After Ali Abu Kamal shot and killed a man and wounded six others on the observation deck of the Empire State Building in 1997, his wife claimed he had been despondent over losing a great deal of money. Now, 10 years later, the Daily News on February 18 ran a special report by Mahmoud Habboush in which Kamal’s 48-year-old daughter, Linda, said her father “wanted to punish the U.S. for supporting Israel — and revealed her mom’s 1997 account was a cover story crafted by the Palestinian Authority.”

As Gomer Pyle would say: Surprise, surprise.

What is particularly interesting about the Empire State Building incident is that it confirms the “hate America” pathology has been with us long before President Bush and the war in Iraq. I discovered this rather interesting tidbit thanks to a site called jihadwatch.org, which posts news items about attacks that may be politically motivated. To avoid the appearance of racial profiling, mainstream news reports usually omit the perpetrator’s name, but this site, maintained by Robert Spencer, author of “Islam: What the World Needs To Know,” keeps a close eye on such incidents.

The number of such random incidents across the country is increasing, but you can’t say we weren’t warned. Last September, the Center for Policing Terrorism at the Manhattan Institute hosted a forum on the role of local law enforcement in preventing another terrorist attack. The seminar data presented warned that the face of the enemy is changing and that recruitment is being carried out via the Web. In a column about the event, I wrote: “Are we really prepared for the disaffected blond, blue-eyed 17-year-old who’s been recruited via the Internet by an ideology that worships death? The next stage of terrorism could hit small towns around the country, shopping malls, and all modes of transportation.”

When the man who killed five in a Salt Lake City shopping mall earlier this month was identified as a Bosnian Muslim, I was reminded of a conversation I had two years ago with a Russian American comedienne, Julia Gorin, who predicted the next attack would be by blond, blue-eyed Bosnians. Was Sulejmen Talovic blond and blue-eyed? Who knows? In fact, the news that he was a Muslim was not immediately reported, but it was suspected by many bloggers familiar with what is known as Sudden Jihad Syndrome.

A columnist for The New York Sun, Daniel Pipes, coined this term last March, when he wrote of a just-graduated student named Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar, 22, an Iranian immigrant who drove a sport-utility vehicle into a crowded pedestrian zone, striking nine people. As is typical, early news reports omitted the ethnicity of the assailant, presumably to avoid setting off a vigilante movement against innocent Muslims. The reality is that moderate Muslims are in greater danger from radical Islamists who regard them as betrayers. No wonder they keep a low profile.

Nevertheless, there have recently been other bizarre incidents that can’t help but provoke interest in the religion of attackers. In Nashville, Tenn., last week, a Muslim cabdriver from Somalia ran over two college students near Vanderbilt University after an argument over religion.

It should be disturbing to all that the major networks are ignoring the Kamal’s family admission of the jihadist act. Even Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News Channel seemed rather phlegmatic about this disclosure, which was only briefly mentioned by Brit Hume. One can only hope that Bill O’Reilly is working on some sharp talking points exploring this syndrome, which Mr. Pipes said affects Muslims who lead normal, quiet lives before turning to terrorism.

It’s not hard to discern what motivates and ultimately triggers the attacks — could it be incessant hate speech by radical Islamists operating in mosques, schools, and on the Web? The easiest place to proselytize, of course, is in the prisons, where a corrupt system run by sadistic personnel breeds Jose Padilla-type converts to Al Qaeda and radicalism.

One of the survivors of the Empire State Building shootings, Matthew Gross, recalls Mayor Giuliani sitting by his hospital bed and holding his hand. Admirable indeed, but Mr. Giuliani blamed the shooting on laws that allowed Kamal, a 69-year-old Palestinian, to buy a gun in Florida after having been in America only two months. Yet the note found in Kamal’s pocket left no doubt that his rampage was planned and politically inspired, not a random act. The police commissioner at the time, Howard Safir, described Kamal as “one deranged individual acting on his own.”

Does anybody really believe that anymore?