070630_SUV_crash.jpgThe people of the UK just averted another disaster. Three car bombs didn’t go off. Last summer — after the infamous attack on 7/7 that left 52 dead — another four bombs were duds. Other attacks have been thwarted. In fact the entire country is on high alert and expect more.

Once upon a time, a long, long, time ago, the Brits thought that they had great ideas. Especially with regard to the future of their protectorate Palestine, the Brits put their lot with those with oil. Then there was the messy disengagement from their colonial days in the Sub-Continent. And more recently, joining GW for his war in Iraq. And I am sure I am missing something.

Beyond social problems of enormous dimensions, it seems that the Brits have on their hands a growing domestic insurgency. The British Home Secretary is calling for calm and not to get all xenophobic. The Muslim leaders are condemning these “extremists”. The papers are all over the place. But it isn’t stopping.

Is it perhaps just bad karma for not standing with Israel against aggressors, for not being strong on international terror, for harboring terror group leaders that target other countries, and so on…?

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Rabbi Yonah

19 Comments

  • Bad karma? From a rabbi? Please don’t tell me this some sugar-coated way of saying divine intervention. On a personal note, I think that zit on my face is a direct result of a lie I told yesterday. If only I was a better person, I wouldn’t be sooo afflicted.

  • Well no, I don’t believe that Rabby Yo meant karmic in a spiritual, order of the universe sense. But, rather, the result of any number of misguided policies of the British government, the most recent of which has allowed any number of violent, radical Imams to settle in the UK. Karma? Maybe not in the sense of the universe. A result of fairly blind policies that has allowed such activities to flourish? Perhaps.

  • Well, at least he is neither an arsonist nor unemployed.

  • It’s the result of too many fuckin’ crazy Muslims who need to start letting their women where some sexy clothes and start enjoying themselves in other ways than explosive suicides. Shit, if the women I had to look at all day looked like theirs I’d feel like blowing up a building too. Those men all need to be on sedatives, they should be praying less and smokin’ opium or something calming and slightly hallucinagetic more…then we’d have some world peace.

  • Venom, take it easy there. There are plenty of devout Muslims who don’t blow stuff up. There are plenty of attractive Muslim women, some of whom dress very nicely. I don’t have a problem with specific criticism or criticism with some evidence attached that at least could be discussed, but general attacks of this nature on an entire group are uncalled for and unfortunate. It also weakens your case.

  • “Is it perhaps just bad karma for not standing with Israel against aggressors, for not being strong on international terror”

    Are you joking? Are you judging a nation by a union? Why not judge the American people according to the Duke 88? Is Blair anti-Israel to you? Is he pro fundamentalist? Did you read what he said? Did you not notice the last thing he did was knight Rushdie? Do you know how upset the Muslims are that he is on the Quartet?

    This is absolutely not fair to Mr. Blair, nor to his countrymen. And if anything, the fact that more extensive damage wasn’t done was a miracle.

    Schadenfreude is most inappropriate.

  • DK’s spot-on here. Israel and its friends should be happy if Gordon Brown can meet Blair’s standards on terror, Islamic fundamentalism, etc.

  • Look at the professions of the suspects. Then think about how much longer the Muslim/Arab community has been entrenched in England vs. the US.

    There was an interview with Walid Shoebat a few days ago on CNN discussing how the west has to stop focusing on the root cause of terrorism as being the Israeli-Palestinian issue and the conditions in the Territories, but rather the rise of radical Islamic fundamentalism within mainstream Muslim communities.

    England has a much older and deeper Islamic community than the US, with more entrenched private education and a strong business and professional presence. To put this in a not-so-complete nutshell, England’s terrorists are homegrown. Not the case so much in the US where we focus our attention on outsiders.

    The issue for England is to find a way to quell the conversion of mainstream or non-violent Muslims to violent fundamentalism, maybe, as Shoebat said, the biggest problem we face in fighting terrorism. It’s pervading the so-called Muslim middle/upper-middle professional and educational class in England. Unlike the US, (and I’m generalizing) these are second and third generation Muslim Brits who are turning to violence and this is the difference in dynamic between the US and England, France – and I’m fearing Spain also.

    The Muslim leadership is losing control of more than it’s youth. It’s apparently losing it’s doctors too.

  • You’re right Middle, it’s just me that feels like blowing up a building because I live in an extremist community where all the men look like they need a shower and queer-eye-for- the-straight guy makeover and I’m not smoking enough.

  • DK

    The Brits aided and abetted the spread of radical Islam, did not stand up to terrorist groups like the PLO, Hamas and Hizbollah until WAY too late.

    I never said anything about Blair – that is your projection.

    Blair is rather pro-Israel as PM’s go.

    The events that I refer to are further in the past.

  • Other Karmic properties:

    BBC reporter released.

    BBC correspondent Alan Johnston “has reportedly been freed from kidnappers in Gaza after almost four months in captivity.”
    BBC confirms.

    [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6267928.stm]

    [http://thinkprogress.org/2007/07/03/bbc-reporter-released/]

    Cheers, ‘VJ’

  • “Is it perhaps just bad karma for not standing with Israel against aggressors, for not being strong on international terror, for harboring terror group leaders that target other countries, and so on…?”

    Apart from the fact I completely disagree with your first statement, I guess my question is, What is being strong on international terror? What does that look like? So far Pres. Bush’s “strength” hasn’t made anyone a whole hell of a lot safer, so I’m wondering what you think being strong means.

  • off the top of my head i can think of at least five terrorist attacks perpetrated by jews, but what’s the point?

  • These may not be the same forest fires referred to earlier, TM, but here is a piece about forest fires in Israel, and how they get to be that:

    http://www.jewishjournal.com/home/preview.php?id=17888

    I haven’t read it thoroughly but it is widely known what goes on concerning these forest fires. It is not a mystery. It has nothing to do with black hats or colorful balloons.

    Shabbat Shalom to all.

  • Elon, I am still alive and bored. It is a marvelous luxury to be bored. I shlep through my days and I am not frightened or in a cold sweat. I am not tight-lipped. I am not examining the people around me.

    That is what “”making us safer” looks like. It looks like nothing. A specialized kind of nothing.

  • sometimes I like having the last word, yet sometimes I like a snarky remark back…