By Bruce S. Ticker
PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania –Mohamed Sabry Soliman must hate Jews more than he loves his wife and five children, to paraphrase Golda Meir.
If Soliman is convicted of attempted murder and related charges in Sunday’s attack in Boulder, Colo., he will leave his family without a husband and father for many years, maybe even life in prison.
His family could also be deported, dashing his oldest daughter’s dream of attending medical school in America. They could be on their way to Kuwait or Egypt at this writing.
The 45-year-old Soliman drove 100 miles on Sunday from his townhouse in Colorado Springs to Boulder, where he tossed two Molotov cocktails into a group of 20 people, injuring 12 of them. Videos showed that some of them were set on fire, and bystanders needed to throw water on them to extinguish the fires.
The victims, ranging in age from 52 and 88, suffered from injuries spanning from serious to minor, authorities told the Associated Press. One victim is a Holocaust survivor.
Soliman, a native of Egypt, faces 16 charges of attempted murder by state prosecutors and a hate crime charge by federal prosecutions, plus a number of related charges. The attempted murder charges alone are punishable by 384 years in prison, according to USA Today.
Police said that Soliman attacked members of a chapter of Run for their Lives that gathers every Sunday for a walk in solidarity with the hostages whom Hamas has been holding since Oct. 7, 2023, the day that terrorists invaded southern Israel and massacred 1,200 Jews.
Soliman shouted “free Palestine” when he assaulted the group. The Times of Israel reports that an FBI affidavit states that Soliman confessed to the assault and said he was motivated “to kill all Zionist people.”
After he allegedly tried “to kill all Zionist people,” Soliman’s family was taken into custody by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Associated Press reported. The White House said in a post on X that his family members could have been deported on Tuesday night.
His older daughter surely did not inherit her brains from Soliman. The Colorado Springs Gazette profiled her as a high-achieving student who was eligible for a college scholarship, according to The New York Times. She said her dream of attending medical school was partly inspired by a “difficult surgery” her father had undergone “that restored his ability to walk.”
Her father told police that he waited for his daughter to graduate from high school before carrying out the attack in Boulder, according to the Times. Her graduation ceremony was held last Thursday (May 29).
I recall another report that the family might have moved to America because of educational restrictions for women in Kuwait, where they lived for 17 years. The move would allow her to attend medical school. If President Trump deports her, he will nip another DEI or Woke-type case in the bud.
The Associated Press reported that Soliman obtained a six-month tourist visa in August 2022, which expired the following February. He filed for asylum in September 2022 and was granted a work authorization in March 2023, which expired March 28.
He was here illegally for two months before he pursued his mission, which exposed his family’s situation. If his family is deported, what good will come of her high school education?
Soliman may figure that all his people must make sacrifices to kill “all Zionist people.” Even if it thwarts his daughter’s medical career. How can she heal from such a form of martyrdom?
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Bruce S. Ticker is a Philadelphia-based columnist.