The story flew under the radar since there were scant details. We also have many pressing domestic problems, but the war in Gaza was raging, and the Thanksgiving holiday was also around this time. It’s easy for this story to have slipped through the cracks. That didn’t stop liberal America from framing this shooting as the ‘Islamophobic Crime of the Century.’
In November 2023, Jason J. Eaton, 48, shot and wounded three students of Palestinian descent in Burlington, Vermont. The crime was investigated as “hate-motivated.” Nothing was confirmed, but Joe Biden commented on it, along with other Democrats, despite zero confirmation that Eaton was fueled by anti-Muslim rage (via Axios):
Jason Eaton pleaded not guilty today to attempted murder charges for allegedly shooting three college students of Palestinian descent in Vermont.
— NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt (@NBCNightlyNews) November 28, 2023
Authorities have not charged Eaton with a hate crime but police say they are still investigating.@stephgosk reports. pic.twitter.com/p46iXqgrxq
Jason J. Eaton, 48, the suspect arrested in connection with the shooting that hospitalized the three 20-year-olds, pleaded not guilty on Monday [Nov 27, 2023] to three counts of attempted murder.
Eaton faces a potential sentence of life in prison over the charges, Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger said in a press conference on Monday [Nov 27].
"While we are waiting for more facts, we know this: there is absolutely no place for violence or hate in America," President Biden said Monday [Nov 27].
The big picture: Hisham Awartani, Kinnan Abdalhamid and Tahseen Ali Ahmad were publicly identified by their families as being the shooting victims via a post on X from the Institute for Middle East Understanding.
Meanwhile, Biden was mum about the death of a pro-Israeli protester in California, who got bashed in the head by a pro-Palestinian demonstrator. As it turns out, Mr. Eaton supports Hamas. Daniel Greenfield had a lengthy article debunking the Islamophobia narrative (via Front Page Mag) [emphasis mine]:
“I’m heartbroken by yesterday’s senseless shooting of three Palestinian-American students visiting Burlington. We do not tolerate hate or Islamophobia in Vermont,” Sen Peter Welch tweeted.
“I do want to be clear that there is no question this was a hateful act,” Sarah George, the local State’s Attorney, claimed without evidence.
“In this charged moment, no one can look at this incident and not suspect that it may have been a hate-motivated crime,” Burlington Police Chief Jon Murad argued.
Anti-Israel groups convened a rally calling for the destruction of Israel.
“I stand here to stand with oppressed people who now fear for their lives just walking down the street here in Burlington,” Vermont Lt. Gov. David Zuckerman told the hateful mob.
A speaker at the hate rally with the antisemitic University of Vermont affiliate of Students for Justice in Palestine blamed the shootings on Jews, calling them the “shameless monsters who enabled this” and denouncing “a crime of unspeakable racist hatred, a crime borne out of white supremacy, out of fascist, genocidal malice, a crime borne out of Zionism.”
All of these claims, along with many others around the shootings, were based on lies.
[…]
In reality, Eaton supported Hamas.
On December 6, Seven Days, a local news outlet known for breaking stories about local politics, revealed that Eaton had tweeted, “the notion that Hamas is ‘evil’ for defending their state from occupation is absurd. They are owed a state. Pay up.”
Responding to an article about a proposed ceasefire, he wrote, “What if someone occupied your country? Wouldn’t you fight them?”
Local politicians were aware of this which is why in December a Burlington City Council resolution from Councilman Ali Dieng, an African Muslim immigrant currently running for mayor, trying to tie the shootings to an attack on Israel failed, and so did a resolution pushing the false claim that the students had been targeted because of their identity.
The latest Islamophobia hoax had fallen apart in Vermont, but still lingered nationally.
[…]
This torrent of anti-Israel and pro-terrorist propaganda was based on absolutely nothing.
There was never a single shred of evidence that the men had been targeted. And the only basis for this claim that was ever cited was that two of the men were wearing ‘keffiyehs’ and speaking English and Arabic when they were shot. This entirely circumstantial information was amplified with feverish claims and rushed statements by elected officials, prosecutors and police.
The reality that has emerged is that Eaton was mentally unstable, left-leaning, opposed to America and supportive of Islamic terrorists. He was neither Jewish nor pro-Israel.
He had actually publicly stated his support for Hamas.
Eaton could not have known that the three Muslim men were going to walk past the house where he was living and it’s implausible that he would have had the time to plan such an attack.
The Muslim men were walking down the middle of a small narrow residential street with no street lights at night and Eaton would not have had enough time to realize the men passing by were Muslims, grab a gun, run out and shoot them. That’s even assuming that he had spent the whole evening by the window watching for incoming Muslims in an 87% white Vermont city.
Most likely, Eaton, suffering from an episode, stumbled out and opened fire.
Shooting four rounds at three men suggests this was not a planned mass shooting. He might have just as easily shot at anybody on the street or at nobody except the voices in his head. According to his mother and an ex-girlfriend, he had a history of violence and mental illness.
Yikes. Many retractions are warranted, but you know that’ll never happen. The media has yet to fully repent for spreading lies about Russian collusion. This was a serious trip-up by the media, but the anti-Israel, pro-Hamas talking points were already baked into the cake. These rabid, antisemitic leftists were going to rally, call for Jewish genocide, and harass innocent Jews on the streets. This poured fuel on the fire, but the eruption of anti-Jewish hatred from the activist and professional Left was more grounded in Israel's existence and the IDF’s invasion of the Gaza Strip after Hamas’ heinous terrorist attack on October 7.
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