Washington's Pique and Pick of Nomenclature

"This was a terrorist attack, certainly."
New York Police Commissioner William Bratton

Act of terror?: Suspect Zale Thompson can be seen swinging a hatchet towards police officers at 2 p.m. on Thursday afternoon in Jamaica, Queens

Zale Thompson, the latest run-amok to go berserk from among Muslim converts living in the West had an Internet browsing history of terrorist groups and beheadings. The most recent shootings in Canada named terrorist attacks by Canadian authorities also appear to have influenced and excited him into action. Armed with a double-handed hatchet he attacked a group of four police officers on a New York street.

Another reclusive Muslim convert whose online rants against the United States revealed, said the authorities, no clear ties to international extremists. Another loner. To whom the Islamic State recruiters online have been appealing directly to act in the name of Islamist jihad as loyal Muslims.But according to intelligence agents the postings he had placed on social media gave no sign of affiliation with a terror group, let alone direct influence of radical Islam.

That alone is a veritable leap of faith, but on the part of American authorities. Just before the attack the bearded man was seen crouching down to retrieve his hatchet from his backpack on a street corner before swinging the hatchet at the police officers. As he raised the hatched for another blow, the two officers who were uninjured drew their weapons and killed the man.

Zale Thompson, 32, a recent convert to Islam, renamed himself Zaim Farouq Abdul-Malik. His obvious attachment and fascination with Islamism and his penchant for expressing his contempt for his country and its security expressed in an attack in broad daylight on a busy New York street, was classified as an act of terrorism, but not one specifically related to Islamist jihad. Perhaps it was because he failed to shout out Allahu Akbar!

In 2009 at Fort Hood, on the other hand, Allahu Akbar! is just what U.S. Army major/psychiatrist Nidal Hasan screamed in triumph as he shot down in cold blood 13 people on the military base, causing injuries to over 30 others. Although there are those who describe the attack as a terrorist-inspired atrocity, the U.S. Department of Defense and law enforcement agencies at the federal level classify it, amazingly as an act of workplace violence.

In the process doing violence to their credibility and the credulity of those with an ounce of intelligent perspective. Perhaps the military and federal intelligence agencies are just too embarrassed to admit that all the hallmark signals of fanatical Islamist bedlam and more were abundantly present in the man's behaviour, expressions and impressions he left on those with whom he worked who reported his bizarre and threatening manner.

A dreadful act of violence that could and should have been prevented took place as a result of lack of basic diligence. This is a most peculiar U.S. administration to be sure. The word "terrorist" is not one the administration is fond of using, and it goes out of its way, in fact, to avoid using it. Nor is Islamist a popular word since to mouth it is to become at one with the Islamophobists whom Muslims decry as being responsible for slurring the honour of Islam.

Not every Islamist is a terrorist but every terrorist has been an Islamist. And, invariably, they have all been Muslims, whether to the religious conviction born, or later converted. This is an administration that will not brook insults over its manner of addressing the menace of jihadist violence lightly. Nor any suggestions that it continues to err dramatically in its dealings with nuclear-hungering Iran, or the Islamists who proliferate their brand of hatred and violence.

This is an administration who saw profit in conferring with U.S.-based Muslim Brotherhood authorities. As an example, the Obama administration has this week refused the requests of Israeli defence minister Moshe Ya'alon on a visit to Washington, to meet several top national security aides, as remonstration respecting criticism of Secretary of State John Kerry's Mideast peace efforts and negotiations on the nuclear file with Iran.

The White House and State Department rejected Israeli proposals to meet with Vice-President Joe Biden, national security advisor Susan Rice and Mr. Kerry on Mr. Ya'alon's five-day visit to the United States. This is quite the warm relationship to be justly celebrated, the one that the United States keeps iterating is one of its closest and most enduring.