COMMENTARY: Like Israelis, Americans are learning terrorism’s dread

c. 1998 Religion News Service (Rabbi Rudin is the national interreligious affairs director of the American Jewish Committee.) UNDATED _ A close friend who is a Protestant minister said it best when he first learned of the terrorist attacks on the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania:”Well, I guess we’re all Israelis now!” He meant, […]

c. 1998 Religion News Service

(Rabbi Rudin is the national interreligious affairs director of the American Jewish Committee.)

UNDATED _ A close friend who is a Protestant minister said it best when he first learned of the terrorist attacks on the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania:”Well, I guess we’re all Israelis now!” He meant, of course, that ever since Israel’s creation 50 years ago its citizens and institutions have been constant targets of terrorist attacks. And terrorism has not been limited to assaults within the borders of the Jewish state.


The murders of 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich and the attempted assassination in London of the Israeli ambassador to Britain in 1982 are but two examples of the unending war being carried out by terrorist groups throughout the world.

Because of this unrelentingly terrorism campaign, Israelis are constantly aware their lives are at risk anywhere around the globe simply because of who they are. Now many Americans have that same feeling of dread.

In past years, whenever there was a terrorist attack aimed at Israelis, I would hear some American Christian leaders”explain”or openly condone such assaults. Their bizarre line of reasoning went something like this: Israel is an aggressor, even an illegal state whose national movement, Zionism, is racist. Because of this lamentable combination, whenever Arab/Muslim guerrillas (a.k.a. terrorists) strike Israeli targets (a.k.a. innocent civilians), they are merely exercising their legitimate right of self-defense.

In addition, those same Christian leaders were certain terrorists limited their attacks to the Israeli”enemy.”The guerrillas, I was blithely told, sought out only”pure”targets of oppression for their acts of defiance and rebellion.

Behind that not-so-subtle justification for murder was the arrogant belief terrorists would aim their bombs and plastic explosives only at Israeli targets and never at the United States and its citizens.

Of course, they were wrong in their superficial analysis of international terrorism. Unfortunately, it has taken many years and hundreds of American deaths to shatter the naive belief the United States would be spared brutal terrorist attacks.

Indeed, as a nation we have sustained both domestic and overseas terrorist murders. Native-born Americans bearing a deep hostility to our government carried out the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. And the 1993 World Trade Center attack in New York was the work of Islamic extremists from overseas.

The Beirut and Saudi Arabia military barracks explosions and now the monstrous attacks upon our embassies in Africa make clear the United States is clearly a front-line target in the terrorists’ campaigns.


Hopefully, the religious apologists for terror will finally end their dangerous babbling about terrorists being”freedom fighters”and”modern minute men.” Hopefully, they will take note the overwhelming majority of victims in Nairobi and Dar-Es-Salaam were Kenyans and Tanzanians, not Americans.

Hopefully, the apologists will abandon their absurd belief terrorists attack only”pure”aggressors or oppressors.

But this will be difficult for those religious leaders who have fervently embraced and preached a mindless form of liberation theology. Instead of judging each political situation on its own unique merits, they have too easily given a universal seal of approval to all acts of violence as long as they were carried out in the name of”resistance to oppression.” This campaign of”explaining”terrorism in theological terms confused the American public and led to a false belief that terrorism somehow advanced the cause of the downtrodden and the forces of liberation.

But now, especially after the Nairobi and Dar-Es-Salaam attacks, all of us know better and increasingly Americans see terrorism for what it truly is: massive violent attacks upon innocent civilians.

As we enter the 21st century, terrorism is likely to increase in scope and ferocity. The easy access to lethal explosives and a pool of willing volunteers guarantees that any group or even an individual has the capability to kill large numbers of people with relative ease.

Especially frightening is the specter of a nuclear or chemical terrorist attack. The proliferation of weapons of mass destruction makes this a real possibility.

While governments and the appropriate international organizations conduct their necessary anti-terrorist campaigns, religious leaders can at least make their own contribution to this effort by ending their theological justifications for murder.


DEA END RUDIN

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