Bombings in Mumbai: reactions on Al Jazeera

There is a certain level of irony in watching news on the Mumbai bombings from a hotel room in Morocco, which has been subject of the same type of attacks over the years, thankfully not recently. Suddenly, I had the surreal feeling of being lucky despite the otherwise unexciting trip - the first time I have been to Morocco without the wonderfully warm, yet not burning winter sun. Lucky that this multi-pronged monster did not surge in Morocco, lucky that colleagues that have just come back from Mumbai and stayed in the same hotels travelled a week before, lucky that my witnessing these horrible events is from a five start hotel room, through the lens of CNN or BBC rather that as an eyewitness.

As Mumbai's surreal three-day siege started to come to their gruesome conclusion, it emerged that outside the Oberoi and the Taj hotels and other tourist targets, another geographically and physically smaller target was hit - the Nariman house (a jewish community center). While the Nariman house may have contained less people, the symbolism behind this target is not insignificant, depsite the ongoing debate on whether it was an accidental victim or a targeted cite or the violence. As far as it known now (two days after the fighting has ended), five people lost their lives at the Nariman house, among whom the rabbi and his wife, who apparently came to India a few yeras ago to teach courses on judaism in the relatively tiny jewish population of india.

Al Jazeera, with its increasingly professional and (ahem - British) staff has decided to join the chorus of voices speaking of the Mumbai tragedy, bringing on the show a surprising guest - the ambassador of Israel (though interestingly, to the US and not India!) Usually, AJ selects the least presentable Israeli counterparts pitting them against a loudly protesting professor from Al Ahram or another such institution, ensuring that the Israeli interlockutor looks incompetent. This time, this was not the case and the ambassador was allowed to answer questions posed to him. It all started rather amicably. And then came the usual: "do you think this is a reaction to israeli behaviour in the palestinian occupied territories?". This was followed up by insistent repeating of this question by the interviewer when Shallai Meridor (the Israeli ambassador) said he saw no connection between the Israeli-PLO relations and the attacks in Mumbai.

Granted, every channel, obviously including Al Jazeera, has its bias, but where is the logic in linking every issue concerning jewish interests around the world to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? For the moment, not much is known about the attackers of the Nairman house. One of the attackers detained by the Indian police is a 23 year old Pakistani citizen, with fourth grade education. I don't know about you, but I didn't realise that the curriculum of Pakistani madrassas included much content on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. His fourth grade educations allows one to be reasonably sceptical of his understanding of the roots of the conflict. It's also rather improbable that he has been to Israel or Palestine, if only for the tough Israeli security.

This leaves one option on the table - propaganda. Propaganda that attackers have been exposed to in their four years of 'education'. Of course, propaganda is everywhere, in every educational institution or media outlet, and certainly not only in Pakistan. It becomes more alarming however when a rabbi and his wife get killed for their supposed zionism (note to the attackers: many haredi do not believe in the state of israel despite having an israeli passport), or perhaps for their carrying an israeli passport, or for their teaching of judaism, or for their being jewish?

Though in many circles and debates divisions are being created to justify opposing Israeli interests, with various distictions between Israelis/zionists/jews being played to justify some oppostion which is allegedly not anti-semitic. Some, like Kamal Al-Hilbawi, director of the London Center for the Study of Terrorism, interviewed on BBC arabic just a few days ago, argued that attacking Israeli children is legitimate since they will eventlually become soldiers (note to Mr. Al-Hilbawi: an increasing proportion of Israelis is opting out of the army). That being said, most of those who oppose Israel or its citizens, including the Iranian president, are more selective in their critique, at least in public. What is puzzling though, is that Jewish targets continue to be attacked throughout the world not even based a single, but on multiple pre-texts: for the Jewish nature, for their Israeli nature, for their Zionist nature, etc. This 'terminological confusion' sheds some legitimate doubts on the attack on the Nairman house being accidental in nature...