JEWISH LIGHT EDITORIAL

How utterly striking is the contrast between the terror events of last Friday in Iraq and Pakistan, and the global efforts in support of ravaged Haiti. The battle between radical ideology- cum-anarchy, on the one hand, and benevolent humanitarianism, on the other, rages on.

First, the bad. Coming on the heels of the failed Christmas airplane bombing above Detroit, for which Al Qaeda’s leader Osama bin-Laden took credit, were utterly despicable acts by Muslim terrorists against Muslims:

* This past Friday, in Baghdad, at least two explosions ripped through crowds marching to the burial place of Shiite Islam’s most revered martyr. The attacks coincided with the culmination of ritual mourning that drew millions to the holy Iraqi city of Karbala in one of the world’s largest pilgrimages. At least 40 people were killed in those explosions and dozens more were wounded

* In Islamabad, Pakistan, a hugh bomb blast tore apart a bus carrying Shiite Muslims to a religious procession in the southern city of Karachi, on the same Friday afternoon as the atrocities in Baghdad. Two hours later another lethal explosion struck a hospital where many of the wounded had been taken, according to police and hospital officials. At least 25 people were killed and 100 wounded in the two attacks.

Both the Baghdad and Karachi incidents took place on Arba’een, the 40th and final day of ritual mourning for Imam Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Muhammad and a figure revered by Shiite Muslims. These attacks were carried out by Sunni Muslim terrorists against their fellow Muslims, who happened to be Shiites. While Arba’een may not compare to Yom Kippur in its religious significance, attacking fellow Muslims on a holy day recalls the grotesque nature of the attack on Israel in fall 1973 during our most solemn holiday.

Now the good: In stunning contrast to these gutless attacks, the United States and Israel, consistently denounced by Al Qaeda, Hamas and Hezbollah as the “Great Satan” and the “Little Satan,” have been doing and supporting heroic work in earthquake-stricken Haiti (along with many other nations, including several Middle Eastern Arab states).

Immediately after the 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck Haiti, leaving as many as 200,000 dead and nearly 2 million homeless, President Barack Obama announced that the United States would do everything within its power to bring urgently needed food, water, medicine and other relief to Haiti. The State of Israel, which is all-too familiar with handling the aftermath of terrorist attacks in which scores are killed and wounded, deployed two 747 transport planes to Haiti, and within hours had set up field hospitals providing life-giving support to hundreds of the sick and wounded,

Several of the military and medical spokespersons for the Israeli teams in Haiti quoted from the Talmud the wisdom of the sages, that “he who saves a single life is as though he saved the entire world.” A nearly identical passage appears in the Koran, the Muslim holy book.

What to make of the gross divergence between institutionalized hate and empathetic aid? An alien species visiting our planet could hardly make heads or tails of it all; are we out of control anarchic warlords, or a unified world of harmony and cooperation?

Unfortunately, we’re both. And the primary organization that exists for the purpose of moving us away from the former and toward the latter — the United Nations — has been largely inept in shifting us in that direction. The proof? More than 85 million worldwide deaths by armed conflicts and their fallout (starvation, illness, etc) since 1950. (By the way, by some accounts less than a tenth of one percent of those deaths have come in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.)

While the U.N. can certainly be commended for many humanitarian programs, its geopolitical leadership is, in a nutshell, a disaster. It is often a grossly ineffectual broker of deals for peace; allows its membership to duck behind any number of political, religious and economic purposes; and has a dreadfully inconsistent stance in allowing nations to combat terrorism and evil (e.g., implicitly giving the United States a pass in attacking Iraq when there was no proven linkage to either 9/11 or WMDs, while condemning Israel for retaliating against thousands of Hamas rocket strikes). These weaknesses have allowed neocons in the U.S. to argue with a straight face in favor of unilateral and preemptive military action, as evidenced by the logically faulty Bush Doctrine. But as we know, the U.S. is neither financially equipped, nor does it have in today’s world the moral imperative, to serve as the international police squad.

Yes, there are major issues associated with taming terrorists who hide behind the veil of non-state action. But without the force of universal will, there is little hope of facing the tactical considerations associated with combating terrorism. Until the global community, either through its avatar, the U.N., or otherwise, puts safety and security above all else and insists that we no longer tolerate terrorism of any kind, there is little hope for an end to such shameful and loathsome behavior.