The Myth of Arab Innocence

 

By Elliott A. Green

 

Mr. Green is a writer, researcher, and translator living in Jerusalem. His work has previously appeared in Midstream [New York], Nativ and the Jerusalem Post [Israel], and other publications. He was assistant editor of Crossroads, a discontinued social sciences quarterly published in Jerusalem. References for the quotes in this piece are found in his article in Midstream (September-October 2008).

The myth of Arab innocence throughout history --particularly concerning Jews-- has long haunted British and American writing about the Arab-Israeli conflict. Professors Walt and Mearsheimer put it as follows in their anti-Israel tract:

...in the Christian West... Jews suffered greatly from the despicable legacy of Anti-Semitism... But ... the creation of Israel involved additional crimes against a largely innocent third party: the Palestinians.

This article seeks to disprove that false claim and demonstrate instead the systemic, juridical oppression, exploitation, and humiliation of non-Muslims --including Jews--in Islamic society. Further, whereas it used to be commonly believed that Islam was benign toward Jews, the article shows that Jews were at the bottom of the social barrel in the Islamic domain generally--although conditions varied with time and place. Moreover, this was true in Jerusalem specifically. Indeed, the famous Jewish philosopher Maimonides believed that Jews were worse treated under Islam than in Christendom. He was in a position to compare conditions in both zones because he conducted correspondence with Jews in far flung places.

In the empires resulting from the Arab and Muslim conquests, Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians--and later, Hindus and others-- were subjects far inferior in law to Muslims as a class. Tolerated non-Muslims, called dhimmis, were required to pay annual tribute, jizya, for the privilege of living another year. This is grounded in Qur'an 9:29 and remains part of Islamic law to this day, although formally abolished in the Ottoman Empire in 1855. Islamic law still views dhimmis as an occupied population to be "brought low" (9:29 & 2:61). The rules of dhimmi status, dhimma, also provide that dhimmis should not bear arms, that their garments must differ from Muslim garments, that they show deference to Muslims, such as dismounting when encountering a Muslim on the road. Since a horse is a noble animal, a dhimmi must not ride one. Further, a dhimmi's testimony in court is worth half of a Muslim's, etc.

The Danish traveler, Karsten Niebuhr, visiting Egypt in 1761-1762, described dhimmis dismounting in humiliation from donkeys when encountering horse-mounted Muslims on the street. Niebuhr visited Egypt four decades before Napoleon, which is significant because Edward Said argued that similar reports made after Napoleon's Egyptian expedition were invalid since tainted with imperialism.

Moshe Gil found in the Cairo Genizah, a medieval archive of Jewish writings, accounts of impoverishment and suffering caused to Jews in Israel by collection of the jizya and other taxes:

...if you saw who paid all those moneys you would have been astonished and lamented over them and say of them: Could such a large `onesh [=punitive tax, exaction] have come from those poor people?

Jacob Barna'i examined ledgers of the Jerusalem Jewish community in the late eighteenth century. He found a situation strikingly similar to that found by Gil for the pre-Crusades period. Besides jizya, Jews paid unofficial taxes, fees, exactions, mandatory bribes, etc. The rapacious were not only Ottoman officials but local Muslim notables and strong men. Of course, Christian dhimmis too could be oppressed this way. Jews differed by being low man on the Islamic totem pole. Israeli historian Moshe Sharon argues:

...the fact that the Qur'an singled them [Jews] out as the enemies of the Muslims... institutionalized their inferior status in comparison to the Christians.

The Arab writer Al-Jahiz explained this by the political resistance of the Jews in Medina to Muhammad. The Hamas takes inspiration for its Judeophobia from early Islam, citing the hadith fable about Judgment Day in its charter (Article 7):

...the Muslims will fight the Jews who will hide behind rocks and trees. The rocks and trees will cry out: O Muslim! A Jew is hiding behind me. Come kill him...

Francesco Gabrieli, the Italian historian of Islam, wrote:

...the name "Yahudi" [=Jew] acquired on Muslim lips the same odor of hostile scorn for the Jews that the term "Jew" had in the Western world, more hostile and scornful than that of the epithet "Nasrani" [=Christian].

This judgment is supported by a British envoy sent to the Levant in the 1830s. John Bowring reported Muslim resentment of improved treatment for dhimmis there by their ruler Muhammad Ali of Egypt:

The Mussulmans deeply deplore the loss of that sort of superiority which they all & individually exercised over ... the other sects... a Mussulman... believes ... that a Christian --and still more a Jew-- is an inferior being to himself.

This pecking order was confirmed by a nineteenth century Turk objecting to equalizing measures in the Ottoman Empire (quoted by Bernard Lewis):

... whereas in former times... the communities were ranked... the Muslims first, then the Greeks, then the Armenians, then the Jews, now all... were... on the same level. Some Greeks objected... saying: "The government has put us together with the Jews. We were content with the supremacy of Islam."

The above quotes demonstrate that the Jews were generally at the bottom of Arab-Muslim society. It thus stands to reason that this was true of Jerusalem too. Yet this should and can be demonstrated by sources.

In the late Mamluk period (ca. 1500), the chief Roman Catholic official in Jerusalem, Francesco Suriano, hated Muslims, but appreciated how they treated Jews:

I wish you to know how these dogs of Jews are trampled upon, beaten, and ill-treated, as they deserve... They live in this country in such subjection that words cannot describe it... in Jerusalem where they committed the sin for which they are dispersed throughout the world [the crucifixion-EAG], they are by God more punished and afflicted than in any other part of the world. And over a long time I have witnessed that.

Some 300 years later, in Ottoman Jerusalem, the French writer Chateaubriand found the Jews still on the bottom. A Greek monk, Neophytos, described the situation until the 1830s. Illustrating Muhammad Ali of Egypt's magnanimity toward dhimmis, he writes that it extended even to Jews. They formerly "did not even dare to change a tile on" their synagogue roof, yet "now received a permit to build."

Next comes a surprise witness, none other than Karl Marx:

Nothing equals the misery and suffering of the Jews at Jerusalem... the constant objects of Mussulman oppression and intolerance, insulted by the Greeks, persecuted by the Latins." [New York Tribune, 15 April 1854]

To be sure, Marx was never in Jerusalem. But his report in Horace Greeley's Tribune is mainly taken from a book by the French diplomat and historian, Cesar Famin, who served in the Ottoman Empire and had access to French diplomats, churchmen, and foreign ministry records.

If these accounts seem tedious, let's skip over the late Ottoman period, when conditions for dhimmis generally improved, to British rule when Arab pogroms against Jews resumed, with British acquiescence or encouragement. The 1929 massacre and "ethnic cleansing" of the ancient Hebron community (68 Jews murdered, hundreds removed) left special bitterness among Jews in Israel and abroad.

This was followed by participation of the chief Palestinian Arab leader, the British-appointed mufti of Jerusalem, Amin el-Husseini, in the Holocaust from his base in Berlin. To be sure, the Allies did not prosecute him at Nuremberg for genocide collaboration, although Yugoslavia wanted him tried for war crimes by his followers there.

The Walt-Mearsheimer view of Arabs generally and Palestinian Arabs specifically as "largely innocent" is blatantly false. Further, there is no longer an excuse for ignorance on the matters covered above. There are document collections covering Jews under Islam by Norman Stillman, Bat Ye'or, and Andrew Bostom, plus abundant books and articles. Moreover, there are works on Arab nationalist Nazi collaboration, Husseini's particularly, by Hirszowicz, Schechtman, Carpi, El-Peleg, etc. Yet the myth seems so deeply rooted among the press, academics, and State Department circles, that it is unlikely to dissipate any time soon if ever.

Elliott A. Green

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

 

The Hamas-Fatah War & Israeli Security

A briefing by Jonathan Schanzer

Jonathan Schanzer is the director of policy at the Jewish Policy Center, a Washington think-tank. Prior to joining JPC, he was a counterterrorism analyst for the Office of Intelligence and Analysis at the U.S. Department of the Treasury. Mr. Schanzer also has held positions at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and the Middle East Forum. It was during his tenure with the Forum that he undertook initial research into the subject of his new book, Hamas vs. Fatah: The Struggle For Palestine (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), which was also the topic of Mr. Schanzer's address to members of the Middle East Forum and the Jewish Federation of Philadelphia on November 3, 2008.

In Hamas vs. Fatah, Schanzer rejects the "constant narrative that the Palestinians are waiting for their state," an account that depicts the Palestinians as a passive factor in the state formation process. Instead, Schanzer argues that the Palestinians' troubled path to statehood is a product of their own political divisions. Schanzer believes that the problem had its roots in the outbreak of the first intifada in 1988. At that time, Arafat was exiled from the territories and living in Tunisia, so he and Fatah were unable to take credit for the Palestinian uprising.

Instead, it was Arafat's rival, Hamas, which "quickly eclipsed Fatah in terms of popularity with Islamists and refugees." Seeing his political relevance eroding, Arafat announced that he would accept in theory the state of Israel. Schanzer dismissed Arafat's declaration as merely "a ploy to get him back on the world stage. By simply recognizing the state of Israel," Schanzer explained, "the entire world [came] rushing to him thinking that perhaps he [could] end the uprising and bring Palestinian-Israeli peace."

The next seven years were the "Oslo Period." Although others saw the Accords as offering hope for a sustained peace, Schanzer believes that Arafat came to regret his involvement. By seeking the mantle of a statesman, Arafat found that he created a vacuum in the arena of "military struggle" that Hamas was able to exploit - as evidenced by the fact that during the 1990's, most terror attacks on Israel were perpetrated by Hamas.

For Hamas, attacks on Israel served a dual purpose. Every act of terrorism perpetrated by Hamas made Fatah look feckless to the outside world and undermined Arafat's overall strategy. On the other hand, terrorist attacks against Israel further cemented Hamas' popularity with the Palestinians, who increasingly looked to it as assertive, while Fatah was seen as submissive to the West.

This state of affairs lasted until 2000, when Arafat, seeing the damage that his reconciliation attempt had caused to the political relevance of Fatah, launched the second intifada. Schanzer said that Arafat's motivation behind this action was to "out-Hamas Hamas." Arafat promoted the conflict in a much more Islamist way than the first intifada; for example, calling the war the "Al-Aqsa intifada," after the historic mosque in Islam situated in Jerusalem.

In 2004, Arafat died and Mahmoud Abbas succeeded him as the leader of Fatah. In 2006, however, "in an absolute landslide…of the freest and fairest elections that we have probably seen ever in the Arab world," the Palestinians rejected Abbas and Fatah, and elected Hamas.

Along with the Hamas victory came what Schanzer declared the "Second Six-Day­-War," this one between Hamas and Fatah. In it, Palestinians fought each other and engaged in acts of violence such as "we've never seen in the Arab-Israeli conflict." With the election of Hamas - a terrorist organization – and the in-fighting between Hamas and Fatah, diplomacy with Israel came to virtual standstill.

The continued intervention of outside powers, which provide monetary and military support to one side or the other, further complicates the Fatah-Hamas split. Schanzer estimates that Iran provides Hamas with $35 million in annual support. The U.S. government supports Fatah mainly "so [Tehran does not] take over the Palestinian Authority as well."

Schanzer described the very separate nature of the two Palestinian territories today. The West Bank is "flourishing," due to the economic influence of Jordan. Meanwhile, Gaza, in which the Egyptians had failed to invest, is "the exact opposite" with people living in "squalor." Because of the geographic, economic and political differences between the two territories, Schanzer questions the potential for realizing a single Palestinian state.

But there are limits to the conflict between Fatah and Hamas. After all, both of their charters still call for the destruction of the State of Israel. However the conflict between Fatah and Hamas concludes, Schanzer asks, "With whom will the Israelis be able to make peace?"

Summary Account by Eric Bergel

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

 

 

The United Islamist Nations

by Supna Zaidi

Last week, the attacks in India and the threat to New York City's subway system provided another stark reminder of the need for a united front against global terrorism. Yet instead of figuring out how to combat Islamic extremists, the United Nations is worried about offending them.

On November 24, 2008, the U.N. passed a draft resolution against the defamation of religion sponsored by the 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), where all U.N. members are being asked to pass domestic legislation against blasphemy. The resolution was originally introduced in 1999 by the OIC, asserting that "Islam is frequently and wrongly associated with human rights violations and terrorism."

In reality, terrorism happens in Islam's name, or more accurately, in Islamism's name. Islamism is a 20th century product arising from the writings of sincere Muslims such as Hasan al-Banna and Syed Qutb. Frustrated by the fallen status of Muslims vis-à-vis the West, they offered a new version of Islam as a totalitarian socio-political alternative to democracy and Western license. Disparate followers from Osama bin Laden, Hezbollah and Hamas to the Jihadis that waged war on Mumbai last week are not deranged or crazy. Rather, they subscribe to a worldview that is antithetical to most Muslims and the West.

The OIC nations charge critics of Islamic extremism with "racism" and "Islamophobia" to deflect attention from the fact that such violence originates at the hand of Muslim clerics born and bread in their lands. This is because they realize they can't control Islamism, or they tacitly agree with its message.

These Muslim clerics also export this ideology to the West to radicalize Muslim immigrants abroad, and reform-minded Muslims are usually the first victims.

Kadra Noor was beat up in 2007 for speaking out against "Islamic" female genital mutilation in Norway. In Sweden, cabinet minister Nyamko Sabuni proposed that honor killings be labeled a separate crime in the Swedish penal code and girls get mandatory gynecological exams to discourage female circumcision. She also told the Sunday Times that arranged marriages are not a part of Islam.

As a result, she was called an "Islamophobe" and instead of supporting her, 50 Islamic Swedish organizations petitioned against her appointment to the cabinet in an effort to suppress her growing influence in Swedish politics.

Pakistan, spokesman for the OIC, recently promoted a politician to minister of education after he defended the live burial of five girls in Balochistan as "tribal custom." It is not a stretch to argue that Pakistan is not an OIC member interested in reform.

The 2005 Danish cartoon controversy kick-started the OIC campaign to pass last month's resolution when it was cited as another example of increased discrimination against Muslims after 9/11. The "cartoon intifada" arose 5 months after the original printing of the images of Muhammad, but only weeks before the UNHCR was due to consider the OIC's resolution on "Combating Defamation of Religion."

Such a coincidence caused the National Secular Society to state in its Memorandum to the United Kingdom Parliament that "the Danish cartoon crisis was manufactured…to exploit sensitivities around racial discrimination and to promote (or even exaggerate) the notion of 'Islamophobia' in order to restrict possibilities for open discussion or criticism of Islam….[M]easures calling for legislation banning 'defamation of religion' …. aim[] to remove religion, especially Islam, from public scrutiny and public debate."

The OIC forgets that Muslims are already protected in the West. The U.S., for example, increases sentences on crimes ranging from assault and battery to murder if they are deemed "hate crimes," which includes crimes against a victim based on his or her religious identity.

So what is this 57-nation organization really pushing with this "anti-blasphemy" resolution at the U.N.?

In the Muslim world, anti-blasphemy laws are regularly used to suppress free speech by attacking fellow Muslims and non-Muslims who criticize the government or protest human rights violations. Such laws are also used as pretext against individuals in personal and business disputes. The mere allegation puts mobs before the accused before the police can arrive to investigate.

At the U.N., the OIC has manipulated the language of racism to make its anti-democratic agenda more attractive to "third world" nations recovering from their own genuine post-colonial struggles. Nations that voted in favor of the resolution or abstained were predominantly from Latin America or developing African nations.

A final version of the resolution is up for a vote this month. It would be a mistake for these U.N. members to fall for anti-colonial rhetoric once again. By aligning with Islamists, the U.N. would be supporting the stifling of free speech and the suppression of human rights, and crushing the goal of building tolerant democratic societies.

Supna Zaidi is the assistant director of Islamist Watch, a project at the Middle East Forum.

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

 

Senator John McCain's brother on The Jews & Israel.

 

There is a lot of worry popping up in the media just now -- "Can Israel

Survive?" Don't worry about it. It relates to something that Palestinians,

the Arabs, and perhaps most Americans don't realize -- the Jews are never

going quietly again. Never. And if the world doesn't come to understand

that, then millions of Arabs are going to die. It's as simple as that.

 

Throughout the history of the world, the most abused, kicked-around race of

people have been the Jews. Not just during the holocaust of World War II,

but for thousands of years. They have truly been "The Chosen People" in a

terrible and tragic sense.

 

The Bible story of Egypt's enslavement of the Jews is not just a story, it

is history, if festooned with theological legend and heroic epics. In 70

A.D. the Romans, which had for a long time tolerated the Jews -- even

admired them as 'superior' to other vassals -- tired of their truculent

demands for independence and decided on an early "Solution" to the Jewish

problem. Jerusalem was sacked and reduced to near rubble, Jewish resistance

was pursued and crushed by the implacable Roman War Machine -- see 'Masada'.

And thus began The Diaspora, the dispersal of Jews throughout the rest of

the world.

 

Their homeland destroyed, their culture crushed, they looked desperately for

the few niches in a hostile world where they could be safe. That safety was

fragile, and often subject to the whims of moody hosts. The words 'pogrom',

'ghetto', and 'anti-Semitism' come from this treatment of the first

mono-theistic people. Throughout Europe, changing times meant sometimes

tolerance, sometimes even warmth for the Jews, but eventually it meant

hostility, then malevolence. There is not a country in Europe or Western

Asia that at one time or another has not decided to lash out against the

children of Moses, sometimes by whim, sometimes by manipulation.

 

Winston Churchill calls Edward I one of England's very greatest kings. It

was under his rule in the late 1200's that Wales and Cornwall were hammered

into the British crown, and Scotland and Ireland were invaded and occupied.

He was also the first European monarch to set up a really effective

administrative bureaucracy, surveyed and censused his kingdom, established

laws and political divisions. But he also embraced the Jews.

 

Actually Edward didn't embrace Jews so much as he embraced their money. For

the English Jews had acquired wealth -- understandable, because this people

that could not own land or office, could not join most of the trades and

professions, soon found out that money was a very good thing to accumulate.

Much harder to take away than land or a store, was a hidden sock of gold and

silver coins. Ever resourceful, Edward found a way -- he borrowed money from

the Jews to finance imperial ambitions in Europe, especially France. The

loans were almost certainly not made gladly, but how do you refuse your

King? Especially when he is 'Edward the Hammer'. Then, rather than pay back

the debt, Edward simply expelled the Jews. Edward was especially

inventive -- he did this twice. After a time, he invited the Jews back to

their English homeland, borrowed more money, then expelled them again.

 

Most people do not know that Spain was one of the early entrants into The

Renaissance. People from all over the world came to Spain in the late

medieval period. All were welcome -- Arabs, Jews, other Europeans. The

University of Salamanca was one of the great centers of learning in the

world -- scholars of all nations, all fields came to Salamanca to share

their knowledge and their ideas. But in 1492, Ferdinand and Isabella, having

driven the last of Moors from the Spanish Shield, were persuaded by the

righteous fundamentalists of the time to announce "The Act of Purification".

A series of steps were taken in which all Jews and Arabs and other

non-Christians were expelled from the country, or would face the tools and

the torches of The Inquisition. From this 'cleansing' come the Sephardic

Jews -- as opposed to the Ashkenazis of Eastern Europe. In Eastern Europe,

the sporadic violence and brutality against Jews are common knowledge.

'Fiddler' without the music and the folksy humor. At times of fury, no

accommodation by the Jew was good enough, no profile low enough, no village

poor enough or distant enough.

 

From these come the near-steady flow of Jews to the United States. And

despite the disdain of the Jews by most 'American' Americans, they came to

grab the American Dream with both hands, and contributed everything from new

ideas of enterprise in retail and entertainment to becoming some of our

finest physicians and lawyers. The modern United States, in spite of itself,

IS The United States in part because of its Jewish blood.

 

Then the Nazi Holocaust -- the corralling, sorting, orderly eradication of

millions of the people of Moses. Not something that other realms in other

times didn't try to do, by the way, the Germans were just more organized and

had better murder technology.

 

I stood in the center of Dachau for an entire day, about 15 years ago,

trying to comprehend how this could have happened. I had gone there on a

side trip from Munich, vaguely curious about this Dachau. I soon became

engulfed in the enormity of what had occurred there nestled in this middle

and working class neighborhood.

 

How could human beings do this to other human beings, hear their cries,

their pleas, their terror, their pain, and continue without apparently even

wincing? I no longer wonder. At some times, some places, ANY sect of the

human race is capable of horrors against their fellow man, whether a member

of the Waffen SS, a Serbian sniper, a Turkish policeman in 1920's Armenia, a

Mississippi Klansman. Because even in the United States not all was a Rose

Garden. For a long time Jews had quotas in our universities and graduate

schools. Only so many Jews could be in a medical or law school at one time.

Jews were disparaged widely. I remember as a kid Jewish jokes told without a wince - "Why do Jews have such big noses?"

 

Well, now the Jews have a homeland again. A place that is theirs. And that's

the point. It doesn't matter how many times the United States and European

powers try to rein in Israel, if it comes down to survival of its nation,

its people, they will fight like no lioness has ever fought to save her

cubs. They will fight with a ferocity, a determination, and a skill, that

will astound us.

 

And many will die, mostly their attackers, I believe. If there were a

macabre historical betting parlor, my money would be on the Israelis to be

standing at the end. As we killed the kamikazes and the Wehrmacht soldaten

of World War II, so will the Israelis kill their suicidal attackers, until

there are not enough to torment them.

 

The irony goes unnoticed -- while we are hammering away to punish those who

brought the horrors of last September here, we restrain the Israelis from

the same retaliation. Not the same thing, of course -- We are We, They are

They. While we mourn and seethe at September 11th, we don't notice that

Israel has a September 11th sometimes every day.

 

We may not notice, but it doesn't make any difference. And it doesn't make

any difference whether you are pro-Israeli or you think Israel is the bully

of the Middle East. If it comes to where a new holocaust looms -- with or

without the concurrence of the United States and Europe -- Israel will lash

out without pause or restraint at those who would try to annihilate their

country.

 

The Jews will not go quietly again.

 

Joe McCain

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

 

The Rabbi and the Terrorist.

By Dennis Prager,

FrontPageMagazine.com

 

It was obvious to observers around the world that one of the designated targets of the Pakistani Islamist terrorists was the Mumbai Chabad House, the one Jewish center in Mumbai. The 10 Islamic terrorists who came from Pakistan to India chose their targets with great care.
If one assumes that the terrorists' primary goals were to destabilize India, weaken growing Indian-Pakistani cooperation in fighting terrorism, and greatly increase Indian-Pakistani tension, hopefully to the point of military war between the two countries, every one of the targets made strategic sense. Slaughtering as many people as possible in India's major economic center, including as many foreign tourists as possible at Mumbai's finest hotels, also made sense.
But one target seemed to make little sense. In fact, until the attack was over people were uncertain whether the terrorists' attack on the Jewish center known as the Chabad House was part of the original plan or chosen spontaneously. Only when the lone terrorist who was captured told his interrogators that the Chabad House was planned a year earlier was it indisputable that killing the Rabbi, his wife, their children and any other Jews present was part of the plan.

The question is why?

Why would a terrorist group of Islamists from Pakistan whose primary goal is to have Pakistan gain control of the third of Kashmir that belongs to India and therefore aimed to destabilize India's major city devote so much of its efforts -- 20 percent of its force of 10 gunmen whose stated goal was to kill 5,000 -- to killing a rabbi and any Jews with him?
The question echoes one from World War II: Why did Hitler devote so much time, money, and manpower in order to murder every Jewish man, woman, and child in every country the Nazis occupied? Why did Hitler -- as documented by the late historian Lucy Dawidowicz in her aptly named book "The War against the Jews" -- weaken the Nazi war effort by diverting money, troops, and military vehicles from fighting the Allies to rounding up Jews and shipping them to death camps?
From the perspective of political scientists, historians, and contemporary journalists, the answer to these questions is not rational. But the non-rationality of an answer is not synonymous with its non-validity.
For the Islamists, as for the Nazis, the destruction of the Jews -- and since 1948, the Jewish state -- is central to their worldview.
If anyone has a better explanation for why Pakistani terrorists, preoccupied with destabilizing India, would expend so much effort at finding the one Jewish center in a country that is essentially devoid of Jews, I would like to hear it.
With all the Pakistani Islamists' hatred of Hindus, they did not attack one Hindu temple in India's major city.
With all their hatred of Christian infidels, the terrorists did not seek out one of the 700,000 Christians in Mumbai.

To reinforce my point, imagine a Basque separatist terrorist organization attacking Madrid. Would the terrorists take time out to murder all those in the Madrid Chabad House? The idea is ludicrous. But no one seems to find it odd that that Pakistani Muslim terrorists who hate India and want it to give up control of Indian Kashmir would send two of its 10 terrorists to kill perhaps the only rabbi in Mumbai. As Newsweek reported during the siege, "Given that Orthodox Jews were being held at gunpoint by mujahideen (sic), it seemed unlikely there would be survivors." Newsweek, like just about everyone else, simply assumes Islamists will murder Jews whenever and wherever possible.

They are right.
For years I have warned that great evils often begin with the murder of Jews, and therefore non-Jews who dismiss Jew-hatred (aka anti-Semitism, aka anti-Zionism), will learn too late that Jew- and Israel-haters only begin with Jews but never end with them. When Israeli Jews were almost the only targets of Muslim terrorists, the world dismissed it as a Jewish or Israeli problem. Then it became an American and European and Filipino and Thai and Indonesian and Hindu problem.

Two final points:
One is that it is exquisitely fitting that the same week the murders in Mumbai were taking place, the United Nations General Assembly passed six more anti-Israel resolutions. As it has for decades, the U.N. has again sanctioned hatred for a good and decent country as small on the map of the world as the Chabad House is on the map of Mumbai.
Two: Statements from Chabad in reaction to the torture-murders of a 28-year-old Chabad rabbi and his wife called on humanity to react to this evil "with random acts of kindness." Evil hates goodness. That's why the terrorists targeted a Chabad Rabbi and his wife.

 

Dennis Prager,

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

 

The Mumbai atrocity is a wake-up call for a frighteningly unprepared world.

By Melanie Phillips

 

Western commentators still don't grasp what the free world is facing. This was not merely a distant horror

Around the world, people have reacted with horror to the vile atrocities in Mumbai.

For three days, our TV screens transmitted images of carnage and chaos as the toll of murder victims climbed to upwards of 190 people, with many hundreds more injured.

Despite the fact that Western citizens were caught up in the attacks, there is nevertheless a sense that this was nothing to do with us — a horrible event happening in a faraway place.

Among commentators, moreover, there has been no small amount of confusion.

Were these terrorists motivated by the grievance between Muslims and Hindus over Kashmir, or was this a broader attack by Al Qaeda?

If British and American tourists were singled out over Iraq — which many assume is the motive for such attacks — why were Indians targeted in the Victoria railway station?

And why was an obscure outreach centre geared to Jews marked for slaughter?

Such perceptions and questions suggest that, even now, Western commentators still don't grasp what the free world is facing. This was not merely a distant horror.

We should pay the closest possible attention to what happened in Mumbai because something on this scale could well happen here.

But because we don't understand what we are actually up against, we are not doing nearly enough to prevent this — or something even worse — occurring; and if it were to happen here, we would be unable to cope.

The Mumbai atrocities show very clearly what too many obdurately deny — that a war is being waged against civilization.

It is both global and local. It is not 'our' fault; it has nothing to do with Muslim poverty, oppression or discrimination.

The Islamic fundamentalist fanatics use specific grievances — Kashmir, Iraq, Palestine, Chechnya — merely as recruiting sergeants for their worldwide holy war against all 'unbelievers'.

The Mumbai attackers targeted British, American and Indian citizens simply because they wanted to kill as many British, American and Indian 'unbelievers' as possible.

Where they found Muslims, they spared them.

They also singled out for slaughter the occupants of an outreach organization geared to Jews with no Israeli or political agenda — underscoring the point that at the core of the Islamists' hatred of Israel festers their hatred of the Jews.

This was not, as is so often described, 'mindless violence'.

On the contrary, the terrorists precisely calibrated both their choice of targets and the way in which they attacked them. This tells us many things.

India was chosen in order to further two aims. First was to foment greater tension between India and Pakistan.

No less important was the wish to destroy the ever more vital strategic alliance between India and the West in common defense against the Islamist onslaught.

 

That was why British and American visitors in those two grand hotels were singled out.

And that was why Mumbai itself was chosen — as the symbol of India's burgeoning commerce and prosperity and its links with the West.

The manner of these attacks also carried a message.

Many hostages were taken, but no attempt was made to use them to demand redress of any grievances. They were simply killed.

That made a statement that the terrorists' agenda is non-negotiable.

The attacks demonstrated, above all, the reach of the perpetrators and the impotence of their designated victims.

Those who believe that Islamist terror can be halted by addressing grievances around the world are profoundly mistaken.

With these atrocities, moreover, Islamist attacks have moved much closer to war than conventional terrorism.

The Iranian-born foreign affairs specialist Amir Taheri has pointed out that the Mumbai attacks embody the plan outlined by a senior Al Qaeda strategist after the U.S. decided to fight back following 9/11 — a decision that the Islamists had not expected.

This new strategy entails targeting countries with a substantial Muslim presence for 'low-intensity warfare' comprising bombings, kidnappings, the taking of hostages, the use of women and children as human shields, beheadings and other attacks that make normal life impossible.

Such a simultaneous, multi-faceted onslaught quickly reduces a city and a country to chaos. It can be repeated anywhere — and our cities must be among the most vulnerable.

Melanie Phillips

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

 

 

Drama in Sderot: Qassam attack, first person.

 

Mihale Eliav is looking to buy a house in Sderot. On her most recent visit, she got a taste of the local attraction, supplied by the neighborly Hamas. See Sderot Impressions and Sderot Qassam capital

Sderot this evening. I was on my way to look at another house with my realtor. Just as it was getting dark, I experienced my first ‘red' and then, my first Qassam.

I didn’t hear the alarm, but Alex did. ‘GO, GO, RED!' he cried braking, and I tried to undo my seatbelt at the same time as open the door, fumbled for the release button, other hand fumbling for the door handle, found the door locked, reached over, got confused, out at last. 'Where?' I asked and he indicated a nearby shop (women's clothes). He hurried me along 'quickly, we've only got about 30 seconds!'. We ran, leaving the car in the middle of a roundabout, and darted into the open door. The shopkeeper was just coming out from behind the counter- Alex quickly asked 'roof ok?' and the answer was positive. He and we and several shoppers all moved into the back of the shop. Two of the shoppers continued to browse the racks. I stared at a nice knit dress, gray and black stripes, pretty but too short. No one talked.

The bang came some seconds later, sounding close and loud. We all waited a few minutes, just in case there was another one. There is no 'all clear' signal, I guess because how would they know?

I examined my feelings closely- after all, I'm planning to move to Sderot once I find a suitable house- and found that on the whole, this event was only slightly scary. I felt a whole lot worse though, when upon leaving the shop, we encountered one woman in a wheelchair and one with a walker, who were still on their slow way to shelter, but. No cigar.

Being able to take shelter is really, really important.

We retrieved the car. Alex called his 13 year old daughter, who was crying. 'Calm down' he told her, 'it was you that chose to come back. It's OK sweetie, it's OK, just calm down and I'll see you soon. I have to show my client a house, and then I'll come get you and we'll go home.' I asked him what he meant by 'you chose to come back' and he told me that he'd arranged for his family to live on a moshav [farm community] further east, but she and her little brother opted for staying in town and in their own school. I've met this girl. In some families, living under fire is a challenge to rise to. I could hear Alex's daughter Mazal fight back tears and say 'OK papa, I'm OKk now, you hear - I'm not crying. I'll wait for you here'. I offered to take her with, but Alex said 'she's fine now' and we carried on. Living in Sderot is good for the backbone, it seems.

And went to pick up a woman who wants to sell her house. Waiting for her on a street near the edge of town, I looked around and realized there were no shelters on this street. [Kids in the Gaza area practice taking shelter. Remember airaidrills in grade school?- nothing like that.] 'Alex, if the 'red' had sounded and we were already here, where would we go for shelter?' 'Choose the closest house with lights on and run like hell for the front door' he replied. 'And if there's no answer and the door is locked?' 'Then you lie down parallel to the base of the nearest east-facing wall' he told me, and pointed to the nearest suitable place. I'd already seen, from inspecting a Qassam crater, that the blast angles up at about 45 degrees. The base of an east-facing wall, especially if there's a whole house on the other side of the wall, probably is pretty good protection.

Only, of course, if you can get there fast enough. The radar picks up the launching. The up and down of the missile's flight takes about 40 seconds. 40 seconds isn't as short as all that; one can probably find shelter in that time if one stays cool-- provided one can run.

The ‘red’ was almost inaudible from where we were, partly the car window being up on my side, but I've heard that it's pretty effective from most places. Of course, local ears know what they're hearing too, which mine do not.

As any of you who've read about my first visits know, there are shelterettes all over Sderot, nicely painted a pale celadon and I'm sure everyone knows just exactly which one is closest, no matter what they're doing. There is even one very large shelter, shaped like a giant snake or slug, brightly striped and curving through a playground- every few meters is an opening, so the thing is a piece of play equipment as well as a place to go if the 'red' sounds. On Kibbutz Migvan, the kids are under instructions to play between the houses, rather than in the street, so if the 'red' sounds, they're only a few meters from the protected rooms of the houses on either side.

As quiet as the alarm was, the Qassam bang was exceeding loud and sounded quite near. Later I found out it fell on Elbaz street (where the first house I looked at is), quite a bit further away than I'd thought. Bombs are LOUD. I'd heard bombs before actually, scuds back in the Gulf War. Scuds are not just loud, they make whole neighborhoods shake. For a small bomb, Qassam is loud enough. No one could sleep through a Qassam hit, even in a protected room, even with earplugs. In fact I think if one fell within a few meters of a shelter, the people in the shelter would be fine, but they might also be deaf.

This is a disorderly subject. I keep trying to give the above paragraphs more form, but simply can't do it. I keep thinking that I know too much about bombs. The mere existence of such things makes me ashamed to be a human being. The thought that just a few kilometers from Sderot (Gaza) are people who have it a lot worse is - irrelevant. After all my visits there, this is the first time I experienced an attack. It hasn't changed my mind about moving. After all, the whole country is a target of various kinds of attack, more by drivers than by terrorists.

The main thought is something very vague and potentially even wrong: we just have to carry on. What else can we do? But I do wish that we'd grow up faster, figure out a better way faster.

This isn't a very good telling, I know. But I don't think I can do any better, especially after three solid days of beastliness from Mumbai. and I've let enough time pass since the incident to know that I'm not going to get any forwarder with my thoughts than this at the moment.

There's a house on Hagana street which looks great. I'll keep you posted.

Mihale Eliav

Copyright © by author – M. Eliav