Why Mumbai Massacre Matters To Us

The amazing power of the internet is being demonstrated once again. A terrible assault occurs in a major city half a world away. It is posted on our Twitter feeds before it is on the news.

Then, as the story breaks in the U.S. newspapers, the magnitude of the crime appears muted, even distorted. The Internet, however, tells it like it is, as it happens.

When I first learned that the terrorists took hostages and then tortured them, I wondered why this was not yet covered in U.S. media. The torture has become a major feature of the story in Israel where six Jewish citizens where tortured so horribly the doctors became disturbed. Last night I watched a news broadcast from Israel via internet after these six dead were returned to their Homeland.

But as of yesterday there were no mentions of the torture in our local paper. And now today still nothing. In fact, nothing about Mumbai at all.

Blogs and news organizations around the world are talking about this event. Some are saying it is a landmark because it has the potential of starting an Indo-Pakistan war. Others cite the specific horrors done to Jews as a setback to Israeli-Muslim relations, especially if Muslim leaders do not step up and denounce these crimes.

But U.S. stories, when I Googled Mumbai torture have the following at this moment in time. An L.A. Times story with the sentence, “An infuriated Malvia said she would torture the attackers if she ever got her hands on them.” But there is no mention that the hostages were tortured, that the U.S., British and Israeli hostages purposely captured in this well planned horrorshow were tortured. It only talks of a “killing spree.” The out of context quote almost makes the U.S. citizen seem like the bad person in the story.

According to Don Feder, editor of Boycott The New York Times, it is a deliberate stance the U.S. news regime is taking because "The Times adamantly refuses to recognize a connection between Islam and worldwide terrorism."

The Washington Post downplays the torture in this way. In a story titled Terror Groups in India, the Post cites a report that calls torture in India “normal”, noting that more than 2750 people were killed across India in “terrorism-related violence” in 2006.

The article details a host of terrorist organizations that have been active in the world’s second largest country. Are they saying then that Mumbai is just another incident?

The world press is not treating it this way.

The story being repeated on many sites seems to have as its origen this Nov. 30 account account by Krishnakumar P and Vicky Nanjappa which appeared in the Rediff India Abroad.

Doctors shocked at hostages's torture

They said that just one look at the bodies of the dead hostages as well as terrorists showed it was a battle of attrition that was fought over three days at the Oberoi and the Taj hotels in Mumbai. Doctors working in a hospital where all the bodies, including that of the terrorists, were taken said they had not seen anything like this in their lives.

"Bombay has a long history of terror. I have seen bodies of riot victims, gang war and previous terror attacks like bomb blasts. But this was entirely different. It was shocking and disturbing," a doctor said.

Asked what was different about the victims of the incident, another doctor said: "It was very strange. I have seen so many dead bodies in my life, and was yet traumatised. A bomb blast victim's body might have been torn apart and could be a very disturbing sight. But the bodies of the victims in this attack bore such signs about the kind of violence of urban warfare that I am still unable to put my thoughts to words," he said.

In other accounts it is noted repeatedly that "the worst tortured were the Jewish victims."

Unless the media tells about these things, Americans will not understand if there is a strong Jewish reaction against what happened.

Maybe the torture accounts will eentually emerge in our media. Maybe the U.S. coverage is restrained in an effort to obtain second sources to verify these accusations. But there seems to be plenty of evidence. Doctors at the hospital saw and were made ill by it. The bodies were returned to Israel where other witnesses saw what was done to Rabbi Gavriel and Rivka Holtzberg, among others. You can see the pools of blood online in photos of the Chabad House Massacre where some of these terrible events took place. Very bad things did happen.

There are three reasons the events in Mumbai matter to us.

1. Indo-Pakistan relations have been jeopardized. Both countries have nuclear weapons. There may be political ramifications in U.S.-Pakistani relations.

2. Israeli-Islam relations set back. If the torture is confirmed, this could potentially become a catalyst for more incendiary events.
3. It forces us to question whether our U.S. news sources are reliable.

The power of the Internet to put all these stories, photos, and videos just a mouse click away is remarkable, though somewhat frightening as well. Pray for the peace of Jersusalem.