This is utter nonsense.

The attacks had more to do with indigenous causes then with the West bank.

Of course, as all Jihadists will tell you they want to create a Caliphate from India to Spain and re-conquer all their former territories.

Does the Economist want Spain to cede them part her country too?

For a more forthright analysis try this:

“After the Terror in Mumbai”

www.onpointradio.org/.../after-the-terror-in-mumbai

"What happens, by the way, if the Palestinians (and their Hezbollah allies) launch rockets and missiles into Israel proper, say, Tel Aviv and Beersheva?"

Don't you worry. The world will  stands as one.

Peace can be achieved when the Palestinians undergo a paradigm change. They have to decide that what they really want is statehood, not the destruction of another state. Once they begin to understand and accept that Israel is there, democratic, sovereign, strong and un-disassemblable (like France or Sweden or India or Pakistan or Jordan), then they may be able to negotiate in good faith so as to achieve their stated political ambitions.

As long as the rancid left, and Palestinian antisemitic leaders,  keep telling them that disassembling Israel is not only possible but the only  moral and just thing to do, they will continue as they are today, poor, limited, whining, suffering, hateful.

Which is a damn shame. But it's their choice.

Pakistan strong? Jordan democratic? Really!

Ah come on now Marty, you're being disingenuous.

I don't think that a peaceful and affluent Palestine working with its Jewish neighbour is going to stop all global Muslim terrorism overnight. That claim is preposterous but then again, no one is making that claim, are they?

You have to engage your black wit everytime you make this argument (which is a sign that you know you're being disingenuous).

It is equally preposterous to claim that peace and prosperity between Arab and Jew and wahabist terrorism are mutually exclusive. That's absurd.

That's strawman on strawman action Marty - you're a pornographer.  

"Pakistan strong? Jordan democratic? Really!"

It seems quite obvious that the parentheses referred to the "un-disassemblable ".

"Mumbai attacks: Jews tortured before being executed during hostage crisis

Israeli hostages killed by Islamic terrorists during the attacks on Mumbai (formerly Bombay) were tortured by their captors before they were bound together and killed, according to officials in both countries. "

"By Damien McElroy in Bombay"

"Jewish victims made up a disproportionate number of the foreigners killed after 10 Muslim fanatics stormed a series of sites in the Indian financial capital.

Members of the beleaguered Jewish community in Mumbai gathered at a crumbling synagogue for a memorial for Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife Rivka, who ran the cultural centre targeted by the Deccan Mujahideen.

The couple's son, Moshe survived after his nanny, Sandra Samuel escaped with him in her arms 10 hours after the hostage incident started. The child cried "Ima" and "Dada," or mummy and daddy, as the service began.

Moshe's grandparents have arrived from Israel to take the orphaned boy home and there is intense pressure to grant Miss Samuel a visa by declaring her righteous among the gentiles.

Two countries have posted officials at the JJ Hospital morgue but there are at least twice as many Israeli disaster specialists as British consuls representing the former colonial power.

Israeli officials confirmed six Jews were dead but the figure is likely to rise to eight. The total number of foreigners killed in the attacks stands at 22.

A forensic team arrived on a specially chartered flight on Sunday night. "There are still a few yet to be identified – not a lot, under five – and this is why we need the forensic team," an Israeli diplomat said. "And there are two or three Israelis unaccounted for and we have a couple of bodies that could be them."

Doctors expressed horror at the condition of the bodies recovered from the Nariman Building, which housed the Orthodox Chabad-Lubavitch retreat.

"I have seen so many dead bodies in my life, and was traumatised," a mortician said. "It was apparent that most of the dead were tortured. What shocked me were the telltale signs showing clearly how the hostages were executed in cold blood." ......."

www.telegraph.co.uk/.../Mumbai-attacks-Jews-tortured-before-executed-during-hostage-crisis.html

Three opinion pieces I recommend on the Mumbai attack & on the general question of terrorism.  Not recommended for the PC faint at heart.

a) Bret Stephens, WSJ (formerly editor in chief of J.Post) - "Media Narratives Feed Terrorist Fantasies".  Title says it all but a choice quote nonetheless:

"Of course, it's always possible to fall for a well-told lie. But it's worth wondering why a media that treats nearly every word uttered by the U.S., British or Israeli governments as inherently suspect has proved so consistently credulous when it comes to every dubious or defamatory claim made against those governments. Or, for that matter, why the media has been so intent on magnifying genuine scandals (like Abu Ghraib) to the point that they become the moral equivalent of 9/11. Some caution is in order: Terrorists, of all people, might actually believe what they read in the papers."

URL: online.wsj.com/.../SB122818128240470999.html

b)  Tom Gross, WSJ (former Jerusalem Bureau chief for London Telegraph - "If this Isn't Terrorism, What Is?".  On the inexplicable hesitancy by the PC MSM to call a spade a spade and label the Mumbai attack as terrorism, particularly Islamist terrorism without caveats; also how the BBC & to a degree the august NY Times twisted themselves into pretzels in order to avoid saying that Muslims specifically targeted Jews.  A choice quote:

(this is for all you "BBC is the media-god" fans)

"For some time, many have argued that an element of anti-Semitism has distorted the way the BBC covers the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But now, following the Mumbai events, we can perhaps see that anti-Semitism may even be at work in the way the BBC covers foreign news in general. For much of the Mumbai siege, the BBC went out of its way to avoid reporting that the Jewish community center was one of the seven targets. At one point viewers were told that "an office building" had been targeted (referring to the Jewish center as such).

c)  And last but not least, Mark Steyn (gasp, read him!?!?!??) in the National Review online (what? and contaminate my keyboard reading a CONSERVATIVE periodical?) . "It’s Not the Cold War" on the need to face up to the fact that the war on terrorism is really a war against an ideology -- Islamicism -- and that unless the West faces that reality head on and deals with it as such, Mumbai will be but a prologue.

A choice quote:

"Many of us, including the incoming Obama administration, look at this as a law-enforcement matter. Bombay is a crime scene, so let’s surround the perimeter with yellow police tape, send in the forensics squad, and then wait for the DA to file charges. There was a photograph that appeared in many of the British papers, taken by a Reuters man and captioned by the news agency as follows: “A suspected gunman walks outside the premises of the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus or Victoria Terminus railway station.” The photo of the “suspected gunman” showed a man holding a gun. We don’t know much about him — he might be Muslim or Episcopalian, he might be an impoverished uneducated victim of western colonialist economic oppression or a former vice-president of Lehman Bros embarking on an exciting midlife career change — but one thing we ought to be able to say for certain is that a man pointing a gun is not a “suspected gunman” but a gunman. “This kind of silly political correctness infects reporters and news services world-wide,” wrote John Hinderaker of "Powerline". “They think they’re being scrupulous — the man hasn’t been convicted of being a gunman yet! — when in fact they’re just being foolish. But the irrational conviction that nothing can be known unless it has been determined by a court and jury isn’t just silly, it’s dangerous.”

URL:

article.nationalreview.com

Hershel Ginssburg

Jerusalem / Efrata

P.S.  Israeli radio & TV stations carried audio & video clips from the "Hashkava" ceremony conducted in Mumbai's Great Synagogue.  Little Moishie held by an Indian employee of the Chabad House, could be heard crying out repeatedly "Ima, Ima" (mommy, mommy).  Even the most hard-bitten news anchors could not hold back the tears.

hg

Oh, I forgot to mention.  Didn't you know that before the 1967 6-Day war, Indian Hindus & Moslems just got along famously & that terrorism didn't exist and everyone just sat around and sang "Kumbaya"?  You didn't know that?  Why just go ask the Financial Times... they'll tell you that it was so & we all know that since they are a respected British paper they ALWAYS tell the truth & nothing but the truth.

hg

Noga,

"...Jordan democratic? ...It seems quite obvious that the parentheses referred to the "un-disassemblable ..."

I would not assume that about Jordan.  The ruling elite (including the military) is Bedouin while the general population is about 75% Palestinian.  There is also a growing Salafi-Islamist movement, which makes the Wahabis seem moderate.  In the next 5-15 years Jordan may well come apart at the seams.

hg

Whoops.. I forgot to include the URL for the Tom Gross piece.  Here it is:

online.wsj.com/.../SB122816892289570229.html

hg

Mr.P,

Are we occupying the west bank for military reasons, for Israel's security? Isn't this a rather flimsy excuse to mutilate the lives, orchards and spirit of a majority of Palestinians and embaress Israel almost everyday . There is no credible military threat from the west bank. Yes I know about the Hamas rockets---this is not a full blown military threat. I have no illusions that if the Israelis withdrew to the 1967 lines that the possibility of a Hamas/Hezbollah threat could develop in the West Bank. It's a terrible gamble. But is continuing this occupation a better gamble? Why? Forget the FT. This isn't their problem   And if one develops, the IDF will crush in less than a week. End of story.

Frankly I think the deep underlying assumption of many who support Israel is that the west bank belongs to us and we certainly act as if it does. We build, we clamp down, we make walls willy nilly. It's a disaster which only deepens the longer we continue the occupation. Where and how does this end?

Michael Singer

" In the next 5-15 years Jordan may well come apart at the seams."

Indeed. But if this came to pass, it would be due to inability to withstand the inner contradictory forces anylonger, not some UN resolution instructing the state to be disassembled, which is the current longing and fantasy  about Israel shared by the rancid left and more generally, the  Arabs of the region.

Perhaps I should rephrase the whole thing, since it seems readers find it so ambiguous. But I don't feel like it just now.

I'd already read everything you quoted, Ginzy, but not in one take. It's enough to lend one on pretty foul mood, I tell you.

Michael Singer: "Where and how does this end?"

Read my first comment in this thread. It's really up to the Palestinians.

As for your hapless attempt at ignorance "There is no credible military threat from the west bank." let me remind you that the majority of suicide bombers and other types of terrorists came from the West Bank, during the second Intifiada, and succeeded in killing over a 1,000 Israelis.  The second intifada, if you recall, broke out "spontaneously" after the failure at Camp David II by Arafat to decide that what the Palestinians need is peace, normalcy and statehood, not the destruction of Israel.

All Palestinians need to do is stop killing Israelis, trying to kill israelis, wanting to kill Israelis. How hard it this to do?

I suggest that if you are inclined to gambling, let it be gambling with your own life, not the life of others.

You've lost all sympathy with me.  After George W protects the interests of our country and your cause (Israel) for so long, you throw him under a bus for some unknown "promised one?" I hope you and him are happy together.

Right on Mick! Amen.

Noga - WTF are you talking about? The Palestinians are ready to and willing to recognize Israel and all of the Arab world have agreed to full recognition based on something approximating 67'.

That might not fit your...comfortable worldview, but it is a fact.  

"The Palestinians are ready to and willing to recognize Israel and all of the Arab world have agreed to full recognition based on something approximating 67'. "

Really?  Care to support this claim by some documentation?

ginzy I read the Bret Stephens article in the paper while I was getting a haircut. His view of the media as enablers of terror was right on.

Thanks for the link to Gross piece. I'll try to get to it later on.

mrsinger@mac.coml, you assumption is that getting out of the West Bank the way Israel got out of Gaza will stop the violence. It won't.

Do you have a suggestion on how they can deal with those fanatics who will be firing rockets at Israeli towns and villages?

Come on Nog - you're on the internets as well. What would any links I give you serve? Just take my word for it, you can trust me, just ask Jack.

mrsinger@mac.com wrote: "I have no illusions that if the Israelis withdrew to the 1967 lines that the possibility of a Hamas/Hezbollah threat could develop in the West Bank."

It's not a possibility, it's a guarantee. It happened in Lebanon in 2000 and Gaza in 2005. Why should we expect any different this time around? What sane nation would invite its capital to be subject to daily shellings and rocket attacks?

"Come on Nog - you're on the internets as well. What would any links I give you serve? Just take my word for it, you can trust me, just ask Jack."

The name is Noga. And I take it that what you really mean to say is that you cannot produce any documentation to support your speculations.

Noga -- I'll do the work for Iggy and guess he's referring to the 2002 Saudi peace plan.

What about the "2002 Saudi peace plan."?

I don't recognize in what Ignorant said: "The Palestinians are ready to and willing to recognize Israel and all of the Arab world have agreed to full recognition based on something approximating 67'. "

the Saudi Peace plan, which called for implementation of ROR, within  "something approximating 67'" borders.  This is codeword for the disssambling of Israel, of which I had spoken earlier. I'm sort of bemused as to why anyone would think they can slip in this little condition, under guise of a "peace plan" without anybody noticing.

Rabbi killed in Mumbai was reading anti-terrorist handbook

www.timesonline.co.uk/.../article5274030.ece

[Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg, 29, was found by his colleague, Rabbi Dov Goldberg, lying slumped on the ground of his living quarters wrapped in tefillin, a prayer aid containing the Hebrew scrolls.

On his bedside table were found copies of Jewish holy texts along with a book entitled: 'How to protect yourself when terrorists come to your house.'

The news emerged during an emotional funeral service in Kfar Chabad, just outside Tel Aviv, during which it was also revealed that Rabbi Holtzberg's wife Rivka, who was also killed, was five months pregnant when she died. ]

A rare sane article in the British press about the Mumbai massacre:

www.timesonline.co.uk/.../article5269730.ece

The TimesDecember 2, 2008

"Psychotic terrorists in search of a grievance"

David Aaronovitch

So, why kill the rabbi? There is a branch of apologetics - which I take crudely to be the belief that the crime is the fault of the victim - that assumes a milder form, and which I'll call explanetics. So the explanatists view of the Mumbai massacres last week is that the cause lies in what concretely has been done to, or in the vicinity of, the young, cool-looking men with the grenades and the machineguns.

On the day after the attacks began the Indian writer, campaigner and serial explanatist, Arundhati Roy, lambasted her own country on The World Tonight on Radio 4, for its rural poverty and its fluctuating support for Hindu nationalism. These, she seemed to suggest, were root causes of the terror. Elsewhere, analysts have pointed to the 60-year-old Kashmiri crisis as fuelling the jihad. More exotically the writer Misha Glenny now suggests that organised crime in the Pakistani city of Karachi is “the operational key” to such attacks (he has just written a book about international organised crime), but that the origins of last week's nightmare lie “in the deterioration in relations between Hindus and Muslims in Mumbai and India”. Well, these things are bad. Kashmir is bad. Hindu communalism is bad.

Poverty is bad. You can see the reasons for warfare in Kashmir, for riots in Hyderabad and for Maoist uprisings in the deep rural areas of India. But why kill the rabbi? Why invade the small headquarters of a small outreach sect of a small religion, which far from being even a big symbol of anything, you would almost certainly need a detailed map and inside knowledge even to find?

From what has been learnt from the one surviving attacker, the baby-faced and variously pre-named Mr Kasab, his group came largely from the rural southern Punjab in Pakistan. It is therefore unlikely that any of them had even encountered a Jew, or knew anyone else who had.

Yet last week, Nariman House was chosen for special murderous attention, alongside the Oberoi and Taj hotels, the railway station and the Leopold café. It reminded me of the 2003 Istanbul bombings when - post Iraq war - specifically British and American targets were augmented, for some reason, by the blowing up of the synagogues belonging to the much diminished Jewish population of that great city.

There is nothing more important about the life of a member of one race or religion than that of another. If the murders of the rabbi, his wife and the other Jewish people in Nariman House are horrific, they are no more horrific than the shooting, bombing and knifing of all the other victims, from the skipper of a hijacked Indian ship to the woman waiting for the night train to Patna. Two years ago, at round about the same time, late in the evening, I was one of two or three white faces in a tired sea of people at that same station. It is not a place to go to shoot Westerners, but there are rich rewards for a serial murderer of ordinary Indians, like the ones whose blood we saw in the photographs.

So the Chabad hostages in Nariman House aren't any more dead than the others. But they do give the lie to explanetics. The only possible reason for going to such lengths to seek out a few Jews (as opposed to having a grand Columbine-type shoot-up in the big city) is ideology. Is because someone has told you, and you have accepted, that these people are your particular enemies.

I was struck by a report at the weekend from the area that the murderers are reported to have come from near the towns of Multan and Bahawalpur. Two of the main terror-insurgent groups in Pakistan, Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed, recruit heavily in this area. It is also a place where religious schools adhering to the puritanical Deobandi stream of Islam predominate. Jason Burke, reporting last weekend for The Observer, recounted conversations with religious teachers from the local madrassas, one of whom was the brother-in-law of the British jihadi, Rashid Rauf, killed last week by an American drone near the Afghan border.

One such teacher, who, according to Burke, oversaw the education of 40,000 students, told him: “To fight in Afghanistan or Kashmir and to struggle against the forces who are against Islam is our religious duty.” Note how the two specific arenas of struggle are complemented by the third, far more general one, to struggle (ie, take up arms) “against the forces who are against Islam”. Just over a year ago The Times carried an article on the Deobandi influence in Britain's mosques. This highlighted the work of teachers such as Riyadh ul-Haq, a graduate of the Deobandi religious school near Bury. This school, according to our reporter, banned TV, art, chess, music and football. One of its graduates claimed in a sermon that music was part of a “satanic web” erected by Jews to pervert Muslim youth. Ul-Haq cautioned that Muslims were in danger of picking up the habits of unbelievers, who were an “evil influence”.

I'm sure there are plenty of Deobandi followers who are in no way violent or dangerous, but one sees here an ideology, a psychosis in search of a grievance, not an expression of an existing grievance. And it will always find a grievance.

It may seem unfashionably neoconservative to say it, but surely the underlying problem in southern Punjab is a failed society, within a failing state, in which a particular ideology begins to dominate. It is highly suggestive, I think, that the same area that gave birth to some of the Mumbai murderers has one of the highest levels of acid attacks on women anywhere in the world. In 2003 there were at least 74 of these disfiguring assaults in a southern Punjab - surely one of the most appalling manifestations of misogyny to be found anywhere on Earth.

“Sometimes,” according to Human Rights Watch, “the attacked women are seeking a divorce or the husband is seeking a second wife over the first's objections. Sometimes the triggering event can be as trivial as an argument over grocery money.” If readers get a chance I'd recommend the report by Nicholas Kristof, of the The New York Times, last weekend from Pakistan. Just don't look at the pictures.

That would be a real cause for terrorism, wouldn't it? But what arises instead is a political-religious movement of men espousing violent self-righteousness, impossible purity and hatred of human complexity. No wonder the target was cosmopolitan Mumbai, with its foreigners, minorities, its maddening mix of people and moralities, all of them diluting the one, true, narrow way.

The rabbi, in death, tells us this. There isn't anything - whatever the explanatists say - we can concede to the zealots of Faridkot that will persuade such people, once radicalised, not to try to kill us."