Remembering India

A nice interview by Hugh Hewitt of Christopher Hitchens entitled, "Christopher Hitchens warns Americans and American media not to forget our ally in India"

The horrifying events of the last week cast renewed light on the dangers of global jihadism. From the interview:

HH: Let me ask you, you bring up Kashmir, I have asked Kaplan and I have asked Frantz, what do you think is the solution in Kashmir?

CH: Well, I would, I would quite strongly suggest to people reading Salman Rushdie on this subject, especially his most recent novel. He is of Kashmiri origin, and like a lot of Kashmiris, wishes that there could be an autonomous Kashmir, whose neither necessarily part of India or Pakistan. It’s a victim of the terrible partition of India in 1947-48. One of the worst decisions ever made by any government, in this case, the British, was to allow India to be partitioned on confessional lines. They thought it would stop the fighting, instead of which it’s led to three subsequent wars, another partition of Pakistan into Pakistan and Bangladesh, genocidal partition, the acquisition of nuclear weapons by a rogue state, and many other woes, and still no peace in Kashmir. Kashmir for the Kashmiris is one solution. The only solution that cannot be allowed is the forcible removal from the Indian federation of Kashmir by Pakistan subversion and of others. If that happened, there’d be bloodshed in the sub-Continent that would make Rwanda look completely negligible.

HH: Wow.

CH: And this is what the Islamists are trying to bring about. That is their dream, and they showed us their dream nightmare in just a dress rehearsal for it in Bombay this week.

HH: I quote from your Slate piece of two days ago. “The Jewish disciples of Rabbi Schneerson may be relatively recent arrivals, but there have been Baghdad Jews in Bombay since records were kept, and Jews in India since before Christ, and not until this week has a Jewish place in India been attacked for its own sake, so to speak.” That’s really quite remarkable, and it also tells us about the nature of the enemy.

CH: It’s a terrible, terrible thing. There’s a very moving story in the New York Times this morning about the Bombay Jewish community that most people didn’t know, I think, until this happened, existed. It’s a very antique, very noble community that’s contributed a huge amount to the life of the city, and it is a remarkable fact about India that despite Hindu-Muslim strife, and all kinds of other sectarian horror shows, there has never been a pogrom in Indian history against its Jewish minority. Not once, not ever. We could say that with safety. And of course it can still be said no Indian spontaneously, no Indian or Bombay citizen has ever done such a dastardly thing. But the jihadists won’t rest until they can import that idea into India, too. And if you wanted to summarize the whole thing in one sentence, I suppose that would show how the word evil is the only one one can decently use.

Wow!

And this column a few days ago from Dennis Prager on the attack in India of a Jewish Chabad House. If the issue is freedom for Cashmere, why attack Jews in India? What do they have to do with anything?

With all the Pakistani Islamists hatred of Hindus, they did not attack one Hindu temple in Indias major city.

With all their hatred of Christian infidels, the terrorists did not seek out one of the 700,000 Christians in Mumbai.

To reinforce my point, imagine a Basque separatist terrorist organization attacking Madrid. Would the terrorists take time out to murder all those in the Madrid Chabad House? The idea is ludicrous. But no one seems to find it odd that that Pakistani Muslim terrorists who hate India and want it to give up control of Indian Kashmir would send two of its 10 terrorists to kill perhaps the only rabbi in Mumbai. As Newsweek reported during the siege, Given that Orthodox Jews were being held at gunpoint by mujahideen (sic), it seemed unlikely there would be survivors. Newsweek, like just about everyone else, simply assumes Islamists will murder Jews whenever and wherever possible.

As president-elect Obama prepares to take office in January, I will pray that he have wisdom and strength to assist India, and try to help bringing peace to this growing part of the globe. May he, and we, understand what we are up against.