Richard Witty, who has a sneaker for Chabad (so do I; I had fun in the Chabad House in suburban Philly), sends me this Haaretz column by the usually reliable Bradley Burston in which he is shocked by the Mumbai events, to discover that Jihadi Muslims are like Nazis.
After all this time, I am embarrassed to admit that only when the monsters entered Chabad House in Mumbai, did I understand.
Monsters, not solely for what they did there, but, if the reports
are to be believed, for the fact that they were able to do what they
did after having actually gotten to know the young couple who founded
the center, after asking them for shelter in Chabad House, after
telling them that they were Malaysian students eager to learn about
Judaism.
The first response to Burston is that he is undoubtedly right, that these monsters who invaded Mumbai were antisemitic. They singled out Jews among scores of other people they also killed. Let's be clear: Daniel Pearl was killed because he was a Jew–and a western reporter, too, I imagine. But killed because he was a Jew.
The other lesson is not to let sensational events unhorse your powers of reason. Vicious antisemitism exists. Murderous monstrous antisemitism exists. The problem with Burston's revelation is that as he states, he was naive before in not thinking Jihadis had antisemitism. He's naive now too. As Mark Cohen stated at JTS last week, antisemitism is a real virus in the Islamic world. The issues are, How large a factor is it in Muslim life? How much does it have to do with Israel's militancy and racist occupation? How do we counter it? The Jewish neocons who were mugged by this same reality pushed us to invade Iraq and inflamed the antisemitism. Avraham Burg, who tells us the Holocaust is over, is a big strapping unafraid Jew who reminds us that genocide has been visited on many people in the world, we are not alone. Any more than Jewish victims were alone in Mumbai.
Jack Ross adds: "Its not because they're like Nazis,
they do it out of sheer calculation because they know that's what most
pushes the buttons of westerners. In the case of Mumbai it was just
one more add-on to al-Qaeda's desperate move to get the U.S. to invade Pakistan,
which, contrary to your more excited messageboard posters, has never
been advocated by any except the most pathetic neocons like Ken Pollack
and Michael O'Hanlon."
is bradley burston reliable because he is so full of horse shit. my apologies to horse shit.
The Lubovitchers are playing out of their league.
…or the way the jew hates the christian or hates the muslim or hates the palestinian or hates the iraqi or hates the syrian or hates the lebanese or hates the iranian or hates the saudi or hates the libyan or hates factual history/truth or hates all the world or hates god.
Well, here's another sneaker for Chabad, and some would argue, a mini for the macro clash of civilizations:
POSTVILLE: A CLASH OF CULTURES IN THE HEARTLAND OF AMERICA
Read it.
We have to ask, "what's the major malfunction?"
Looking at Phil's previous piece about Mark Cohen's JTS speech, we find:
In fact, intolerance was praised by all three religions, as the firm way to behave toward people different from oneself. Antisemitism is a more virulent feeling [than intolerance] : the belief that Jews are enemies of society, a degraded class of humanity that conspires to wield power over other people and to prey on them for religious ritual. Classical Islamic texts are remarkable for their lack of anti-Semitism. Even the Koran’s famous expression that Jews are pigs and apes [can be] read in a way that is not simply racist.
So what Phil means by 'anti-Semitism' is specifically racial, as is confirmed by the example he cites from the speech:
… a repulsive cartoon from a Jordan newspaper in 1994 of two fat Jews, a boy in uniform handing a bottle of blood to his mother, both of them with big sweaty noses, and the caption was: The Blood of a Palestinian Child, A Gift for Mother's Day … the anti-Semitic component, the blood libel, the disgusting degraded caricatures.
Not just Pollack and O'Hanlon!
Shortly after the US invasion of Afghanistan, David Frum told me that the US should also be invading Pakistan instead of allying itself with the latter country.
No wonder they went after the Jews. The Zios proclaim their jewishness at every opportunity. Do they ever actually call themselves Zionists? A couple honest ones, that's all.
It is an error to assume, prior to reliable interrogation of the surviving terrorist AND truthful conveyance of results to the press AND truthful publication by said press, that the preponderance of their motivation was rooted in intrinsic visceral antisemitism rather than a response to Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands, Zionist-backed American intervention in Muslim lands, or the substantial Israel training and arming of Indian security forces in Kashmir. It is certainly conceivable, and may yet be proven to be the dominant factor. However, hasty and shallow condemnation based upon one's own preconceptions, invariably colored with strong emotion with regard to antisemitism, is counter-productive. Neglecting to try to understand your adversary can only lead to a highly sub-optimal path to victory, or to defeat, or most appallingly, to one of the former when a bloodless achievement of one's objective was possible.
OK, horrible and disgusting as the attacks on Mumbai were, I am not buying the declarations of Indian officials and their leaks about the "findings" of so-called "investigations". What does one make of this:
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/12/02/moshe.mumbai/index.html
Please read the piece !
It says that the nanny unlocked the door and ran out of the room she had locked herself up in, when the gunman was at the door. She then went upstairs, picked up the kid (who was said to have been standing next to his dead parents !!), then went down a couple of floors, and made her way out of the building, and all this while the terrorists were in control of the whole building? Can someone explain to me how this is possible??! First of all, if the terrorists had such disregard for the lives of innocents as terrorists naturally would, why did they spare the boy? And then, why did they spare the nanny, who rushed out of the room and up the stairs, passing by a gunman, then down the stairs with the kid in her lap, again passing by a gunman (or multiple gunmen)?
This is what the article says about it??
"She literally picked him up and made a dash for the exits, almost daring the terrorists to shoot a woman carrying a baby," Katz said.
Huh? Daring the terrorists to shoot a woman carrying a baby? But that is exactly what terrorists would NOT care about, and did NOT care about (if it is true that the terrorists gunned down a 6-7 year old in front of his parents at the Taj ) !
This whole thing makes no sense from A to Z, sorry to say. Nor does the fact that the nanny was not even questioned by the so-called investigators!!!
And then, this, in the Independent !!
'Armed police would not fire back. – I wish I'd had a gun, not a camera'
But what angered Mr D'Souza almost as much were the masses of armed police hiding in the area who simply refused to shoot back. "There were armed policemen hiding all around the station but none of them did anything," he said. "At one point, I ran up to them and told them to use their weapons. I said, 'Shoot them, they're sitting ducks!' but they just didn't shoot back."
…
"I told some policemen the gunmen had moved towards the rear of the station but they refused to follow them. What is the point if having policemen with guns if they refuse to use them? I only wish I had a gun rather than a camera."
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/armed-police-would-not-fire-back-ndash-i-wish-id-had-a-gun-not-a-camera-1040238.html
**
Add to this the eyewitness accounts of policemen showing up 30 minutes after the massacres were reported at various locations, and then leaving the scene of attacks…!!
This whole thing stinks to high heaven.
BfromL makes another point: maybe the Indian Police did it. Extremely plausible. In any event, penny-ante pogrom if you ask me.
BfromL, the woman's dash for safety with the child is entirely plausible. Every human being that fires a weapon goes through some cognitive 'shoot-or-do-not-shoot' process, including hate-filled killers. It could be that the terrorists had specific orders not to shoot non-Caucasians unless they resisted or could be assessed as not being Muslim. It may be she passed by them so fast with the child concealed just well enough that they hesitated long enough for her to escape. Truly, far stranger things have happened. Whatever was going on in the killers' heads, what was going on in hers was primal heroism of the most noble sort.
And as for the Indian security forces, never underestimate the role of simple incompetence. I am not saying that they were incompetent, just that even a very well-trained force would have difficulty carrying out a successful rescue operation of so many hostages on such short-notice. The only thing that we know with certainty right now is that incorrect information WILL be propagated after an event of this complexity. It is premature to try to construct explanations with the data we have, when we know that some or all of it is wrong. The facts will come out in time, even if not from official sources, and then let the cards fall where they may.
"For the whole of my adult life, it irked me when my fellow Jews would routinely and without compunction, accuse anti-Zionists of being anti-Semitic, and conflate anti-Israeli sentiment with the Nazis.
I felt that the latter eroded the memory and the magnitude of the Holocaust, and that the former was a slightly more elegant way of telling people with whom one took issue, to shut the hell up. "
Burston did NOT state the Muslims hate Jews. He stated that JIHADIS hate Jews.
That makes sense to me, and demands a response of strong defense (only RARELY strong offense).
Colin, eyewitnesses reported that the terrorists were so sure of what they are doing, and so fearless, that it literally sent shivers through their spines. Whether terrorists have to shoot or not to shoot moments I do not know, but what we do know is that it doesn't tend to take a long time to come up with an answer (possibly a split-second decision), and the terrorists did seem to have come up with that answer given that they executed pretty much everyone in their sight, including, yes, people with non-Caucasian features! Most of the victims, may I remind you, were actually Indians. I dare say a few Muslim Indians were also killed. Again, I do not claim to know the whole story, but what I posted above is scandalous and yes, stinks to the high heavens of an inside job. The inaction of the police at different locations fits in with that explanation. What are the chances that all the policemen at the scene were incompetent? Moreover, there were no hostages to rescue, as this was taking place at the rail station. Instead of shooting at the terrorists, the policemen just stood there while a cameraman bravely took pictures (at risk to his own life) and then urged them to do something, without much success. This goes beyond mere incompetence. This is actually a cover for the terrorist attack. The readiness of the Indian authorities to cover up on the police inaction — by dismissing eyewitness accounts as mistaken and the product of "shock" and "trauma" — lends credence to the idea that the Indian authorities are up to their noses in this (also keep in mind that the hotel had received a warning in advance, and instead of beefing up security, had actually decreased it; and somehow, the terrorists had entered through an unprotected back entrance?). Even if the attacks took place without the knowledge and involvement of the Indian authorities, their cover-up on the facts lends credence to the idea that this might not be a case of "Islamic terrorism" at all. Keep in mind, previous attacks had been blamed on Muslim terrorists, and yet it turned out that it had been the work of Hindu terrorists who had even received help and explosives from Army officers…
Also, the terrorists had layouts of the hotel, and we are told that they had stayed at the hotel many times, and had even found employment there, and then we are told about a "mysterious" boat that had supposedly come from Pakistan (how is that known?), as if the attackers who had had no difficulty living and working in Mumbai would've needed a last-minute ride into India…… also, the terrorists had the layouts of the hotel, but the COMMANDOS were having difficulties because they did not have the floorplan??? Anti-terror commandos, for heaven's sake?!?!? And that they stumbled in the dark and did not take out the terrorists with mere bullets because they could not see who was there and might've ended up killing civilians??? Whatever happened to flashlights and night vision goggles? No, make no mistake, this is not about incompetence. All the above combined make for a pretty convincing case that this was an inside job.
AbfL, I not saying that I disagree with the scenario and the data you lay out. I don't have time to follow this story, so have no opinion but skepticism of any general conclusions drawn so soon after the event. I remember when we invaded Grenada there was all kinds of nonsense being floated about, including one story that it was the French. The same thing occurred during 9-11; I first heard that small planes were used. If there was indeed camera footage of the train station attack that could corroborate eyewitness accounts, and it was released and examined by independent analysts for forgery, that would go a long way (probably all the way) towards convincing me. Their certainly could be a cover-up underway, however the reports you are reading could also be erroneous, or only partially true. Eyewitness accounts of traumatic events are notoriously unreliable and contradictory. However, if all the eyewitnesses are saying the same thing, then that greatly enhance the veracity of their statements.
I agree with the notion that it may have been a 'false-flag' operation by Hindu extremists. My knowledge of Indian politics is very dated, but I have read believable reports that they have tried them in the past. Please believe me: I hope you are right, because Pakistan and India both have nuclear weapons and indulge in deep-seated mutual antipathy. Nuclear winter is a genuine possible response of the atmosphere to the dust thrown up by nuclear detonations (with the severity dependent upon number of detonations, their size, altitude, proximity to each other, local topography and weather conditions, etc), despite what willfully ignorant pro-nuke conservatives say, and any general exchange between them might adversely affect us as well.
Brad Burston is not "usually reliable." He is sometimes reliable & sometimes full of it. He's remarkably schizophrenic I think & quite irascible & also seems to make a pt. of not responding to reader e mail, even e mail that praises his work (but this is an aside).
I don't agree w. Burston regarding Mumbai. I don't think this was anti-Semitic. I think it was anti-Israel. The attackers publicly said they were avenging the suffering of Palestinians. That means the attack originated in a grievance against Israel, not Jews per se.
Many may say I'm splitting hairs, but I don't think so.
If we turn this into a religious war between Islam & Judaism then everyone loses & we enter into the field of all out religious war. If this is a battle between 2 national claims, then it is resolvable. With all my being I claim the latter & reject the former.
Rich, how about this. Maybe we can get some of the "attackers" into Seattle. Kill you and your family. And then I can claim it was all about Israel. Nothing to do with being jewish. Maybe torture your kids for good measure.
Jacqueline:
I love the line "penny ante pogrom" Maybe we can send the attackers to your house and knock off you and your family. Maybe torture your kids. That would be kind of cool, right.