Lawrence J.

Haas

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December 2, 2008

‘Forge Ahead’ After Mumbai

“It’s hard for me to imagine the rationale for shooting a 13-year-old girl in the back of the head,” a mournful Michael Lang told the Washington Post, reflecting on the execution-style deaths of his colleague, Alan Scherr, and Scherr’s daughter, Naomi, in the Mumbai terrorist attacks.

In noting the frightening depravity, the pinpoint targeting of the most vulnerable and often most peace-loving victims, Lang was not alone. Sajjad Karim, a British Member of Parliament who fled gunfire in the Taj Majal hotel, said of one of the terrorists, “From the very brief glimpse that I got of him, he was wearing a smile on his face as he started to spray the bullets.”

The terrorists may seem irrational or unbalanced, but the reality is far more sobering. Those who attacked two five-star hotels, a restaurant, a train station, a Jewish center and other sites in India’s financial capital acted out of cold-blooded rationality, with clear political goals for what they unleashed.

The terrorists sought to send a message to America’s president-elect, just as its people celebrated one of their most cherished holidays, and to complicate the growing closeness of the U.S.-India relationship. They also sought to strike a blow against the Western-style capitalism that Mumbai represents, to renew radical Islam’s war against Americans, Brits and Jews, and elevate the global jihad to a new level.

What the United States, India and other civilized nations must do is send our own message – that terrorism will not work, that the perpetrators will make no progress on their goals and that, if anything, we shall move even more forcefully in the direction to which they object.

The world’s response to Mumbai is particularly important, for this was no ordinary terrorist attack.  The mayhem was well planned, the attacks well timed and well coordinated. For a year, the killers surveyed targets, acquired ships and speedboats, and forward-based weapons and ammunition inside at least one hotel, the Sunday Telegraph reported.

The message was clear. The group that claimed responsibility, Deccan Mujahideen, has a revealing pedigree. As the writer Amir Taheri notes, the Deccan region of south-central India was the intellectual and cultural capital of Indian Islam for centuries, so the name was designed to demonstrate that India has a home-grown terrorist movement with national aspirations.

The targets were clear as well – Americans, Brits and Jews. The hotels and restaurants were frequented by Western tourists in a city known for Western-style success, and the terrorists demanded those with U.S. or British passports identify themselves. Chabad House provides support and services for Jews in India and others who are passing through.

Nor is India a random target. As U.S./India ties have grown, as exemplified by their new nuclear cooperation agreement, terrorist attacks against the latter have come with greater frequency – two in 2003, one in 2004, one in 2005, three in 2006, three in 2007 and now six already in 2008.

The attacks are growing more robust as well. Five bombs in crowded markets and streets in New Delhi killed 23 people in September. Eleven serial blasts in Assam killed at least 83 people in October, and now nearly 200 have lost their lives in the brazen attacks in Mumbai last week.

Nothing better captures the human cost of terrorism than the attack at Chabad House, which was both a Jewish center and home to Rabbi Gavriel Noach Holtzberg and his wife, Rivka.

The couple came to Mumbai five years ago to serve its small Jewish community – operating a synagogue, teaching Torah, and conducting weddings – and also to engage in broader social works, such as helping drug addicts and the poor. They both died in the assault while their toddler son, who turned two this past Saturday, escaped to safety with a cook at the center.

The couple was no stranger to heartache. They lost a child to a genetic illness, while another child lies gravely ill in an Israeli hospital with the same ailment. A brother of the rabbi was savagely beaten several years back and his parents’ home was damaged by fire two months ago.

Despite the attack, the world-wide Lubavitch movement, of which Chabad House was a part, will not be deterred. “Continue to forge ahead with courage and fortitude in the service of our people and mankind,” Rabbi Yehuda Krinsky, who chairs the movement’s educational and social services arms, told its emissaries, “to make this world a better place to live for all.”

So must we all. As terrorists probe for signs of our weakness, nothing less will do.

© 2008 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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