107 thoughts on “Mumbai and Jewish Jihadis – Tikun Olam תיקון עולם إصلاح العالم
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  1. Richard – are you including me in your list of Jewish jihadis? are you including Alex Stein? If so, I suggest your words have no meaning, other than perhaps in a court of law.

    You write, “So if you wish to see the Mumbai attack as one that threatens all Jews, be my guest.” Ok, lets say it doesn’t threaten all Jews, can you tell please tell me then what synagogues, Jewish schools, Jewish centres, Jewish commercial districts around the world are safe for Jews to attend?

    You write of Jewish jihadis, language that reduces Jews to the same moral plane as those who murder Madrid commuters, London commuters, Twin Towers bankers, tourists in Jordan, Tunisia (Djerba synangogue), Sinai (repeatedly), and plain old Muslim civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. You really believe that Jews inhabit that same moral plane? You call this a moral position?

    Yes, pro Al Qaeda jihadi terrorists kill Jews because they hate Israel, but it is also deeply rooted in their theology – they believe that the final hour will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them. They believe this is a war between all Jews and all Muslims. (Hamas believe the same thing).

    Antisemites have always had terrifically good reasons (from their perspective) for killing Jews. Why should the pro Al Qaeda jihadis be accorded the status of murdering Jews in the name of Palestinian human rights? Why not also say that Nazi Germany slaughtered Jews in the name of Aryan human rights? Or that cossacks murdered Jews in the name of Russian Orthodox rights?

  2. @Mark Gardner:

    You really believe that Jews inhabit that same moral plane?

    I believe that roughly the same percentage of Israelis or Jews inhabit the Jewish jihadi moral universe as the percentage of Muslims who inhabit the Muslim jihadi universe.

    I don’t know you but I doubt that either you or Alex (who I KNOW isn’t) are Jewish jihadis. But I think that’s where your logic tends to lead. What options do you have if you see every terror attack in Israel or throughout the world involving Israelis as a global plot against Jews & Judaism?

  3. Mark, I just came away from reading the comments left in response to Richard’s article, and the first words that comes to mind are *moronic and simpleminded*. I don’t know who posting those comments were Jewish or not, so Jewish jihadis doesn’t work for me, and I was tempted to relabel them American jihadis, but it’d be wrong of me to just assume that if someone posts mindless drool showing an abject lack of knowledge of international terrorism or the India/Pakistan tensions that they must be an American. The only intelligent responses to the article were the ones that cautioned trying to behave as though one knows what people who carry out these attacks think and to wait for the dust to settle rather than rushing to jump to conclusions about the motivation of the attack…

    ‘Ok, lets say it doesn’t threaten all Jews, can you tell please tell me then what synagogues, Jewish schools, Jewish centres, Jewish commercial districts around the world are safe for Jews to attend?’

    now, that’s just silly and paranoid. We’ve got quite a few Jewish schools, centres, synagogues etc where I live. Whatever gives you the idea that it’s not safe to attend them?

  4. It appears to me that the main problem with the left, is that they understand the world as it is convenient to see the world and not as it really is.
    You want to see the conflict resolved so you adopt a world view that is most conducive to that desire. Believe me, I want to see the conflict resolved too. The exact borders don’t exactly interest me. I’m not a religious fanatic, or religious at all, but the facts keep getting in my way.
    An example is that you say that the proportion of Jewish extremists is equal to Muslim extremists. And yet there is no reason to think this other than to want to think this. Jews differ from Muslims, ON AVERAGE, by geography, ethnicity, economic status, number of children per family, proportion of working women and probably proportion of religiously observant members. Logic dictates that the proportion of extremists would differ too. Of course you can find many examples of extremism on all sides. The fact that Billy Jean King beat Bobby Riggs in tennis does not mean that women are expected to be as good at certain sports as men. Leftists would like to think so because it fits in with the way they would like to see the world., but it means nothing.

  5. When I read the comments in Haaretz, Jerusalem Post and different blogs I must say that the large presence of Jewish and pro-Israeli Jihadists is more than obvious. For them this is a war between religions and there are no compromises. These guys do not understand if Palestinians religion would be for example Hinduism they would resist the occupation and land thefts in the end with equal methods as now is done. Without the Palestine problem the relations between Jews and Muslims would be rather “normal”. Of course the tensions between Jews and Arabs/Muslims are solely based on the Palestine problem.

    Jews differ from Muslims, ON AVERAGE, by geography, ethnicity, economic status, number of children per family, proportion of working women and probably proportion of religiously observant members.

    Sure for Jews in USA and Europe. But how much do the Jews in Israel differ? The amount of religious Jews in Israel is considerable, the amount of pupils in religious schools in high, the support of religious parties is big etc. The difference between Talebans and orthodox Jews “world view” is in the end rather small.

  6. 1. It’s a shame that you haven’t responded to the fellow who draws an analogy with a person killing two black people in revenge for the actions of Robert Mugabe.

    2. The pogrom in Hebron is undoubtedly characterised by Islamaphobia. If the settlers who tried to set fire to the mosque gave an interview to the media in which they said they were avenging the mistreatment of Hebron Jews at the hands of Palestinians, would you be rushing to absolve them of the racism charge? (I’m referring to the Forward interview). Also, does it not occur to you that the terrorists have some PR skills, and they know that some fool out there will take up the line that they are just expressing political grievances in a poorly chosen way?

    3. You’ve spoken about how well organised the terrorist attack in Mumbai. Given that, do you not think they were capable of googling a bit to discover that Chabad caters for all Jews who are in the area. Of course there will be lots of Israelis because there are lots of Israeli Jews.

    4. Did you notice that your article, despite being on a forum known for generally being quite hostile to Israel, was almost uniquely panned? Of course you singled out the lunatics, the ‘Jewish Jihadis’ as you called them, but not once did you refer to the commenters who – time and again – drew attention to the basic confusion and failure of logic in the piece.

    5. Did you read the letter on my blog from the Kashmiri? What did you think of that?

  7. Simo Hurtta: being religious, going to a religious school or supporting a religious party does not automatically make one an extremist, regardless of which religion we are talking about.

  8. Richard,
    I fail to see the attack as being EITHER anti-Jewish or anti-Israel.
    There were about 175 people killed, the vast majority of them were Indians.
    So how does this become an attack on Jews or Israel?

  9. amir & alex, agreed.

    ellen, it doesn’t all become an attack on jews or israel, only that part of it whereby 20% of the terrorists strength was allocated to attacking an unsignposted back street building (ie Chabad) – as opposed to world renowned hotels, and the train station.

    violet, I envy your blissful ignorance about current pro-Al Qaeda targeting of jewish communities throughout the world. My point isnt that they are all at imminent risk of attack, rather that when such attacks occur they kill Jews and leave jewish communities in trauma. this is why i find it sickening when such attacks are described by sincere anti-racists like Richard as “anti-Israel”. I fear that this (inadvertently) emboldens antisemitic terrorism.

    Richard – i repeat, antisemites have always had terrifically good reasons (from their perspective) for killing Jews. Why should the pro Al Qaeda jihadis be accorded the status of murdering Jews in the name of Palestinian human rights? Why not also say that Nazi Germany slaughtered Jews in the name of Aryan human rights? Or that cossacks murdered Jews in the name of Russian Orthodox rights?

  10. @Alex Stein: Once again, the Mumbai terrorists could’ve chosen to attack the Mumbai synagogue. They didn’t. THey chose Chabad House. There was a reason for that. They did not see Chabad as a religious facility. So likening it to a mosque is fallacious, at least as far as the terrorists saw it.

    You can do all manner of post mortems on why the terrorists didn’t say a particular thing or whether they could’ve Googled a particular subject or not. I’m talking about evidence that I’ve read that goes to what the terrorists actually did or said. Unfortunately, we don’t know anything more than that. So you can speculate on their state of mind or motives all you wish. I’d prefer to stick to what I know empirically.

    And gee, the fact that my article was panned by a bunch of almost universally dim CiF readers (except for you of course) doesn’t bother me in the least. My articles always generate that type of response. The same is true of tolerant, reasoned, balanced articles published in Haaretz. There’s a hate patrol that frequents all these sites looking for anything written that is too critical of Israel or Jews or too sympathetic to Arabs.

    There is absolutely no failure of logic in the piece. Their is a failure of humanity in those who fault it.

    Once again, the editors of CIF read the comment threads I’m sure. If they agreed with yr perspective they wouldn’t publish my work. But they do.

  11. Once again, the Mumbai terrorists could’ve chosen to attack the Mumbai synagogue. They didn’t. THey chose Chabad House. There was a reason for that. They did not see Chabad as a religious facility. So likening it to a mosque is fallacious, at least as far as the terrorists saw it.

    I’ve been to the Mumbai synagogue. Unlike the Chabad House, it is guarded (albeit badly) and more importantly, it is only open on the Sabbath. Had they attacked it, they wouldn’t have had the dead Jewish victims they needed for their headlines. The Chabad House on the other hand was a relatively easy target. It’s role as a Jewish center, with religious services three times a day, kosher food and accommodations guaranteed the terrorists the Jewish and foreign targets they craved.

    In this case making a Jewish/Israeli distinction is something I find perplexing. If the Chabad House in Mumbai is considered a legitimate target, a place that was bereft of all politics, then any Jewish institution or any gathering of Jews, anywhere in the world would also be considered a valid target. So why the distinction?

    I traveled to India 6 months ago with a girlfriend of mine who is very active in various Israeli left-wing causes. She’s protested against the wall, meets regularly with Palestinians, tirelessly advocates on their behalf, etc. etc. and had we been in the Chabad House last week as opposed to 6 months ago, she would have been seen as a legitimate target by the terrorists regardless of her humanitarian and political work on behalf of the Palestinians in whose name the terrorists targeted the Chabad House. The justification would have been simply that she was a Jew.

    Food for thought.

  12. Well, you’ve responded to the first half of point 2, as well as 3 and 4. (see above), which Mia has answered rather well, I think. As for the notion that the words of the sole surviving terrorist suddenly become ’empirical’ evidence, it’s rather strange, but still – what about the issue of PR?

    What about points 1 and 5?

  13. “There is absolutely no failure of logic in the piece. Their [sic] is a failure of humanity in those who fault it.”

    Do you not think this to be a rather arrogant sentence? Even those who agreed with some of your premises thought it was rather confused.

  14. @mia: There is absolutely no reason they couldn’t have attacked a synagogue on Shabbat if they wished to kill Jews. Again, they didn’t.

    Thankfully, you & yr friend were not at Chabad House then. But if you had been you would’ve been ISRAELIS in the terrorists’ eyes. And once again, you’re imposing yr own interpretation of the terrorists’ motives on their actions w/o any shred of actual evidence to justify it. Unless you knew the terrorists, were there at the time, or have some other divine form of knowledge of these matters, you’re telling us what YOU believe. That won’t necessarily illuminate the real motives of the terrorists.

  15. @Alex Stein: I was referring to the telephone call from the terrorist who claimed the attack was in retaliation for Palestinian suffering. That’s empirical evidence.

    There was nothing confused about the piece. It was a complicated & nuanced piece written amidst a horrific tragedy which drove many people to see things in black & white. People were predisposed to be offended by anyone who took a perspective that rejected the idea of vengeance or holy war against Islam.

    I don’t let CiF commenters define my work. The quality of the responses is only a step or two above the Haaretz talkbacks. If their analysis is so cogent let them get their own work published on the same subject in CiF.

  16. Still no response to points 1 or 5. More arrogance on your superiority to those who dare to dispute your wonderfully nuanced writings, though. By the way, I don’t think I’ve spoken about vengeance or holy war against Islam anywhere. There were plenty of other people who didn’t either. You’re just building up a straw man.
    One more question: a Jewish terrorist kills an Iraqi-Muslim. He says he saw him as a Palestinian (which seems rather odd, given that he has access to google, and had carefully selected the target beforehand – an Iraqi community centre). Empirically, does that make the attack anti-Palestinian or anti-Arab?

  17. PS – can you post the link to the piece about the terrorist saying it was in retaliation for Palestinian suffering? I’ve somehow missed it.

    PPS If Palestinians weren’t suffering, do you believe that Chabd wouldn’t have been targeted?

  18. Richard said “Once again, the editors of CIF read the comment threads I’m sure. If they agreed with yr perspective they wouldn’t publish my work”.

    Richard, the CiF editors publish Azzam Tamimi, a Hamas spokesman in Britain. They published Neil Clark arugin in one memorable piece that Iraqi translators for the British army were ‘quislings’ and ‘traitors’ and deserved their fates at the hands of al Qaeda.

    Seriously, if you’re taking the fact that CiF publish you as holding any moral authority you’re looking in the wrong place.

  19. @ron: Even the devil can quote Scripture. For every reference to God being a God of vengenace I can find 10 that associate the Divine with mercy. So what does it all prove? I said MY God is a God of mercy. I didn’t say every reference in Jewish tradition was to God as merciful. But the overwhelming tendency is to see God in such a way.

  20. @unseen: I’d tend not to trust yr judgment on what makes for good quality CiF material. But even if you are right, for every poorly chosen CiF piece I can point to 100 excellent ones. I’m proud of the fact that the CIF America editors publish my work regularly despite the fact that every time they do there’s some jerk out there who says it’s got to be the worst piece of crap every published by CIF. I don’t write for people like that.

  21. @Alex Stein: You may find this hard to believe, but I do have other things to do in life than respond to your comments point by point. So if I don’t respond to point 1 or point 5 could you pls. take that as a statement that I chose not to for whatever reason. There are many commenters to respond to, many posts to write & research, a few young children to raise, Bar Mitzvah kids to tutor, etc. You can’t do everything even if you want to. I try, but I’m not perfect.

    As for my alleged sense of superiority to CiF commenters. Actually, (& again you won’t believe this), but sometimes my critics do score valid pts. & I either acknowlege this or amend myself. I read lots of sputtering rage, insult and other claims involving my mental condition or moral depravity. I didn’t find anything that made me change my opinion about my main claims.

    As for yr hypothetical, there’s so much real hatred & bloodshed out there. Do we have to create hypothetical mishmases to detect whether or not my standards of judgment are sound or balanced?

  22. @Alex Stein:

    Kasab has told police that they were sent with a specific mission of targeting Israelis to avenge atrocities on Palestinians. This was why they targetted Nariman House, a complex meant for Israelis.

    Times of India

    I don’t expect you to change yr mind about any of this. But I wouldn’t mind if you would at least concede that I’ve read the news reports correctly & that they DO indeed report that the surviving terrorist (& one can assume the planners of this wicked crime as well) targeted Israelis specifically; or at least they thought they were.

    As for whether they would’ve attacked Chabad w/o the Occupation & Palestinian suffering, that requires powers of clairvoyance beyond me. I don’t pretend to understand the inner workings of such psychopathic minds. But I do know that if the I-P conflict were resolved there would be far less targeting of Israelis and far less terror both inside & outside Israel committed by Muslims.

  23. Let me translate: if you, Richard, were at the Chabad House that day and murdered and tortured, you would understand. You would understand that you were being tortured and murdered not as Jew but as a jihadi Israeli.

    Got it.

    Thanks for the clarification.

    Regards,

    Inna

  24. http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2008/12/15/081215taco_talk_packer

    “According to intelligence reports, the attacks in Mumbai were carried out by terrorists who had received extensive training from the Pakistan-based group Lashkar-e-Taiba, or Army of the Pure. Its agenda has been to force India to give up control over the disputed northern mountain region of Jammu and Kashmir. More recently, the group’s leader, Hafiz Saeed, spoke of creating a Muslim south Asia—thus, the band that carried out the killings called itself the Hyderabad Deccan Mujahideen, implying a holy war extending down to the south-central Indian region that, in the late eighteenth century, marked the farthest limit of the Mughal empire.

    The name has the ring of nostalgic grandeur common among jihadist groups elsewhere, with their historical claims on far-flung places like Al Andalus, also known as Spain. And the designated targets in Mumbai suggested an ambition on the terrorists’ part extending well beyond the local troubles of Kashmir: hotels, a café, a hospital, a train station; foreign visitors, well-heeled Indians, Jews. The terrorists tortured their Jewish victims. They demanded to know the caste and home state of Indians. They held conference calls with their superiors in Lahore and Karachi to determine whether or not a certain hostage should be killed. When the goal is a Muslim south Asia, the answer is almost always yes”

  25. I’ve also just noticed this sentence: “The Mumbai terrorists clearly stated that their attack was in revenge for Palestinian suffering and that they saw Chabad House as an Israeli target.” What you really mean to say is: The sole surviving Mumbai terrorist stated that Chabad House was chosen to avenge Palestinian suffering. Interesting how these things can be spun, isn’t it?

  26. “I believe that roughly the same percentage of Israelis or Jews inhabit the Jewish jihadi moral universe as the percentage of Muslims who inhabit the Muslim jihadi universe.”

    Even if that were true, and I don’t know who did the polling to find this out, there are over a billion Muslims and about 15 million Jews in the world. You do the math to see how many say 10 percent of Muslims Jihadist comes to compared to Jews.

    Moreover, how many Jewish fanatics have adopted the Jihadi tactic of suicide bombings? You are just playing with words.

    It’s not Tikkun Olam you are practicing, Richard, it’s לשון הרע “evil tongue.”

  27. Richard Silverstein
    Is it ok to kill and torture a rabbi or rebbetzin if you think they are Israeli? Does that murderous inclination demonstrate an acceptable level of racism?

    Where have the Jewish Jihadis carried out their Jihads?

    As regards your appropriation of the word tikkun, I should say ‘healer heal thyself’ if you will excuse the expression.

  28. @Alex Stein: No, what I mean to say is that the ONLY terrorist who has made any definitive statement on this subject has confirmed that the intent was to harm Israeli interests & protest against Israel’s assault against the Palestinian people. Since this is the only statement we have from the terrorists on the subject I take it as a reliable reflection of their true views. Spin that however you wish.

    As for the Times of India quotation, you were far too polite to accuse me of not having a source. And I’m glad you were so I could furnish it to you. But the CiF commenters and Poor Pitiful Petra among others weren’t so polite. They called me all manner of names in CiF, J.Post blogs & Harry’s Place (or whatever it’s called) & claimed they knew better than Kasab himself what his motive was. I wouldn’t mind if you’d correct the record for me the next time you’re in those threads, which being the fair minded person I know you to be I’m sure you will.

    You ought to look into yr own conscience as to why you attempt to read my mind & characterize my mental outlook when I claim that Jews have not denounced the Hebron attacks. “Gleeful?” That’s a projection on yr part & totally unwarranted. I am not gleeful. I would rather have preferred not writing that post if Jewish leaders had done their job & denounced the violence as they should have. If they don’t have the guts to do so then I’m damn well going to take them to task for it.

    My attitude toward Israel & the Jewish leadership is: do the right thing and give me nothing to write about. Put me out of business, please.

  29. @shriber:

    how many Jewish fanatics have adopted the Jihadi tactic of suicide bombings

    Interesting how fastidious some of us can become about methods of terror. Why is suicide bombing a more heinous method of killing than shooting as so many Jewish terrorists have done to their Arab victims? Baruch Goldstein was actually a Jewish suicide mass murderer. What does that say of us Jews? That we’re always sinned against & never sinning?

    Now who’s playing w. words??

  30. That’s not entirely true – look at the reference to the New Yorker article, for example. In any case, note how “The Mumbai terrorists” becomes “the ONLY terrorist” (your tendency to use caps is deeply irritating, btw), who is – in any case – the only one still alive. We are going round in circles here, though, so I suppose we’ll have to agree to disagree, although I can’t help but thinking that we’d make more progress if you dealt with the analogy of the anti-Mugabe protester that kills Africans and then says it was in response to Mugabe’s oppression.

  31. Fastidious indeed Richard. How many Jewish terror massacres of Muslims have there been? You seem desperate to draw facile equivalences; the point is that each community has its own, specific problems – trying to equate them all the time won’t lead us anywhere.

  32. @J.R.: Nuance seems lost on people like you. I make crystal clear that I’m not justifying the murder of anyone Jew or gentile. I am saying that there is a difference between a Muslim who sees his enemy as a state that oppresses Palestinians and one who sees Jews as a global enemy. That’s all I’m saying. Killing under both sets of terms is wrong. But one leaves hopes that a settlement of the I-P conflict will lead to an end of jihadi hostility once the conflict is resolved. The other leaves no hope of jihadi peace since as long as there is a Jew on earth the supposed anti-Semitic jihadi will feel the need to kill him or her.

    I know where I come down & where you come down on this.

  33. I think it’s interesting how easily Richard will accuse someone of being racist or an Islamaphobe. But if you attack a Chabad house and murder its inhabitants, well lets not jump to conclusions.

  34. @Alex Stein: I find it annoying that you seem to take some kind of pleasure in posting links to blog posts which attack my views. You do it consistently & it has a needling quality.

    If you want to attack my views please do. If you wish to ask bloggers attacking my views to come here & do so they are welcome. But I don’t like the idea of using my comment threads to advertise other blogs which disparage me or my views.

    Invariably, the blogs you link to seriously distort & twist my views out of all recognition & I don’t take them very seriously as sparring partners.

    I guarantee that I see almost every blog site that attacks me as long as they link back to me because I review my site stats to see where traffic comes from. If you think I need to address particular criticism either bring it up yourself in yr own words here or e mail me privately.

  35. “Interesting how fastidious some of us can become about methods of terror. Why is suicide bombing a more heinous method of killing than shooting as so many Jewish terrorists have done to their Arab victims? Baruch Goldstein was actually a Jewish suicide mass murderer. What does that say of us Jews? That we’re always sinned against & never sinning?”

    For an intelligent man, Richard you often careless with words and concepts.

    First, I need to point out that there have been, thank goodness, few Baruch Goldstein’s out there. Second, Baruch was roundly condemned by the majority of the leaders in the Jewish community both in Israel and abroad. Third, Goldstein was the crazed lone gunman that is the bane of modern cultures everywhere. He is no different from the Columbine killers or that student who shot the students at Virginia Tech.

    Now, to your main point, you pose the question about why methods of terror matters. It’s a fair question. Methods of terror matter in the same way those methods of revolutionary activity matter. Those revolutions, the French and the Russian for example (I don’t want to use the example of Fascists regimes because that will get us into all sorts of emotional side issues, but it applies to Mussolini and other too) that used terror to wipe out the old order ended up using terror to sustain itself.

    Similarly, the use of suicide bombers tells us that the Jihadists don’t value human life and hence when they say that they love death more than life believe them. The method used to achieve one’s goals (and as a kabbalist you are probably aware of this) often become indistinguishable from the goal. There are other reasons why methods of terror matter but this post is getting too long as it is.

  36. “But one leaves hopes that a settlement of the I-P conflict will lead to an end of jihadi hostility once the conflict is resolved. The other leaves no hope of jihadi peace since as long as there is a Jew on earth the supposed anti-Semitic jihadi will feel the need to kill him or her.”

    The Arab Israeli conflict should be resolved by setting up a Palestinian State alongside a Jewish one” details to be worked out by the parties. This should happen regardless of the effect it will have on the larger Jihadist conflict with the West, the Jews, and whomever else they hate.

    That said, I don’t for a moment believe that solving the I-P conflict will end such terror. What drives Islamicist terror is a dynamic particular to that religion and its history of conflict dating back over a thousand years with the Christian West, with Hindus and other no Muslim peoples as well as the original conflict with the Jews of Mecca after they refused to acknowledge Muhammad as their Prophet.

    This is what the Muslim Brotherhood said and this is what Bin Laden preaches. All the labels they throw around “Crusader, Zionist, Hindu idolater, etc.” have precise figurative meanings in their eschatological world view.

    This is the context in which the events of Mumbai unfold and not merely the Israeli Arab conflict.

  37. Richard Silverstein, by using the phrase ‘Jewish Jihadi’ you demean the jewish people and the religion of islam. Jihad in its inward sense means something like ‘cheshbon haNefesh’ which is a practise that you would most certainly benefit from in place of the pseudo-kabbalistic narcissism that you affect on your website. Your refer to me as ‘people like you’ and charge that I don’t understand nuance. Your misunderstanding of my post and your response suggest that it is not me, or ‘people like’ me, who misunderstand nuance.

  38. I need to correct some misunderstandings.

    The concept of Holy War originates in Judaism.

    The first textual references come in the late 2nd or earlier 3rd century CE. The time period for the appearance is not surprising because the late 1st through 2nd century were marked by major wars and armed insurrections by Judean mujahhidin.

    The Talmud differentiates between “war by commad” (milhemet mitzvah) or “war by oligation” (milhemet hovah), and “war of discretion” (milhemet reshut”).

    The idea was probably passed along to Christianity and Islam, which crystallized from currents of post-2nd Temple Judaism before anything that looks like Rabbinic or Karaite Judaism.

    The Islamic and Jewish law of war was codified about the same time period with probably a good deal of mutual interaction.

    I could make a good case that the Qur’anic term jihad was forced to fill the conceptual space of the milhemet mitzvah and milhemet reshut because the actual Qur’anic usage of Jihad does not correspond to later Islamic legal concepts that refer to Jihad and that look more like ideas found in Mishnayot Sanhedrin.

  39. @shriber:

    there have been, thank goodness, few Baruch Goldstein’s out there.

    Few? According to whom? Maybe not as many attacks as spectacular as his, but there have been literally scores of lethal attacks on Arabs (& Jews) by Jews over the years. The most devastating being the Rabin assassination. And that’s leaving aside lethal attacks by the IDF which kill Palestinian civilians.

    To this day, settlers rejoice at Goldstein’s grave every Purim. So much for universal Jewish condemnation of Goldstein. Goldstein’s views were not his alone. In fact, they resonate with many in the movement.

  40. @shriber:

    What drives Islamicist terror is a dynamic particular to that religion and its history of conflict dating back over a thousand years with the Christian West, with Hindus and other no Muslim peoples as well as the original conflict with the Jews of Mecca after they refused to acknowledge Muhammad as their Prophet

    You’re one of a seemingly endless stream of Jewish Islamic experts who attended the Bernard Lewis school of Islamophobic affairs. Where did you learn what you know about Islam? At a college? From a credible textbook? Or from Frontpagemagazine?

    Any flaws in Islam are more than matched by similar flaws in every religion, certainly every western religion. These flaws are by no means unique to Islam & I object strenuously to yr blindness in attributing blame to Islam alone.

    “Muslim eschatology?” Really. Did you learn this from Robert Spender, Steve Emerson or MEMRI?

    Please do not publish any more than three comments on any given day. I like to be free to respond to every commenter & when someone publishes that often it deprives me of that opportunity.

  41. @J.R.: “Jewish jihadi” only demeans those Jews who hold hateful, violent views antagonistic toward Islam. As to how it demeans Islam I have no idea what you mean. “Jihad” has many diff. meanings & not only the one you allude to.

  42. “Few? According to whom? Maybe not as many attacks as spectacular as his, but there have been literally scores of lethal attacks on Arabs (& Jews) by Jews over the years. The most devastating being the Rabin assassination. And that’s leaving aside lethal attacks by the IDF which kill Palestinian civilians.”

    I had a hunch you were going to bring it up.

    Again, we are talking about scale here aren’t we.

    Yes, let’s leave aside the IDF attacks which are part of the efforts to thwart attacks on civilians. You may not like the way the do it, but there is no comparison with either the Islamicist attacks or that of Baruch Goldstein.

    Yes, Richard, there have been few attacks by Jews on Muslims and those that were take place in a confined place. I no of no attacks by Jews say in Washington State or in India on Muslims. Do you?

    As to the Jewish extremists I make no apology for them and hope the Israeli government will evacuate them from Hebron and elsewhere on the West Bank.

    Bottom line is you are offering false comparisons.

  43. “You’re one of a seemingly endless stream of Jewish Islamic experts who attended the Bernard Lewis school of Islamophobic affairs. Where did you learn what you know about Islam? At a college? From a credible textbook? Or from Frontpagemagazine?”

    Now you are arguing like a typical blogger who assumes that people only know the few sources they are familiar with and despise. Try showing some respect for people whose opinions you disagree with.

    Now, where have you from the few nice people (and I mean it sincerely) you have met who are of the Muslim faith? I know many peaceful Muslim people from my dentist to fellow workers and a few teachers I have had.

    I learned about Islam from reading widely the way one learns about almost every subject. (Where did you learn about Kabbalah?)

    Bernard Lewis is a great historian but he is only one source. Here is a partial list of sources aside from the Quran “The Holy Quran, by Allamah Nooruddin”

    Roy, Olivier, The Failure of Political Islam, Harvard University Press.

    Paul Berman, Terror and Liberalism

    The Sayyid Qutb Reader: by Albert Bergesen

    Inside Al Qaeda: Global Network of Terror by Rohan Gunaratna

    The Secret History of al Qaeda by Abdel Bari Atwan

    There are countless other articles from professional journal (too many to list here).

    As you can see I have been reading about this subject since the early 90’s.

    I strongly disagree with the way you frame the issues, Richard, but I assume that you have some intimate knowledge with the subject. You can disagree but if you want a civil conversation don’t assume that your critics are all ignorant right wingers who only know what they cull from various websites.

    Many of the people who have been criticizing you are people of the left who take issue with some of your key assumptions.

  44. @shriber: I asked where you’ve learned about ISLAM, not about jihadism. You’ve quoted a series of books which have nothing specifically to do with Islam itself. Where & what have you actually learned about ISLAM, the religion, that allows you to make such gross overgeneralizations about it?

    Besides, most of these books are written, as far as I can tell, by right-wing political theorists with an ax to grind. So what you’re finally telling us is that everything you know about Islam is from anti-jihadi works. And you’ve read nothing else about Islam. That tells us a lot.

    Pls. do tell me which “people of the left” are taking issue with me? The Trots at Harry’s Place who are what Phil Weiss so aptly calls PEP (Progressive except Palestine) which I’d like to modify to PEIP (Progressive Except Israel-Palestine)? Please. With leftists like that the revolution (no, I’m not a revolutionary) was lost long ago. I do so love hearing my opponents tell me I’ve got to be dead wrong because real live leftists think I’m full of crap. Just who are these leftists? Turns out theye sometimes merely liberal, but even those who are truly progressive are not when it comes to the I-P conflict. So I’m afraid this argument is useless against me.

    As I expected, you completely ignored my request not to monopolize the comment threads with multiple long comments. So your comments will be moderated so that I can reply to them at my convenience. I’ll publish them after replying to them & I’ll be the judge of how many times you publish ea. day since you couldn’t respect my request.

  45. @shriber:

    there have been few attacks by Jews on Muslims and those that were take place in a confined place.

    THis is ludicrous. I’ve pointed out to you scores of attacks by Jews (that is Israelis) against Palestinians. Not IDF attacks. Attacks by settlers & other extremists against Palestinians & even fellow Jews. And you claim there have been “few.” WRONG. You’re reading only about Muslim attacks on Jews & neglecting to read about Jewish attacks on Muslims. And let’s include not only lethal attacks since settlers haven’t yet attempted to duplicate Baruch Goldstein’s feat of mass murder. Let’s include attacks of near mass murder like the one of Hebron last week.

    You’re simply pathetic. The Jews are so superior. Islam is a twisted religion of hate. You simply cannot be taken seriously since you only acknowledge half of reality & deny the other half exists.

  46. Richard – I post the links because I want to hear your response to them. I’m sorry it needles you, though, I won’t do it again.

    Now, your shifting of the goalposts is extraordinary.

    First we have this:

    “Why is suicide bombing a more heinous method of killing than shooting as so many Jewish terrorists have done to their Arab victims? Baruch Goldstein was actually a Jewish suicide mass murderer.”

    Becomes this: “Maybe not as many attacks as spectacular as his, but there have been literally scores of lethal attacks on Arabs (& Jews) by Jews over the years. The most devastating being the Rabin assassination. And that’s leaving aside lethal attacks by the IDF which kill Palestinian civilians.”

    Becomes this: “And let’s include not only lethal attacks since settlers haven’t yet attempted to duplicate Baruch Goldstein’s feat of mass murder. Let’s include attacks of near mass murder like the one of Hebron last week.”

    That speaks for itself.

  47. Dear Richard–

    One of the Jews tortured and murdered was Mexican, another was American. Why Couldn’t a third one have been you or a loved one of yours?

    Regards,

    Inna

  48. @Inna: You’re missing my pt & I’ve pretty much given up hope that people w. views like yours ever will get it.

    As far as I know, everyone killed was either an Israeli national or had dual citizenship. But the point isn’t that there was anything that made killing Jews OK. The pt. is that the terrorists didn’t kill out of a desire to foment an anti-Jewish holy war. They killed because of their solidarity with the Palestinians. Still wrong. Still reprehensible. But a diff. motivation.

  49. Well I think I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt here. Having looked back at what you said originally, I don’t think you were suggesting that Jews have carried out an equivalent number of terrorist attacks on Muslims as Muslims have against Jews. Correct me if I’m wrong, though.

    I would, however, appreciate an answer to the question raised by an earlier poster: why do you feel so comfortable hurling around the Islamaphobic epithet (the latest being on your latest post), but when someone guns down Jews (all with differing relations with Israel etc), you don’t call them anti-Semites? It would help if your answer was more sophisticated than repeating the liturgy of the line in the Times of India article about the surviving terrorist.

  50. Richard Silverstein, your use of the phrase “Jewish Jihadi” is islamophobic because it uses the word “Jihadi” specifically in the sense of “violent, hateful” as you say:

    “Jewish jihadi” only demeans those Jews who hold hateful, violent views antagonistic toward Islam.

    I would suggest that this means that you hold hateful, violent views antagonistic toward Islam. Many muslims will be offended by your use of this term. Furthermore, to apply this term carte blanche to those Jews with whom you disagree is evidence of your intolerance and demonstrates a tendency towards baseless hatred.

    On another point, how did killing indians, americans and britons express the solidarity of the Mumbai murderers with palestinians? How can you possibly suggest that indiscriminate murder is related to any form of human solidarity?

  51. @Alex Stein: No, I’m not saying there have been an equal number of lethal attacks by Jews on Arabs as Arabs on Jews. After all, there are so many more Arabs & Muslims than Jews. But I am saying that you simply cannot claim either that Jews don’t generally kill Arabs & we are therefore somehow superior while their religion is sick, twisted, hateful, etc.; or that if Jews do kill Arabs, there is something qualitatively diff. that makes Arab/Muslim terror more heinous. Both Jews & Muslims kill the other. And when both do it it’s reprehensible. Period.

    I think I’ve already answered the question but I’ll repeat myself. Because it is important to me that we not lapse into what I call Jewish jihadiism. The attractive proposition that Muslims are evil. That they want nothing more than to kill us all. That the only solution is to eradicate any Muslim who threatens us.

    I’m much more afraid of global jihad than my opponents. And by this term I don’t only mean the Islamists. I mean the Christian Zionists like John Hagee, the Hebron settlers, the right wing Israeli uber nationalists and transferists like Lieberman. All of them remind me Slim Pickens riding that A-bomb down to its Russian target in Dr. Strangelove. They’ll be only too happy to see a violent, defintive showdown bet. “our side” & theirs in which our side achieves a final victory. That would be a disaster of unmitigated proportions.

    That’s why to me it matters what a terrorists’ motive was.

  52. I just want to distinguish between the claims you’ve raised above, and the claims I’ve made (although I’m aware that you’re not ascribing them all to me).

    I agree that terror is reprehensible, period. I also don’t believe that Muslims are evil, or that they want nothing more than to kill us all, or that we should eradicate any Muslim who threatens us.

    I do, however, think it reasonable to call an attack in which armed terrorists walk into a Jewish community centre and kill a number of Jews from different walks of life and different political perspectives vis-a-vis Israel, anti-Semitic, even if we do take into account the explanation offered us by the sole surviving terrorist.

  53. @J.R.: You’re completely off your rocker. Do you think your solipsism and cuteness is persuasive to anyone but yrself??? Lord preserve & defend us from those non-Muslims who claim to be so learned that they can teach us their bent understanding of the culture & religion.

    You know the term jihadi has, as I said, many meanings. One of them IS a struggle, possibly including violence, in which Islam surmounts its enemies. Another is an inner spiritual struggle. There is no single correct meaning for the term and both are permissible.

    Besides, I am talking about JEWISH jihadis, not Muslim jihadis. So yr inane notion that a Muslim will be offended because I’ve criticized Jews for sharing similar extremist outlook to Islamists is ridiculous.

    The idea that I hold “hateful” views toward Islam is so far outside reality of any normal person as to make me believe you’re beaming yrself down from another planet somewhere in the outlying solar system. What are you on about?

    I don’t apply the term Jewish jihadi to ALL Jews with whom I disagree. I only apply it to those who are prepared to fight a global religious war with Islam; or who believe the only way to solve the I-P conflict is with a crushing military victory over the Palestinians.

    Baseless hatred?? Really. Tell me about the setttlers dancing on that Palestinian home trying to burn it down with 20 innocent souls inside. When you’ve denounced that then we can talk about MY baseless hatred.

    how did killing indians, americans and britons express the solidarity of the Mumbai murderers with palestinians?

    Because they said that was their purpose. That’s why.

    I’m so disgusted by yr inanity that I’m moderating yr future comments. Get off this topic and write about something else or any future comments won’t see the light of day.

  54. Jihadi is not really an Arabic or Islamic term in the way we use it in English. Someone taking part in a holy war is a mujahhid.

    That said, the Lubavitcher organization in Israel is highly political and generally allied with the most racist anti-Arab parties.

    I have the impression from my interactions with various Chabad Houses that Israeli intelligence agents often use them for their own purposes.

    Yehuda Krinsky and the Crown Heights Lubavitcher leadership have a lot of responsibility for the tragedy at the Chabad Nariman House.

    Chabad Lubavitch’ Dangerous Game is my blog entry on the subject.

  55. Joachim Martillo, in your linked piece you say: “One can easily imagine that Neocon intelligentsia trying to develop a relationship with Hindutva intelligentsia or politicians might have used the Chabad Nariman House as a meeting place.”

    You can imagine what you like but your comment is utterly without any foundation in reality. Do you think that the terrorists were looking for ‘neocon intelligentsia’, whatever that is, in the Chabad house? Or do you wish to incite terrorists to do so in the future? A disgraceful piece of hate propaganda.

  56. Richard, you actually wrote: “THis is ludicrous. I’ve pointed out to you scores of attacks by Jews (that is Israelis) against Palestinians.”

    Given your lack of distinction here between Jew and Israeli, what on earth can we expect from terrorists in the way of distinction between Jews and Israelis?

    (For the avoidance of doubt, I am NOT claiming that they sit and read your blog whilst at Terrrorist Training Camp – merely that if thats how even you see it, how on earth can we expect terrorists to see it any differently?)

  57. “Given your lack of distinction here between Jew and Israeli, what on earth can we expect from terrorists in the way of distinction between Jews and Israelis? ”

    Mark Gardner, Richard doesn’t get it. He will never get it.

    He needs and equivalence between Jews and Muslim Jihadists. How else will he feel superior to us Yids?

  58. Reply to J. R.’s comment.

    At various Chabad Houses, I have run into Israeli government and military personnel that were probably intelligence agents — I have a fairly good sense of such people because I worked with the Israeli military industrial complex in the late 80s and early 90s.

    Providing space to such people alone makes Chabad Houses targets, but as I keep pointing out, in Israel Chabad allies itself with the most vicious most racist anti-Arab, anti-Muslim and anti-Gentile political parties.

    Chabad’s politics also makes it a target.

    As for Neocon intelligentsia, if you don’t have a clue, pick up Heilbrunn’s They Knew They Were Right.

    Otherwise, you a simply completely intellectually dishonest and not worth a discussion.

    If you have been asleep for the last eight years, Neocons have been manipulating the US government into incinerating Arab and Muslim countries since shortly after Bush took office.

    Jews really have a duty to the USA to denounce Neocons and demand their arrest and prosecution. It is in Jewish best interest because Neocon ideology, influence, and activities as a Jewish special interest makes all Jews targets unless American Jews start disassociating themselves from Neoconservatism pronto.

  59. Thanks for deleting my post. I expected nothing less from someone who loves the posts of the antisemite and Holocaust justifier Joachim Martillo and Philip Weiss who spent his time telling people that Norman Mailer was not a Jews.

    Your choice of freinds tells people all we need to know about you.

    You are not even a good snake oil salesman. Your oil is just polluted water.

  60. @shriber: I allow Joachim Martillo to post comments here just as I allow you to do so. If you disagree w. something he says you’re free to say so. I do not “love” his “posts.” I may’ve linked to his blog once among the nearly 3,000 posts I’ve written. But he has as much right to be here as you do.

    As for Phil, I don’t know what you’re on about & have no idea what’s bothering you.

    And as for earning your enmity, I’m proud to have done so. I can presently think of few people who I’m happier I sit opposite politically & Jewishly.

    If you want your posts to be published and not deleted, then read the comment rules & respect them. If you don’t, they won’t see the light of day.

  61. “And as for earning your enmity, I’m proud to have done so. I can presently think of few people who I’m happier I sit opposite politically & Jewishly.”

    My enmity toward you is not political as you have no politics and it’s nor “Jewishly” whatever that mean to you, since are not enough of a Jew for me to oppose on those grounds.

    I oppose your self serving narcissism as well as your vileness as a human being.

  62. Joachim Martillo, you say you met “Israeli government and military personnel that were probably intelligence agents”. Probably? Well, who actually were they? Government? Miltary? Intelligence? Using the Chabad for a sinister purpose? Complete fantasy and a typical extremist smear. To suggest Chabad made itself a target demonstrates that you are simply a hate-peddler.

  63. Joachim Martillo, regarding neocons: if I am to understand your statement about neocons meeting in the Chabad house, are you suggesting that Rumsfeld hangs out in Nariman House? Was Dick Cheney there? If you use a term like ‘neocon’ in this way you need to think about what it actually means. “Neocons have been manipulating the US government into incinerating Arab and Muslim countries” – well what has this got to do with Israel, which opposed the Iraq war, (rightly in my opinion) and certainly didn’t have an axe to grind in Afghanistan. If you mix the crimes of US foreign policy up with your Jew-hate you end up with meaningless paranoid conspiracy stuff like your contributions here.

  64. If Richard Silverstein and I agreed on everything, I would not bother to read his blog or comment on it.

    As for the comment: “Given your lack of distinction here between Jew and Israeli, what on earth can we expect from terrorists in the way of distinction between Jews and Israelis?,” do not Zionist ideology, Israel advocates, and the official statements of the Israeli government conciously attempt to blur this distinction?

    They all talk about the Jewish people and its right to Eretz Israel. They almost never use the term Israeli people, and declare Israel is the State of the Jewish people and not of the Israeli people.

    See an example in Baltimore Zionism Seeks New Meaning.

    Take a look at No Tolerance For Anti-Zionist In Madrid.

    Jewish leaders invited to the conference had also threatened to boycott it if Weiss — who gained notoriety by speaking at a Holocaust denial conference in Tehran two years ago — were invited to speak in Madrid. Organizers of this week’s conference finally announced that Rabbi Weiss would not be among the speakers, and had decided not to attend the conference. He was replaced as principal Jewish speaker by Rabbi Arthur Schneier, spiritual leader of Park East Synagogue in Manhattan and founder of the interfaith Appeal of Conscience Foundation.

    No group makes a bigger distinction between Israel and Judaism than Neturei Karta. Not did Schneier insist that Weiss not speak, but Dr. Sayyid Syeed, national director of the Islamic Society of North America, showed complete Zionist mental colonization, groveled to Schneier and accepted an effective equation of Judaism and Israel.

    So stop criticizing the equation of Israeli and Jewish when Zionists freak at Jews that are most insistant on differentiating between Jewish and Israeli.

  65. Richard Silverstein, does your comment of December 12th, 2008 at 9:51 pm mean that you only permit yourself to use invective against commenters? I await your moderation with interest.

  66. @J.R.: I VERY RARELY call anyone here a vile human being. The only times I’ve done it were with people who advocated sending Ehud Olmert to the gallows. This is not garden variety invective for me as it appears to be for Shriber. There was absolutely no justification for his insult other than pure pique.

  67. Well Richard, I note that you said I am completely off my rocker, have a bent understanding of Islam, come from another planet, and that you are disgusted by my inanity. None of which is really necessary unless you find it difficult to deal with being challenged.

    I don’t know if you are a vile human being but I do find your opinion that the Mumbai terrorists committed the atrocity because of Israel to be vile. Specifically you said in reply to my question that you consider the murder of indians, americans and britons was because of Israel “Because they [the terrorists(s)] said that was their purpose.”. Others think that the murder of Indians is related to the long-standing conflict between India and Pakistan over Kashmir. The murder of westerners is a feature of violent islamic terrorism that goes back a long time before 9/11, unfortunately.

    I think that you are demonising Israel by the simple formula that says: really bad things happen because of Israel so Israel must be really bad. You demonise Israel by promoting Israel as the single cause of all the hatred that motivates these appalling acts of violence. And you demonstrate a dangerous naivety by failing to understand the nature of terrorism: its organisation, motivation and purpose. The rationale of terrorism is to increase terror in the civilian population and to increase state activities (state repression, or in this case perhaps war between India and Pakistan) that will then engender more hatred and fuel the vicious cycle of terror. The terrorists strategy is to increase instability until a tipping point is reached. Clearly in Pakistan the tipping point is dangerously close. The all-too-frequent carnage of suicide murder in Pakistan, which I am sure you will agree is not connected to Israel, is another facet of this evil strategy.

    Hatred of Israel/Zionism/Jews is an important motivator for the terrorist operatives. Those who organise this terrorism use Jews as the ideal receptacle of negative projection in a way that is entirely consonant with traditional anti-Semitism.

    I think you would do well to consider this rather than taking the propaganda of terrorists at face value. And also bear in mind the feelings of the relatives of the victims. And I would also suggest that the comments of Mr Martillo, which verge on incitement, are a very dubious contribution to ‘tikun olam’.

  68. @J.R.:

    I do find your opinion that the Mumbai terrorists committed the atrocity because of Israel to be vile.

    It’s not my OPINION. It’s actual fact as stated by one of the terrorists who I was merely quoting. If you find an actual witness’ testimony as to his motivation to be wrong then you’d either have to be one of his fellow terrorists, a senior member of Lashkar or else clarivoyant. Which is it?

    you said in reply to my question that you consider the murder of indians, americans and britons was because of Israel

    No, not what I said. The terrorist who attacked CHABAD HOUSE said his motivation was to avenge Palestinian suffering.

    If you’d bothered to read my statements you’d have read my clear acknowledgement that the other attacks were in revenge for India’s treatment of Kashmir.

    you demonstrate a dangerous naivety by failing to understand the nature of terrorism

    Where did you receive your special anti-terrorism training allowing you to penetrate the secrets of the terrorist mind? The CIA? Army War College? Shin Bet?

    Hatred of Israel/Zionism/Jews is an important motivator for the terrorist operatives.

    Just as hatred of Palestinians is an important motivator for Jewish terror operatives.

    But actually I do agree w. much of what you said about the purpose of terror.

    The terrorists strategy is to increase instability until a tipping point is reached.

    This actually reminds me of the strategy of the extremist settlers. What is “price tag” if not this?

  69. Alex Stein, – and to a lesser extent – Mark Gardner:
    Why on earth do you engage in purported sincere dialogue with someone who:

    1. seemingly cannot even master the English language˙[see R.S.’s spelling “their” (sic!) when obviously intended to write “THERE” – as this was brilliantly uncovered by Petra]
    2. Jewish anti-Semites [see working definition of the European Union as such…] – in my book subhuman Jewish Nazis like this person – whatever these idiots like him would depict others – let him rant and rave – who is this stinkin’ asshole – in spite of being a native English speaker, he cannot even use English correctly – and I am NOT a native English speaker…

  70. @Gábor Fränkl, (30) freelance journalist Budapest, Hungary Central-Europe:
    All hail Gabor Frankl and all those linguistic sleuths who’ve uncovered all the sins I’ve committed against the English language by mistaking “their” for “there.” This signals the impoverishment of the right-wing Jewish assault. Petra the Pitiful & all her Jewish Conan Doyle’s have unmasked me for the Arab-loving, unlettered English speaker that I am. I’ll simpy have to retire from the field with my tail between my legs.

    BTW, neither Petra nor Gabor have ever made a typo in their lives because they’re simply far superior human beings that the rest of us illiterate progressives who can’t speak the King’s English.

    Does it tell you something when Petra, Gabor and Alex Stein each feel the need to write “sic” after my mistake & point it out to the world as if this is a game in which they score points for detecting my mistakes.

    And thanks Gaby for the Jewish anti-Semite thing. It’s only been tried here about 30-40 times before. You’re quite original I must say. Major violation of my comment rules though & you’ve already been banned. Come back when you’ve been house-trained & know something about the rules of derech eretz (common decency).

    And the “stinkin’ asshole” thing…that’s brilliant invective too. Really original.

  71. Richard – before you start lumping me in with Petra and Gabor, I should point out that it’s fairly standard practice to put ‘sic’ after an error in a quoted piece of text. If I wanted to spend my time pointing out your grammatical errors, I really wouldn’t get any work done.

  72. @Alex Stein: Actually, “it’s fairly standard practice” in political discourse to add “sic”s when someone whose views you oppose makes grammatical, typographical or linguistic errors of one kind or another. It generally indicates a certain level of hostility to the person whose error you’re pointing out or at least to their ideas. Though yes, there may be instances in which academics and the like insert “sic”s without indicating any judgment on the text on which they’re commenting. That was not the case here, I believe.

    The fact that you’ve inferred that my work is riddled with grammatical errors is a snarky comment which merely confirms what I wrote above though I know you thought it was witty & cute.

  73. @Alex Stein: I actually didn’t mind what you did as much as I minded what the other a(&%#)e did along w. Petra. The only attention you drew to the typo was the “sic.” Frankl tried to make a federal case out of it, which annoyed me no end.

    I didn’t say you did it because you wanted to ridicule me. That’s too strong a statement. You did it because you wanted to point out that I make mistakes.

    Personally, I only use “sic” when a commenter has made many errors in a comment AND the errors and the argument are annoying the hell out of me. I never use “sic” when someone has made a single error and esp. not when it’s clearly a typo rather than a more serious error. That’s why I added yr name to the other 2 in my comment. I thought it was a bit of a cheap shot. But I never would’ve brought it up unless Ol’ Gaby hadn’t jumped on it.

    Clearly that little typo is the shot heard round the pro-Israel world.

  74. I think I’ve got confused: is your whole thesis that this is solely an anti-Israeli attack based on the phone conversation with the terrorist in Chabad House, or with the testimony of the surviving terrorist?

  75. @Alex Stein: I think I see where the confusion crept in & perhaps it IS my fault. The surviving terrorist, who was not at Chabad House, told police that the attack was meant to avenge Palestinian suffering. The Forward article about the Indian Jew who stayed on the phone for several hours with the Chabad House attacker only indicated that the latter wanted to talk to Indian officials about his demands. The article didn’t indicate that he made anti-Semitic statements.

  76. I spent more than a decade in working in Arab and Muslim countries. I also concentrated in Jewish studies at Harvard until I realized that the permissible range of opinion did not really correspond to the facts.

    Late 19th and early 20th century anti-Semitism was invariably distinguished from so-called traditional Judeophobia by the inclusion of biological determinist or of social Darwinist ideas.

    Depending on where in the Muslim world one researches the issue, one will find the equation of Zionism to French colonialism in Algeria, Indian oppression in Kashmir or Russian exansionism into the Caucasus and Central Asia. If one speaks with an Arab or Muslim educated in the USa, he or she may use Southern Slavery as the comparison point.

    Arab and Muslim hatred toward Zionism, the State of Israel and non-Israeli supporters of Zionism or the State of Israel really has little or no similarity to the anti-Semitism of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.

    As for my discussion of Lubavitcher politics, you can find it discussed even more harshly in most mainstream Israeli politics while the antics of American Jewish groups and ISNA at the recent Saudi interfaith conference were fully covered in the American Jewish Press.

    If mentioning such material is incitement, then stating the facts is — as I have argued in the past — a form of anti-Semitism in the minds of a certain class of Israel-supporters.

    In my blog entry Kovel Pulls No Punches I list some of the comments withn Kovel’s book Overcoming Zionism that occasioned charges of anti-Semitism especially from StandWithUs. These statements have no counterparts in the lore of modern anti-Semitism.

    After reading The Resurgence of Anti-Semitism: Jews, Israel and Liberal Opinion by Bernard Harrison, I sent the author the email contained in Last Word on Anti-Semitism.

    Because it was written in anger and haste, it does not fully reflect my position, which primarily criticizes Zionism for the damage that the Israel Lobby has inflicted on the American political system.

    Yet, the letter does contain my view of anti-Semitism after 6 years at Harvard and Yale where I studied modern Jewish and E. European history as well as effectively 15 years of field work in Eastern Europe, the territories of the former Soviet Union, the Middle East, and SE Asia while I sold telecommunications and computer networking equipment and software in the aforementioned geographic regions.

  77. Joachim Martillo, your allegation that a Chabad house might be used by ‘neocon Intelligentsia’ [sic] for a nefarious purpose is in line with the hatred myth motivating the attackers, that there is a ‘US-Zionist’ plot to attack Pakistan. This allegation, which you yourself admit is a product of your imagination, is tantamount to inciting attacks on Chabad. In short, you produced an anti-Semitic libel. Do you think that the internet hasn’t got enough of these?

  78. Silverstein, why do you attack my point about terrorism and then agree with it? Do you argue with yourself? The structure of terrorism and terrorist organisations is very well understood and you don’t need to be in the CIA to know about it. Terrorist foot soldiers are motivated by hate myths about Jews. Don’t feed these myths please. And what are “Jewish terror operatives”? You want to make out Jews are as bad as the terrorists; this isn’t tikun olam. It is God forbid ‘chillul haShem’.

  79. Now regarding the vexed issue of Islamophobia. Richard Silverstein, please review the statement of the Organisation of The Islamic Conference – http://www.oic-oci.org/oicnew/topic_detail.asp?t_id=1666. Regardless of the fact that the OIC is an organisation of islamic states and promotes the interests of those states, please note that the self-image of Islam portrayed here is not one that is compatible with the pejorative use of the word “Jihadi” above. You need to be aware that this usage is
    1. in conflict with a normative view of Islam and of Jihad amongst muslims
    2. deals insensitively with what may be a cognitive dissonance within Islam which as an outsider you might be well advised to treat with more sensitivity.

    Now you may just respond to this by telling me that I am an idiot and don’t know what I am talking about; frankly that’s not of any interest and I’m not going to get into some discussion about my experience of interfaith etc. I just hope that you take the point on board and it enables you to find a better way to write about this subject in the future.

  80. I find the whole brouhaha about whether the attack was “anti-Semitic” of “anti-Israeli” totally unnecessary. Basically, it seems to me, Stein vs Silverstein disagreement is a problem of terminology, not of real difference of opinion.
    What does it mean that the attack was “anti-Semitic”, Alex? Does it mean, as Joachim aptly notes above, that the Mumbai terrorists subscribed to the “so-called traditional Judeophobia”? Of course not! To believe that Mumbai terrorists hated Jews for the same reasons as people in Europe did for centuries (and these were manifold) is totally absurd. Of course association of Jews with Israel was the core of their anti-Semitism. The reason it can still be called “anti-Semitism” (a term arguably inaccurate but too ingrained by now) is that their did not differentiate in their hate between Jews, i.e., their hostility was to all Jews, not necessarily connected to Israel in any way.
    So, if Alex tries to score points by connecting the Mumbai attacks to some sort of “clash of civilizations” notion, then he is wrong: without the Israel-Palestinian conflict, any reasonable person would agree that the terrorists would never have thought of attacking a Jewish target. On the other hand, it is only natural, apparently, to be hostile to entire groups of people by association, in which case we do have to admit that there exists a new form of anti-Semitism in the world today, and this is primarily inspired by the Israeli-Palestinian (and Israeli-Arab) conflict.
    And, of course, as Richard and other great souls in the the truely progressive Jewish blogosphere tirelessly document, the same conflict gave birth to no less vile phenomenon of anti-Arabism and Islamophobia amoung Jews.

  81. Peter D – Good points. I’d moderate what you said slightly by stating that wihtout Israel they might not have thought of attacking a Jewish target. You are right in saying that they weren’t motivated by classically European forms of anti-Semitism, but I don’t know how that helps us. Once they’ve made the decision to attack a solely Jewish target, th they’ve crossed another red line. I don’t agree that hostility to people by association is inevitable, either, and in that regard I’d refer you to the African-shooting Mugabe hater hypothesised somewhere over here or on CIF. I’m neither trying to score points nor trying to talk about a clash of civilisations; I’m not interested in the former and I don’t believe in the existence of the latter. If Mumbai (and indeed Hebron) do show us one thing, it’s the spilling over of political violence (which, theoretically, can be dealt with by ‘draining the swamp’) into outright racism (at least in act if not in stated motivation), which can’t necessarily be controlled by recourse to rationalism. It’s also important to note that these ‘great souls’ are happy to (rightly) dismiss anti-Arabism and Islamaphobia as racism, but will constantly explain away anti-Semitism in the Arab world as a mere consequence of Israeli oppression of Palestinians.

  82. Alex, so, we agree on most point. However, I never thought much of your Mugabe analogy. It is too far-fetched and I don’t see how it could elucidate anything in this discussion. Are you trying to claim that there is something so special about hatred of Jews that it does not translate into hatred of other ethnicities or races or religions? I don’t see a difference between a Jew killed for being a Jew or an Armenian killed for being an Armenian or a Shiite killed for being a Shiite and so on.

  83. Well, it was never my analogy. In any case, as far-fetched as it may be, if a white person killed Africans and claimed he did it because of Mugabe’s land reform legislation (which primarily targeted white farmers) everyone would still recognise the act to be a racist one. What’s the difference here?

  84. Jew-hate is a form of racism, and Israel-hate is a new manifestation of racism that is related to Jew-hate. What makes Jew-hate distinct from other racisms is its history; muslim extremist Jew-hate/Israel-hate (the two overlap and are often indistinct) has historical roots in european fascism and nationalism. So the ding-dong above about who the murderers hated is not very interesting. To make it simpler for the anti-Zionist sophists: hatred of Israel/Israelis is a form of irrational hatred like other forms of racism and it is an evil and pernicious influence in the world today that is cynically manipulated by nihilists who are pursuing an agenda that is contrary to the interests of progressive societies. The claim that it is distinct from hatred of Jews has often shown to be false; and this distinction is irrelevant. Unless you believe that some Jews deserve to die because of who they are (bad Jews). Which makes you a bad homo sapiens.

  85. In my comment I linked to my blog entry Chabad Lubavitch’ Dangerous Game, in which I tried to make it clear that Chabad is involved in a sort of politics and corruption that sends people gunning for the organization. This hostility has no or very little connection to Judaism.

    I did not even mention the nursing home scandals of two decades ago. Corruption and vicious politics have characterized Chabad for a long time.

  86. Alex, maybe. Again, the situation is such a hypothetical one that I right now can’t find the mental resource to care one way or another. So, suppose we agree that Mumbai terrorists were anti-Semites, racists, whatever. How does that change anything? Same question to you, Richard. So what if their hatred of Jews is inspired by Israel’s actions? Should we be scoring any point from that? I mean, the same Israel’s actions are wrong regardless of whether some lunatics decide to kill people “because of them”, just as these killings are indefensible regardless of whatever twisted motivation.

  87. Well – for one thing, it means that we can’t just solve the problem of Islamic terrorism by solving Israel-Palestine (although obviously we should endeavour to solve that in any case, regardless of the externals).

  88. I don’t remember reading Richard saying we will “solve the problem of Islamic terrorism by solving Israel-Palestine” – if anything, he says – and I concur – is that it (a) will take some of the fuel from the flame and (b) that the phrase “Islamic terrorism” itself is largely a chimera – a convenient image to scare us into believing that Hamas and Mumbai terrorists, for example, are all the same, while in reality each case is to its own, its own unique motivations. You say you don’t subscribe to the notion of the “clash of civilizations” but the catch-all phrase of “Islamic terrorism” comes from basically the same book.
    Finally, I reject the notion that we need to “solve Israel-Palestine” in order to solve anything but the abomination of the situation in Israel-Palestine itself. (It is like saying that we need to fight poverty so that poor people have less motivation to steal and not because poverty is a bad thing in itself.) All the rest is distraction, equivocation, rationalization etc.

  89. You argue that solving Israel-Palestine will take some of the fuel from the flame (I agree), yet you also say you reject the notion that we need to solve Israel-Palestine in order to solve anything “but the abomination of the situation in Israel-Palestine itself.” Which is it?
    Just because I use the shorthand Islamic terrorism, it doesn’t mean I accept that Hamas and Lashkar-e-Taiba, for example, are the same. I’ve never made that claim. But I’d also say it’s naive – as Richard seems to do on some occasions – to reduce Hamas to a movements with purely political demands, or demands that have only been forged in the fires of a nationalist conflict. Again, no doubt Israel bears some responsibility for all this, but that doesn’t alter its current reality, nor does it make Israel the only party capable of dealing with it now.

  90. Re: your first point, I’ll clarify: “taking fuel from the flame” would be a nice side-effect but should never be the primary motivation in this case. That’s what I meant.
    Re: your second point, I don’t think RS would argue with that either. Nor would I. But while we have little influence on Palestinian internal politics, our main influence and responsibility lies with our own and that’s why RS doesn’t spend hours promoting peaceful ideas on Islamist forums or whatever.

  91. @J.R.: I agree with yr GENERAL comments about terror. But you are completely & unsurprisingly myopic in refusing to concede that Jews can be & are terrorists as well. This in effect cancels any insight you might have into the general issues surrounding terror.

    I deeply resent your calling my naming of Jews as terrorist as hillul hashem & if you use that term again in this context you will no longer be welcome here. That is a deeply hateful calumny against me. Jews are terrorists. Not all Jews. But some are. Yr refusal to acknowledge this renders you a rather pathetic apologist rather than a dispassionate observer of terror.

  92. @J.R.: Really, this is beyond stupid. You found one Muslim source which purports to support yr notion that jihad cannot be used in Islam to denote physical struggle. Big deal. I can point to 20 that confirm my interpretation. What does this prove?

    This argument over the meaning of jihad is over. Get off this topic. Any further posting on this will not be published.

  93. @J.R.: Typically, you’ll see that J.R. is obsessed by Jew-hatred, but has no awareness or acknowledgement that Jews & Israelis are no less infected with this disease. And to say it is irrational is foolish. It may appear pathological or insane or whatever. But it has a basis in reality. There are concrete, real ways to diminish such hatred which I’ve mentioned repetitively here. I am not in any way justifying terror or hatred. But there are rational ways of draining the swamp so that the infestation will end.

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