Only Silence from Those Who Should Speak

Camille Paglia reiterates the point made by Mark Steyn:

The tragic fate of so many innocent victims in Mumbai deserves our pity.  But what should live in special infamy was the ruthless execution of the Lubavitcher rabbi, Gavriel Holtzberg, and his lovely wife, Rivka, who was 5 months pregnant.  These were two idealistic young people of obvious warmth and humanity, who sought only to serve.  The rescue by their Indian nanny of their orphaned 2-year-old son, Moshe, crying and smeared with his parents' blood, is already legendary.  

Was this zeroing in on the Chabad Jewish Center in Mumbai about Israel, or was it simply a gruesome eruption of the medieval tradition of anti-Semitism?  Why have Muslim organizations, very quick to protest insulting cartoons, been mostly silent about the atrocities in Mumbai?

The slaughter of the Holtzbergs and other Jews at Chabad House should be a wake-up call to Western liberals who believe that jihadism can be defeated through reason and happy talk.  Only other Muslims can launch the stringent internal reform necessary to stomp this barbaric extremism out.

Lighted candles sit on a table during a video tribute for Rabbi Gabi and Rivkah Holtzberg, during a memorial service at Chabad Lubavitch in midtown New York, Thursday Dec. 4, 2008. (AP Photo by Bebeto Matthews)

Indian nanny Sandra Samuel kisses Moshe Holtzberg, 2, orphan of Rabbi Gavriel Noach Holtzberg and his wife Rivkah, killed in the Mumbai Jewish center attack, in the garden of his relative's house in Migdal Ha-Emek, northern Israel, Monday, Dec. 8, 2008. (AP Photo by Tara Todras-Whitehill)