The Jew is Not My Enemy (3 page)

Over the centuries, the incessant Hadith-inspired attacks on the very nature (fitra) of the Jew have left Muslims indoctrinated to the belief that a Jew cannot be trusted to be straightforward or truthful. If this racist doctrine slowly corrupted the attitudes of generations of Muslims, the Israel-Palestine dispute was the catalyst that lent this hate respectability and credence. The myths and legends of seventh-century Arabia have been dusted off and rejuvenated to make Jew-hatred the norm, not the exception.

I begin this book by describing the events that led to the slaughter in Mumbai, and in
chapters 2
and
3
,
1
write about the effect of fascist and European anti-Semitic literature on twentieth-century Arab Islamists, long before the creation of the state of Israel, and describe how this cancer has destroyed us Muslims rather than our supposed enemy.

Whereas anti-Semitism in Europe has its roots in Christian mythologies that depicted the Jews as a dark and demonic force, responsible for the murder of the Son of God, Judeophobia in the Arab world stems from a completely different legend. Modern-day Muslims hold anti-Jewish prejudices not because their Prophet Muhammad was a victim of the Jews, but because he vanquished them in a decisive battle in Medina. And so I will challenge the primary legend of Islamic history that has made the killing of Jews literally an act of Sunnah, the practice of the Prophet.
Chapter 6
will dwell on the Battle of the Trench and the legend of the slaughter of the Jews of Banu Qurayza by Prophet Muhammad. This collective punishment of prisoners of war has seeped deep into the Muslim psyche and is the cornerstone of the Muslim attitude towards Jews. In challenging this widely held view that Prophet Muhammad slaughtered nine hundred Jews in cold blood, I am conscious that I am exposing a myth that has defined Muslim thinking for centuries. The radical ayatollahs of Iran, the sheikhs of Saudi Arabia, and self-styled reformist academics such as Tariq Ramadan praise this massacre in glowing terms.

In
chapter 7
, I will demonstrate why, in the absence of physical and textual evidence, there is reason to reject this legend outright instead of celebrating it as an act of bravado by Prophet Muhammad.

Let me begin my jihad against Muslim anti-Semitism with a verse from the Quran that should define Muslim attitudes towards members of other faiths, but is often ignored by Islamists:

“When you kill one [Jew]… it is worth more than killing fifty people.”
The voice of the Pakistani commander crackles over the cellphone as he urges on two jihadis who have taken over the ultra-Orthodox Chabad House in Mumbai on the evening of November 26, 2008. Already, a rabbi, his pregnant wife, and two house guests have been shot dead, while two Jewish women are being held hostage in this suicide mission.

In conversations recorded by Indian intelligence, the Pakistan-based handlers warn the jihadi terrorists not to contemplate surrender under any circumstances. “Getting arrested alive is not an option. Remember … For your mission to end successfully, you must be killed. The virgins are waiting for you in paradise.” Exhorting the jihadis to spread terror, the handlers tell them, “Create so much havoc that the enemy should fear us till the end of times.”

A day earlier, ten Pakistani terrorists had landed on the beach at Mumbai, the city that symbolized everything repugnant to these Islamists – modernity, secularism, and joy. All through their teens they had watched Bollywood movies on pirated DVDs, which tantalized them with dancing damsels and titillating tunes, weakening their faith, challenging their manhood, and corrupting their morals. Now, it was time to get even.

Splitting into five pairs, they each have a specific target. One pair, however, has a special assignment. The group leader takes aside the two gunmen, Babar Imran and Nasir, and reminds them of the significance of their mission. They are to target and kill Jews. He stresses to the two jihadis that their task is the most important one. Even if all the other attacks fail, the Chabad House operation to kill Jews must succeed. Attacking the Jewish community centre that also serves as an ultra-Orthodox synagogue, he reminds them, will send a message to Jews around the world.

In the days to come, these ten Islamic terrorists would turn Mumbai into a living hell before nine of them would “ascend” to heaven and the tenth would beg a judge to hang him, so he too could join his fellow “martyrs.” Their handlers have promised them seventy-two virgins each, more beautiful and sensual than anything Bollywood could create in its hundred-year sinful history.

Before they could land in Mumbai, however, there was the little matter of their hostage, Amar Singh Solanki, captain of the Indian fishing trawler the jihadis had captured three days earlier. All four of Solanki’s crew had been killed, while Captain Solanki was forced at gunpoint to navigate the 550-mile voyage to Mumbai.

As the trawler bobbed in the waters off the coast, Ismail Khan, the leader of the jihadi group, called his handlers in Pakistan for directions. “What do we do with the hostage?” he asked. On hearing that the four other Indian fishermen had been killed and their bodies dumped into the Indian Ocean, the handler exclaimed: “You ate those four goats?” Ismail then asks, “Can I eat the fifth one?” Yes, came the answer.

Ismail ordered two of his men, Shoaib and Babar Imran, to blindfold the “goat” and take him down to the trawler’s engine room. Having served his purpose, the Hindu father of three was forced to lie down on the floor. With Ismail and Babar holding on to him, Shoaib slit the helpless Indian’s throat, just as he had slaughtered many a goat back in
his village. What better way to launch holy war on a city than to make a human sacrifice to the gods.

This would be the first of many deaths in the orgy of killing that consumed the next forty-eight hours, before Shoaib and his co-jihadis were shot dead by Indian security forces, fulfilling the Pakistani men’s wish for martyrdom.

The honour of slaughtering the first infidel has gone to Shoaib, but Babar Imran is not disappointed that he has been overlooked. Solanki was, after all, just another run-of-the-mill infidel, a Hindu. Babar is excited that he and another mate, Nasir, have been specially selected to carry out the task that would earn them the most prized kills, the mother of all infidels – the Jews.

In the 2,500 years since Jews have called the Indian subcontinent their home, they have never faced anti-Semitism. The Bani Israelis, as Indian Jews refer to themselves, are believed to have arrived in India when their ancestors were shipwrecked off the Konkan coast in 175
BC
. Even when the persecution of Jews was widespread in Europe, India was different. From the Muslim Mughal emperors of Delhi to the ordinary Muslim villagers living in towns along the Ganges and the Indus, there is no recorded animosity towards the “Yahudi,” a term of respect. All of this was about to change.

Around 8:20 p.m., the men dock their inflatable dinghy at a fishermen’s slum next to Mumbai’s Cuffe Parade neighbourhood. The area is home to some of India’s most prominent citizens, among them the controversial artist M.F. Husain and the billionaire Ambani family. On any other night the neighbourhood near the docks would be teeming with people, but tonight, most of the cricket-crazy residents of the city are glued to their TV sets watching the satellite feed of the India vs. England match being played in London.

A local resident, Ajay Mistry, is one of the first to witness the Pakistanis land on Indian soil. He remembers the ten as dressed smartly in navy blue and black; with their heavy backpacks they look almost like college kids. A teenager steps out of his house and asks them who they are. Just students, they say, coming back from a boat ride. The Pakistanis are polite with the men, but when a woman approaches them, their demeanour changes.

Anita Rajendra Udaayar, another neighbourhood resident, has been watching the young men with their oversized backpacks. It is an unusual sight for her, even though she is accustomed to tourists taking boat rides. When she asks them what they are doing, one of them scornfully tells her to mind her own business. No woman has ever questioned them – how dare an infidel raise her voice!

This is the last time some of them will see each other – that is, until they meet in their hoped-for paradise. To make sure there is no mistaking their Islamic identities at the gates of heaven, all of them have adopted Arabic
noms de guerre
, some meaningless but nonetheless comforting to these villagers from the Punjab. Thus Babar Imran is Abu Akash, and Nasir is known as Abu Umer.

Before the jihadis split into pairs, their leader, Ismail Khan, briefs them for the last time. Eight of the men are assigned the task of spreading terror and killing Indians without distinction, be they Hindu, Sikh, Christian, or Muslim. The job assigned to Babar and Nasir, however, is very specific: to kill Jews, and as many as possible. They must not fail, he reminds the two. He emphasizes that the other targets – hotels, a café, a train station – are merely intended to amplify the effect of the attack on Chabad House, the Jewish community centre.

The two make their way to the crowded residential neighbourhood of Mumbai’s Colaba district. Tucked inside an area that is home to a large Muslim population, the five-storey Nariman House is a meeting place and refuge for the city’s tiny Jewish population and Israeli
backpackers. It is one of several hundred Chabad Houses operated around the world by the Orthodox Chabad-Lubavitch movement. The Mumbai Chabad House is run by the twenty-nine-year-old American Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his twenty-eight-year-old Israeli wife, Rivka. Since 2006, thousands of Jews have visited and stayed at the centre and have had no problems with their Muslim neighbours.

Although their colleagues have already begun their killing spree, lobbing grenades and randomly firing their AK-47s into the nearby Leopold Café, Babar and Nasir take their time locating Nariman House. Once there, they know it should be a cakewalk. Despite its tight connections with Israel, the Chabad House is a soft target – much easier to hit than, say, the tightly guarded Israeli diplomatic mission or the offices of El Al, Israel’s national airline.

By ten that night, scores of people have already died across the city. It is time for Babar and Nasir to strike. To divert attention away from their mission, they throw a hand grenade at a nearby gas station. On hearing the explosion, Rabbi Holtzberg calls the police.

Startled by the blast, Vicky Patel, who owns a sweet shop nearby, is surprised to see the two Pakistanis head straight for Nariman House: “A common man would have had difficulty in finding the place, but these people knew every lane as if they had studied the entire place.” Later, when the siege was over, Patel would help to recover the bodies of the hostages.

While neighbours come out of their homes and businesses to watch the fire at the gas station, Babar and Nasir force their way into Nariman House, where they are confronted by Rabbi Holtzberg and his wife.

An eyewitness would later say that she heard Rivka defy the two gunmen: “Shoot me … shoot me,” she yelled. Without hesitation the jihadi pulled the trigger and Rivka fell to the floor in the hail of bullets. Then the witness heard Rabbi Holtzberg also confront the two. “Shoot me,” he said before more shots rang out.

Babar and Nasir kill two more Jews before taking fifty-year-old Norma Rabinovitch and sixty-two-year-old Yoheved Orpaz hostage. Leaving the four bodies behind, they force the two women to the upper floors. The gunmen do not know that the nearly two-year-old son of the Holtzbergs is in bed on another floor while his nanny, Sandra Samuels, is hiding in a closet. TV coverage would later show the boy wandering among the dead before the nanny grabs him and escapes from the siege.

After securing the Jewish centre, the two terrorists establish contact with their handlers in Pakistan over their cellphones equipped with Indian SIM cards. They are unaware that by now Indian Intelligence is monitoring all cellular phone calls and recording all conversations.

On hearing about the killing of the rabbi, his wife, and two other Jews, the Pakistani handler congratulates the terrorists and reminds them that killing a Jew is far more significant than killing any other non-Muslim: “You should understand that when you kill one person where you are, it is worth more than your colleagues killing fifty people elsewhere.”

By now the entire neighbourhood is alive with people watching the action from their balconies and the street. The handlers are anxious to see more casualties. They are watching the incident unfold live on TV, but nothing from Nariman House. One calls again: “Do you see any movement to your left and right?” Babar informs him about the growing crowd. “There are lot of people watching from their balconies both on our left and right,” he says. The handler confers with his superiors. He is overheard asking, “There are regular civilians on the street. What should we do?”

He tells Babar to fire into the crowd. “Shoot anyone you see,” he orders. Babar immediately fires, hitting several people, many of them Muslims.

The handler justifies this random shooting of civilians by assuring the terrorists, “The enemy must fear us. When this is over, there will be much more fear of us in the world, forever.”

The terrorists’ strategy is working. The world watches in horror as out-of-control fires engulf the picturesque Taj Hotel, and Israelis wake up to hear about Jews being targeted in India. Shortly after the takeover of Nariman House, Israel’s defence minister, Ehud Barak, offers the Indian government assistance in dealing with the attacks.