police officer with a bomb-sniffing dog conducted a search of a Jewish Community Center in Louisville, Ky., in March after a report of a bomb threat. CreditBryan Woolston/Reuters WASHINGTON — The Israeli police on Thursday arrested a man believed to be responsible for scores of bomb threats that were phoned in to Jewish community centers across the United States, American officials said. The F.B.I. confirmed in a statement that the bureau had worked with the Israeli national police to arrest the teenager, who, officials said, holds citizenship in both Israel and the United States. “Investigating hate crimes is a top priority for the F.B.I., and we will continue to work to make sure all races and religions feel safe in their communities and in their places of worship,” a spokeswoman for the F.B.I., Samantha Shero, said. She said the bureau could not provide additional information about its inquiry. Jewish community centers across the United States have reported more than 100 bomb threats since the beginning of the year. The calls, which President Trump condemned during an address to Congress last month, led to evacuations and bomb sweeps and heightened worries about anti-Semitism in the United States. The suspect was using anonymizer software to cover his tracks, according to federal law enforcement officials in the United States. The technology made it harder for the F.B.I. to pinpoint who was making the threats. The case in Israel is separate from that of the St. Louis man who was arrested this month and accused of making at least a half-dozen other threats to Jewish centers. In a complaint in Federal District Court in Manhattan, the authorities said that man, Juan Thompson, had acted as part of an effort to intimidate a former girlfriend. Adam Goldman reported from Washington, and Alan Blinder from Atlanta. ---

Broken Duck eggs at half price by Ghulam Muhammed Siddiqui

Memories: Broken Duck eggs at half price

Those were the days. Father, Haji Din Mohammed Siddiqui, had lost his eyesight due to a failed operation by the newly UK returning Dr. Banaji. All our home economics had collapsed. Mother, Kulsum, had to do with meagre resources. However,  6 children eggs must have for the breadfast. We resided in one room at Ghoghari Mohalla, till 1948 we shifted to Bandra. I was sent out to bring eggs from Null Bazar market. We went with a bowl. The egg shops have special price for Duck eggs, as they were smelly and could not compete with hen's eggs. The shop keeper had another discount of half price on broken eggs. I took the bowl, to buy that half price Duck's eggs that usually were damaged in transit or mishandling. Today, Mumtaz, our House Keeper mentioned Duck's eggs that she used to buy as delicacy and paid higher price. I instantly went back to those days of my childhood, when I used to carry that bowl of broken duck's eggs all the way from Null Bazar to my home in Ghoghari Mohalla. A seventy year gap, when it came up in discussion. I thought I must record it somewhere. I turned 80, this February, 2017. Health is OK, though suffering from that tumor on the chest pressing lungs. A slight exertion and I start breathing hard. But otherwise OK. I am home bound, read newpapers, fiddle with Samsung Tab and write comments to newspapers.

Ghulam Muhammed Siddiqui, son of Late Haji Din Mohammed Siddiqui and Late Kulsum Begum.

Mr. Modi’s Perilous Embrace of Hindu Extremists - By THE EDITORIAL BOARD - The New York Times

The New York Times

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EDITORIAL

Mr. Modi’s Perilous Embrace of Hindu Extremists

By THE EDITORIAL BOARD

MARCH 23, 2017

Photo

Adityanath, center.CreditSanjay Kanojia/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Since he was elected in 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India has played a cagey game, appeasing his party’s hard-line Hindu base while promoting secular goals of development and economic growth. Despite worrying signs that he was willing to humor Hindu extremists, Mr. Modi refrained from overtly approving violence against the nation’s Muslim minority.

On Sunday, Mr. Modi revealed his hand. Emboldened by a landslide victory in recent elections in India’s largest state, Uttar Pradesh, his party named a firebrand Hindu cleric, Yogi Adityanath, as the state’s leader. The move is a shocking rebuke to religious minorities, and a sign that cold political calculations ahead of national elections in 2019 have led Mr. Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party to believe that nothing stands in the way of realizing its long-held dream of transforming a secular republic into a Hindu state.

Mr. Adityanath has made a political career of demonizing Muslims, thundering against such imaginary plots as “love jihad”: the notion that Muslim men connive to water down the overwhelming Hindu majority by seducing Hindu women. He defended a Hindu mob that murdered a Muslim man in 2015 on the suspicion that his family was eating beef, and said Muslims who balked at performing a yoga salutation to the sun should “drown themselves in the sea.”

Uttar Pradesh, home to more than 200 million people, badly needs development, not ideological showmanship. The state has the highest infant mortality rate in the country. Nearly half of its children are stunted. Educational outcomes are dismal. Youth unemployment is high.

Mr. Adityanath has sounded the right notes, saying, “My government will be for everyone, not specifically for any caste or community,” and promising to make Uttar Pradesh “the dreamland” of Mr. Modi’s development model.

But the appointment shows that Mr. Modi sees no contradiction between economic development and a muscular Hindu nationalism that feeds on stoking anti-Muslim passions. Mr. Modi’s economic policies have delivered growth, but not jobs. India needs to generate a million new jobs every month to meet employment demand. Should Mr. Adityanath fail to deliver, there is every fear that he — and Mr. Modi’s party — will resort to deadly Muslim-baiting to stay in power, turning Mr. Modi’s dreamland into a nightmare for India’s minorities, and threatening the progress that Mr. Modi has promised to all of its citizens.

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