The smoke had barely cleared in Seattle, where one Naveed Afzal Haq, a 30-year-old Muslim, killed one woman and shot five others Friday after taking a 13-year old hostage and forcing his way into the offices of the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle, when the effort began to tamp down the significance of the event. “The authorities said they did not think the suspect was acting as part of a terrorist group,” said the New York Times, which quoted the FBI’s top counterterrorism official in Seattle, David Gomez, as saying, “‘We believe at this point that it’s just a lone individual.”

Something similar happened when an Egyptian immigrant, Heshem Mohamed Hadayet, opened fire at the El Al counter at Los Angeles International Airport on July 4, 2002, killing two and wounding seven. An FBI official, Richard Garcia, was quoted at the time as saying, “So far we have no indication of any type of prejudice against any particular organization or nationality.” FBI officials emphasized to the Los Angeles Times that Hadayet “had no known connection with Islamic terrorist organizations.” The newspaper reported, “U.S. officials said it appeared to be an isolated incident unrelated to international terror.”

The same sort of thing happened in New York when Rashid Baz, a Lebanese-born Muslim who opened fire on a van full of Yeshiva students on the Brooklyn Bridge on March 1, 1994, killing Ari Halberstam, a 16-year-old rabbinical student. The FBI initially, and erroneously, characterized the incident as “road rage.” When, on February 24, 1997, Ali Abu Kamal, a Palestinian Arab, opened fire on the observation deck of the Empire State Building, killing one and wounding six, the New York Times reported, “the Mayor said the gunman’s motive was unknown, and he cautioned against drawing any conclusions about terrorism or the man’s Palestinian background.”

People are starting to see through this pattern. Ari Halberstam’s mother, Dvorah, called us about it yesterday, and Michelle Malkin had a broadcast on the Web site Hotair.com. No one wants to propagate bias or jump to conclusions. But whose eyes are closed here and who is jumping to conclusions? How many ‘lone’ individuals will have to open fire in how many American cities before the authorities abandon the reflex to assert that these are ‘lone’ individuals or isolated incidents and open their eyes to the possibility that they are part of a war in which understanding the enemy is a prerequisite for victory?