While we all had happy Thanksgivings at home this past weekend, the city of Mumbai suffered an attack by approximately 60 Islamic terrorists. They killed 195 people, of whom 18 were foreigners.
If I sound like I take personal offense to all this, it's because six of those foreigners were Jews and a Chabad House was explicitly targeted. Apparently Islamic extremists no longer care precisely what their grievance is or who they target - they'll just attack anyone on their list of Shaitans (or evil-doers) wherever they find them.
They seem to have ceased acting like any form of rational or sensible paramilitary force and now behave as simply and stupidly as the villains of a Saturday morning cartoon. Also, Indian authorities actually had warning of a possible attack from the sea several months ago - much in the way that Bush had an intelligence report labeled "Bin Laden determined to attack inside the U.S." in the summer of 2001.
I think I speak for everyone when I say: well f***.
On the "good news" hand, Muslims worldwide have condemned the attacks. From the Ramallah to Baghdad to Muslim Britain, leaders have condemned the Mumbai attacks. Inayat Bunglawala of the Muslim Council for Britain has said that they "bring the entire faith [of Islam] into disrepute" and Kazim al-Muqdadi of Baghdad University has called them "sick and ignorant."
Apparently the senseless terrorism of the past eight or 10 years has actually convinced Muslims that maybe "death to the infidel" is as bad a philosophy as we claim it to be - even if only because the "infidel" category has a tendency to grow until it includes people who actually fought in the start of the jihad. Even Hamas, which United States listed as a terrorist group in 1995, and Mahmoud Ahmandinejad, the president of Iran, don't seem to want to touch this one.
Still, I find myself in the mood to demand justice - the swift, sure and painful type - for the perpetrators of this horrifying massacre. Except that - wait a minute - they've killed themselves like cowards. Oh well, this behavior is typical of Islamic extremists.
So I suppose I should write about how we here in "the West" should respond to these attacks. The primary answer is that we shouldn't.
We should offer our full support to India. We should act as mediators to make sure that India and Pakistan can do their best to get together and kill or imprison every last terrorist.
What we should not do is invade India. I must admit that given our current government's past performance, I might expect such a thing.
Is it too much to ask that not every terrorist in the world target Jews?
I've attempted a thorough look through the news reports on Mumbai and there appears no actual reason the Lakshar-affiliated terrorists (or at least, CNN says they're affiliated with Lakshar and al-Qaida) targeted a Chabad House and the Taj Mahal hotel among various other minor sites that did not turn into hostage situations. Hell, why was there a Chabad House in India?
In fact, nothing seems to make sense about this terrorist attack - which, I suppose, is my point. We really should encourage India to make a more efficient police force, but I think if we can work diplomatically with the Muslim world, this could be the effective end of Islamic terrorism.
Muslims all over the world have begun to realize how damaging terrorism is to their own collective interest and now actively protest it. And in return, or rather in offer, it appears that India has refrained from demanding Muslim or Pakistani blood despite a long-standing religious conflict in the region every bit as old and bloody as anything born of the Middle East.
So let us pray that the horror of last week's attack may actually contain the seeds of a longer-term peace. Muslims are standing up to the cowards among them who commit murder in God's name and Hindus have so far not (as some have in the past) antagonized the Muslims.
In a startling development by which India has actually surpassed the United States for effective government (a marvelous feat considering the stories a friend of mine has told about the Indian police force and civil service), three top ministers of the Indian government have actually resigned in shame over this fiasco.
India may also begin sharing intelligence with Pakistan in a mutual effort to control the terrorist militias that operate across their borders.
Now if every terrorist hack stopped considering Jews an automatic target wherever we live or go, I could live a bit more happily.
Eli Gottlieb is a Collegian columnist. He can be reached at egottlie@student.umass.edu.
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