Below I will explain clearly why I’m posting this link to Iowahawk’s latest satirical new item “We Didn’t Get the Memo About Obama”. Iowahawk has the sole surviving Mumbai terrorist blaming their savage slaughter on not learning in time that Obama was the president of the US.

“Jeez, I’m… I don’t know, I just never got any kind of memo,” said Kasab. “The ironic thing is that just the other day, when we were ritually shaving our testicles for final martyrdom, a bunch of us were talking about how great and symbolic it would be if the American infidels would only elect an handsome, articulate young African-American infidel. That way we could just lay down the suicide belts and scimitars and suitcase nukes and finally get involved in the positive aspects of community activism, like raising awareness for breast cancer research. Look, I know it’s a cliche to point fingers at the IT department, but our email system really sucks. And it’s hard to find a decent wi-fi hot spot in Northwest Pakistan.”

I’ve been deeply affected by what has happened in Mumbai. First of all I’m a life loving human so on that level, as a real human (even one often falsely flagged as right wing) I can’t help being shocked even while knowing this will happen again and again. The cries of Moshe are just too much to take.

I’m posting this link to Iowahawk because it is damned clever satire and it so beautifully makes a simple point: its not about Bush, or Iraq or even Palestine or Kashmir. Its the Jihad. The same 1400 year Jihad all infidels are condemned to fight for ever by the words and deeds of Muhammad as reported and believed by (presently) more than a billion Muslims.

It shows no sign of stopping anytime soon, though it could be made slightly better if we fought back with shows of strength and stopped paying them to kill us with our energy Jizya payments.

There is no reason to blame anybody or anything except the terrorists who commit these acts and the ideology disguised as a religion that commands them to do it. The fact that many Muslims don’t support violent Jihad is “nice” but its not enough. They should have to fight against their fellow Muslims or they too are supports of the killers of pregnant mothers and little girls. Any support of the aims of Jihad (converting everyone to Islam) is equally repugnant.

And finally, if you’re interested in hearing a song about this (no, really) try listening to “It’s Just an Excuse” by Weapon of Musical Defense. You can listen to the whole song streaming on their new web site or buy their album. It might be something you can use to inform others if you’ve already understood this.

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When Richard Silverstein sees the images of newly orphaned Moshe Holtzberg, whose parents were brutally murdered by terrorists last week, he is moved.

Moved to criticize the terrorists and Chabad in the same breath.

http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2008/12/02/moshe-holtzberg-...

The sound and sight of little Moshe Holtzberg wailing Ima, ima (”Mommy, mommy”), repeatedly during his parent’s funeral service in Mumbai will lacerate our hearts for a long time. I even hesitated before featuring this image since poor Moshe has, from the beginning, been a pawn in the game of far more powerful forces than himself or his family. First the terrorists, who wrenched his parents from him. Then Chabad, which allowed these images to be taken. I say let Moshe become an ordinary boy again (if this is indeed ever possible). Let’s not turn him into a poster child for any particular cause or ideology.

Funny, but I thought Silverstein had rather liberal views regarding the dissemination of images.

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As an undergrad, I wrote my thesis on the immigration and business patterns of Gujaratis (especially in the US as a way to re-imagine ethnic entrepreneurial niches). Gujarat shares the West Coast of India with a few other provinces including Maharastra (home to Mumbai) and Kerala (home to Cochin and most of India’s native Jews and Christians). As a result of that research, I got the chance to read a fair amount about the long history of Indian Christians and Jews. All this to say, the history is fascinating and there is a great (brief but deep) synopsis of the two thousand year old story in a recent New Republic article. Here is a particularly intense passage:

“The Indian Jewish identity is the only one that hasn’t been created by persecution,” he said. “We’ve never felt scared. This is the first time we’ve been made to feel like Jews.” That, to me, has been among the most tragic casualties of this terrorist attack. In a barrage of grenades and bullets, a part of the Indian dream that’s 2,500 years old has now been buried in a pile of bloody concrete shards.

Check out the story and I hope you’ll share my interest and wonder whiter Indian Jewry.

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by Reb Akiva at Mystical Paths

Just some initial thoughts after attending the funeral of the holy martyrs Rabbi Gavriel & Rebbitzen Rivka Holtzberg, hy"m (may Hashem avenge their blood).

On a hot clear day in the Holy Land of Israel, 10,000 Chabad chassidim and other Jews of all stripes gathered to pay their final respects to two holy souls who gave their lives for Torah, Judaism, Chassidut, and for Ahavat Yisroel - HELPING THEIR FELLOW.

Some might think that the Rabbi and Rebbitzen never planned to actually give up their lives for the ideals of doing good for others and connecting every Jew to Hashem and His mitzvot - but actually they did. They left a comfortable Western life to go to a foreign land. They gave all their time every day, from morning till night, to serve others. They gave their days and weeks and months, and in the end, their lives.

For being good. For doing good. For helping people. For keeping an open door.

Hashem, Ad Mosai! Thoughts still too painful, wound too fresh. We are used to soldiers falling in physical battle. It's terrible, but soldiers die. We are not used to it in spiritual battle. May we not need to get used to it.

Photo Slideshow - Here.

The crowd

The press

The eulogies, the bodies wrapped for burial to the left

Some came from India, both Jews who have visited and locals

L'Zecher Nishmas, In Memory Of


Published at Mystical Paths, MPaths.com. Reading it somewhere else? Stop by the source!

I assume they meant “Say no to terrorism,” but given they are from a Hizbullah-funded school, methinks they really are all for it.

Previously: Now There’s an Idea

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The Washington Post reports that the bipartisan Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism has issued a draft of their upcoming conclusions, which the paper has obtained a copy of.

In that report which was ordered by Congress last year, it states the odds are "better than even" that a major Nuclear or biological attack will occur somewhere by 2013.

The odds that terrorists will soon strike a major city with weapons of mass destruction are now better than even, a bipartisan congressionally mandated task force concludes in a draft study that warns of growing threats from rogue states, nuclear smuggling networks and the spread of atomic know-how in the developing world.

The sobering assessment of such threats, due for release as early as today, singled out Pakistan as a grave concern because of its terrorist networks, history of instability and arsenal of several dozen nuclear warheads. The report urged the incoming Obama administration to take "decisive action" to reduce the likelihood of a devastating attack.

Read the whole thing.

Now for a little amusement, NewsBusters catches a MSNBC anchor, Alex Witt, fretting because the electing of Obama didn't "damper" down terrorist attacks across the world.

ALEX WITT: You know, John, and it’s interesting because there are many who had such an optimstic and hopeful opinion of things, and you certainly can’t expect things to change [snaps fingers] on a dime overnight, but there are many who suggested that with the outgoing Bush administration and the incoming Obama administration there would be something of a lull in terrorism attacks. There had been such a global outpouring of affection, respect, hope, with the new administration coming in, that precisely these kinds of attacks, it was thought — at least hoped — would be dampered down. But in this case it looks like Barack Obama is getting a preview of things to come.

JOHN YANG: He’s — it’s a rude awakening, a very, sort of, sober reminder of what he’s going to be facing in just a few weeks. And there is some concern also, there had been some concern, that during this period, during this, the transition period, between Election Day and Inauguration Day, that the enemies of the United States, those who don’t care for the United States no matter who’s leading it, would try and test the United States, would try to take advantage of this period, and I think that may be one thing that we’re seeing right now.

Rich Noyes, who wrote the NewsBusters' report, gave me my first laugh this morning with his reaction to Witt's asinine remarks:

It almost seems like a parody of liberals’ blind worship of Obama to actually expect that The One’s election would mean terrorists hanging up their bomb belts, peace around the world, lions lying down with lambs, and so forth. For his part, Yang delicately pointed out the more valid concern that “the enemies of the United States, those who don’t care for the United States no matter who’s leading it, would try and test the United States” during the transition from Bush to Obama.

The more materials out there, the more the chance that, unlike in the India attack, one of the next attacks will not just be grenades, bombs and guns, but will instead be utilizing biological type weapons or heaven forbid nuclear.

It is not a matter of "if" it is going to happen, but of "when."

.

After previously claiming that the Mumbai Chabad House massacre was “a theatrical statement of hate” whose intended audience was India, with the attackers “cynically exploiting anti-Semitism in order to further inflame world opinion and curry favor with the Muslim jihadi set,” clueless blogger Richard Silverstein admits he may have been wrong.

Well, kind of:

http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2008/12/01/did-mumbai-terro...

Thanks to reader Alex Stein for forcing me to write a post I hate to write with every fiber of my being. An Indian news report claims that many of the Mumbai hostages were tortured before being killed and that the Chabad hostages were tortured most brutally of all. IF (and I stress “if” because stories like this must be confirmed and reconfirmed before they are accepted as truth) this story is true, it could set back Jewish-Muslim relations years if not decades. Not to mention, that it will further alienate Israeli Jews from believing it is possible to live in peace with the region’s Muslims.

Ya think?

Interestingly enough, Silverstein has a hard time understanding how the constant terrorist attacks on Israeli soil led many of us to this conclusion a long time ago. In fact, according to his worldview, anyone who has formed this conclusion is a bigot.

Further, if it is true, then I will have to withdraw my earlier claims that anti-Semitism was an ancillary part of the strategy involved in this attack. If the Jewish victims were tortured savagely, then it will lead me to believe that there are much stronger links to Al Qaeda than I previously believed. Until now, I’d never thought that Pakistani militants hated the west and Jews specifically as Al Qaeda does. I’d thought their cause was more locally-determined. If the news is correct, then I think Pakistan, India and the entire region have a much bigger problem on their hands then previously thought.

Notice how it is the possibility of torture that has led Silverstein to rethink things. Had the terrorists merely murdered the Jews without torturing them, he would not have revised his conclusion.

Finally, I would urge that when and if they find the mastermind of this attack that he should be tried before an international tribunal. The horror of these acts needs to be addressed not by the justice system of a single country, but by international justice. The world needs to universally condemn such brutalism.

Curiously, Silverstein has never shown such indignation towards the palestinian masterminds of terrorist attacks against Israelis.

I don’t wish to offer unsolicited advice to my Muslim readers, friends and others, but the Mumbai attack appears to have been done in the name of Kashmir, Palestine and Muslim suffering in general.

Now, much like after 9/11, it is critical that the world hear from sane Muslims that this is a way they reject utterly and absolutely. To do so does not mean that Muslims must renounce their criticism of, or grievances against conditions they face.  It means they must ostracize those who kill in the name of Islam or Muslim suffering.

Like Hamas for example?

I have been dedicated to Muslim-Jewish dialogue for many, many years.  This horrific story will not deter me from my commitment.  But it will set back all of our good work by so very much.  I simply cannot understand the bestial savagery that lurks in the human mind (and note I said “human” mind and not “Muslim” mind–since the beast lurks in all of us).

Finally, I want to again emphasize that Alex provided only a single Indian source to confirm the torture claim.  The Times of India, one of the nation’s most respected papers doesn’t mention this story [see UPDATE below].  Further, that news source does not name any of the doctors it quotes.  Unnamed sources in this situation should not be considered reliable.  Other previous elements of the Mumbai terror story were shown to be false on further investigation. It’s entirely possible that this claim too will prove false, though I fear it may not.  If anyone can confirm that this report is false, please let me know ASAP.

UPDATE: Thanks again to Alex for pointing me to this Times of India story that acknowledges the possibility of torture, but in a very preliminary and tentative way, unlike the Rediff story.

Notice how Silverstein is exacting such high standards of proof before he will accept as fact the torture story. Yet bring him the most flimsy hint of IDF or Jewish misdeed, and he’s all over it like a rash.

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Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, delivers his address at the memorial service for Rabbi Gavriel and Rivka Holtzberg at the Chabad House in Westwood California. Excerpts:

The world should be very clear – achieving martyrdom by killing innocent civilians is an abomination – it is a concept that desecrates religion, denigrates humankind, and defames G-d himself.

But it is not only the terrorists who bear the responsibility – it is the religious leaders who programmed them, inspired them, and sent them, who are equally culpable. Joseph Goebbels and Julius Streicher never killed anyone – but they were named as war criminals at Nuremberg because on a daily basis, they poisoned the minds of tens of millions of Germans. That is exactly what the Imams of the Islamic Fundamentalists do.

The world must not remain silent. We have the tools to at least do something. The United Nations must make suicide terror a priority. Why is it that the General Assembly can call special sessions on drug cartels, on AIDs, on disarmament, on apartheid – all crucial issues – but it has not yet called for a special session on the greatest crime of the 21st century – suicide terror?

Related:

1. Simon Weisenthal Center

2. Pictures: Tears of the two-year-old boy trapped in Mumbai Jewish centreas his parents were murdered.

3. Video: "Ask for Death". (Two 11 year olds explain how their fondest wish is to die for Allah).

4. Recent coverage of the Mumbai Attacks: Mumbai attack - Analysis and Comments by Mark Steyn, Bill Roggio, and others & Videos

5. Newsvine links aggregator- selected articles by tag: Anti-Semitism, India, Islamic Extremism, Terrorism, More videos.

6. New Site: "Recommended Videos"

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The bodies of the kedoshim (the holy ones) slaughtered at the Chabad House in Mumbai, India are soon to depart for their final journey to Israel.

UPDATED.

Funeral arrangements have been announced for the Chabad shluchim, Rabbi Gavriel & Rebbitzen Rivka Holtzberg, hy"m:

- The funeral will begin Tuesday, 1:00 PM Israel Standard Time, to begin in Kfar Chabad (Chabad Village outside of Lod) Israel, by the headquarters of Agudas Chassedi Chabad - 770 Kfar Chabad.

- The funeral will proceed to Har HaZeitim (the Mt. of Olives) in Jerusalem.

Rebbitzen Holtzberg's, hy"m parents have announced THEY WILL BE RETURNING TO INDIA to take over the Chabad shlichus (outreach work) of their daughter and son-in-law! They intend to rebuild the Mumbai Chabad House, and raise their orphaned grandson there to take over when he completes his education and is of age.

The orphan Moshe with his grandparents.

Published at Mystical Paths, MPaths.com. Reading it somewhere else? Stop by the source!

In an MSNBC report on some Muslim reactions to the Mumbai terrorist attacks:

Many Muslims said they are worried such carnage is besmirching their religion.

“The occupation of the synagogue and killing people in hotels tarnishes the Muslim faith,” said Kazim al-Muqdadi, a political science lecturer at Baghdad University. “Anyone who slaughters people and screams `Allahu Akbar’ (God is Great) is sick and ignorant.”

I would have thought the killing of people in aforementioned synagogue would also have tarnished the Muslim faith. But what do I know? I’m just a Jew.

And further on in the report:

“I think that Muslims should raise their voice against such actions. They should forge a coalition to fight such phenomena, because it harms them and damages their image,” said Ali Abdel Muhsen, 22, a Muslim engineering student in the West Bank city of Nablus.

How about because it is morally reprehenisible?

Yes, clearly there are Muslims out there who condemn such attacks since they tarnish the image of Islam. What I want to hear more of are Muslims who condemn such attacks because they are plain wrong.

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Video: The siege is over. The police are now cleaning up:

Mumbai Attacks: Some Articles of Interest:

1. Bill Roggio's analysis of the Mumbai attack, the significant differences from previous attacks, and the wider implications:

The Mumbai attack is uniquely different from past terror strikes carried out by Islamic terrorists. Instead of one or more bombings at distinct sites, the Mumbai attackers struck throughout the city using military tactics. Instead of one or more bombings carried out over a short period of time, Mumbai is entering its third day of crisis.

An attack of this nature cannot be thrown together overnight. It requires planned, scouting, financing, training, and a support network to aid the fighters. Initial reports indicate the attacks originated from Pakistan, the hub of jihadi activity in South Asia. Few local terror groups have the capacity to pull of an attack such as this. (Read it all)

2. Mark Steyn- "It’s Not the Cold War-- Updating Strategy to Fight the Ideology":

What’s relevant about the Mumbai model is that it would work in just about any second-tier city in any democratic state: Seize multiple soft targets and overwhelm the municipal infrastructure to the point where any emergency plan will simply be swamped by the sheer scale of events. Try it in, say, Mayor Nagin’s New Orleans. All you need is the manpower. Given the numbers of gunmen, clearly there was a significant local component. On the other hand, whether or not Pakistan’s deeply sinister ISI had their fingerprints all over it, it would seem unlikely that there was no external involvement. After all, if you look at every jihad front from the London Tube bombings to the Iraqi insurgency, you’ll find local lads and wily outsiders: That’s pretty much a given.

But we’re in danger of missing the forest for the trees. The forest is the ideology. It’s the ideology that determines whether you can find enough young hotshot guys in the neighborhood willing to strap on a suicide belt . . . or, if active terrorists are a bit thin on the ground, whether you can count at least on some degree of broader support on the ground

This isn’t law enforcement but an ideological assault — and we’re fighting the symptoms not the cause. Islamic imperialists want an Islamic society, not just in Palestine and Kashmir but in the Netherlands and Britain, too. Their chances of getting it will be determined by the ideology’s advance among the general Muslim population, and the general Muslim population’s demographic advance among everybody else. (Complete Article)

3. Scene of Unimaginable Carnage Inside Taj Majal Hotel:

The scene Saturday night inside the Taj Majal hotel was one of unimaginable carnage in the immediate aftermath of the terrorist onslaught across Mumbai.

Two Indian commandos told FOX News that 150 bodies still were inside the hotel, and dead victims were found all over the hotel, on all five floors.

The terrorists used incendiary bombs, or grenades thrown on gas or fuel canisters, indicating they had access to the Taj hotel in advance, though the Taj Majal hotel denies any staffers were involved. ...

The siege was particularly troubling because “they didn’t spare women or children.” (cont'd)

4. Mumbai horror: Rescue workers shocked by Chabad massacre site

5. Mumbai photographer: "I wish I'd had a gun, not a camera. Armed police would not fire back"

It is the photograph that has dominated the world's front pages, casting an astonishing light on the fresh-faced killers who brought terror to the heart of India's most vibrant city. Now it can be revealed how the astonishing picture came to be taken by a newspaper photographer who hid inside a train carriage as gunfire erupted all around him.

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." (Read it all)

6. July '08: Article about India's relatively ineffectual responses to jihadi terror:

Delhi Carries a Small Stick

Israel bombs the Osirak nuclear research facility in Iraq in 1981 after alleges that Iraq is using the facility to develop a nuclear weapons program. China seizes and dismantles a United States EP-3 aircraft after it allegedly ventures into Chinese airspace in 2001. The US invades Afghanistan after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.

And then there is India. An attack on the Indian parliament in December 2001; hijacking of Indian Airlines 814 to Afghanistan in 1999, which was released only after the exchange of three terrorists, including one who was later responsible for the execution of US journalist Daniel Pearl; terrorist attacks in Jaipur in May 2008, Hyderabad in August 2007, Mumbai in July 2006, Varanasi in March 2006, Bangalore in December 2005, Delhi in October 2005 and Ayodhya in July 2005; a recent surge in infiltration across the Line of Control in Kashmir; and this week's attack on the Indian Embassy in the Afghan capital Kabul.

India's reaction: point fingers at political opponents and turn the other cheek. (cont'd)

7. Sept. '08: India seeks IDF help in Kashmir conflict

8. A look at major attacks in India since 1993

9. July '08: Two years later, Mumbai blasts still cause pain

MUMBAI, India — Nearly every day for the past two years, two mothers have sat at their sons' bedsides and repeated almost the same words. "It's time to go home," they tell the young men. "Don't you want to leave the hospital?"Mumbai's top neurosurgeons tell them not to expect replies. Both mothers pray their children will emerge from the severely brain-damaged states they were plunged into after bombs ripped through seven commuter trains in Mumbai two years ago. The July 11, 2006, bombings killed 187 people and injured more than 800. (cont'd)

10. Discussion of British Muslims reaction to the Mumbai Massacres (Video).

11. Mumbai terrorists were'funded by cash raised in UK mosques'

12. News reporters brought hidden cameras into several mosques in the U. K. and recorded the goings-on. What they discovered is quite shocking. Video: Undercover Mosque.

13. July '08: Almost a third of British Muslim students believe killing in the name of Islam can be justified, according to a poll. (The study also found that two in five Muslims at university support the incorporation of Islamic sharia codes into British law).

14. Apr. '08: U.K. monitoring 30 U.K. terrorism plots

15. Oct. '08: Terror threat in UK 'approaching critical'

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