Fancy Mogadishu Hotel is like the setting for a novel--but Reality is more Gripping and Horrifying

The Sahafi Hotel, before the attack

"If there is one hotel everyone knows in Mogadishu, it is the Sahafi. Warlords and militants alike used to hang out and plot schemes in the lounge and courtyard while sipping grapefruit juice and pulling apart camel meat steaks."

"...the hotel's owner, Abdirashid Ilgayte, used to welcome guests into his incense-scented office just off the hotel's entrance and regale them with stories of violence and intrigue from Somalia's darkest days..."

Sounds like the beginning of a spy novel. You can almost inhale those succulent camel meat steaks pulling tenderly from the bone...

But instead of the enticing opening to a juicy intrigue, this is a NY Times news story, dated November 2, reporting the latest bloody attack by "one of Al Queda's most murderous offshoots," the Shabab, who rammed an exploding car through the hotel's front gate to allow entry to a cluster of terrorists who shot everyone in their path, then roamed the floors looking for more to kill. The murderers held the charred, rubble-filled hotel for hours; a second car explosion in front two hours after the first wounding or killing several more people, many of whom had come as reporters to the scene.

The original rampage occurred at dawn; "By 11 am, African Union troops in Somalia, along with government forces, overpowered the attackers and shot them dead."

The Sahafi Hotel, under siege

This is just the latest in a series of hotel attacks the Times calls "one of the hallmarks of the Shabab, who have killed scores in Mogadishu in recent years by overwhelming security guards at the gates and then sending in suicidal fighters." The article, by Mohammed Ibrahim and Jeffrey Gettleman, notes, "most of their victims have been fellow Somali Muslims."

We in America listen to the World Series and plan our Sunday outings, while the rest of the world endures a reality we cannot fathom.

"Mogadishu may be safer than it used to be but it is still not safe," the news article continues. "The Shabab once controlled much of the city, bull-whipping women and terrorizing the population by enforcing a harsh version  of Islamic law." The writers observe that the Shabab "seemed to have perfected mass murder on the cheap, including an attack on a university in Kenya in April in which four young Shabab gunmen killed more than 140 people." On the cheap!?

Did you read this article? Are you as appalled and horrified as I am that this kind of ruthless extermination is almost reported ho-hum--just another instance of ubiquitous violence and murder to further an extremist vision of Islam aimed at the entire world? What are the churches and universities supporting BDS (boycot, divestment and sanctions) against Israel doing to combat this much more lethal and festering Islamism?  Then again, it's easy to protest a democracy; not so simple to cut down terrorist extremists whose suicidal tactics prove their complete disregard for life.

I can pray; I can write blogs pointing out these atrocities. These actions seem lame given the enormity of the enemy and the virulent expansion of this deadly power. Then our privileged life happens and we toss the day's newspaper into the recycle bin. 

Death of bin Laden; Death of Hitler

 "Hitler Dead!" "Bin Laden Dead!"  Exactly sixty-six years elapsed between the two headlines, both splashed across newspapers on May 2.

Another "coincidence:"  The day Jews around the world mourn and remember the enormous evil of Hitler's genocide, Yom haShoa, was the very same day Osama bin Laden was eliminated.  Eerie how these two clear reminders of evil--and death--occurred together. 

Jews around the world presently have heightened awareness of days, as we're in the midst of a special period that links the Passover exodus from Egypt to its purpose, receiving the Torah on Mt. Sinai.  Each day we "count the omer," saying aloud the number of days and weeks in this transition.  As part of this, we're ideally preparing ourselves with attention to specific character traits, in order to emulate our biblical ancestors who in unity and lofty spirit replaced their bondage to Pharoah with voluntary service to God.

I've been reading that some well-meaning, soft-hearted people, while glad the threat Osama bin Laden's continued existence posed is gone, refuse to "celebrate" the fact he's dead.  I find this inappropriate.

Yes, I, too, remember the sickening videos of Muslims whooping and jumping for joy when they heard about the 9-11 attacks.  That was particularly heinous and offensive, because the American civilians killed were just going about their daily lives.  They were indiscriminately murdered for the sole purpose of terrorizing and humiliating our nation.

Osama Bin Laden, on the other hand, considered himself a holy warrior.  He not only planned and facilitated the deaths of those 3,000 innocents on 9-11 but masterminded or enabled attacks dating to 1992. In 1998 he signed a fatwa or commanding decree, which includes the following: "We -- with God’s help -- call on every Muslim who believes in God and wishes to be rewarded to comply with God’s order to kill the Americans and plunder their money wherever and whenever they find it."

Three reasons were offered in the fatwa, the first two rooted in alleged American crusades against Muslims, with a supposed toll (as of Feb. 1998) of a million dead.  The third justification for the fatwa is decidedly anti-Semitic: "...if the Americans’ aims behind these wars are religious and economic, the aim is also to serve the Jews’ petty state and divert attention from its occupation of Jerusalem and murder of Muslims there."

Ironically, a 2009 Pew poll found that Arabs in middle eastern countries hold overwhelmingly negative views of Jews--except those who live in Israel.  Only 35% of Israeli Arabs expressed a negative opinion of Jews, while 56% had a positive response.

What we must consider, given the confluence of Yom ha Shoa and the killing of Osama bin Laden is the similarity of target between the Nazis and militant Islamic jihadists.  It all seems to come back to the Jews, a religious group too tiny in number to effect any real rulership or oppression of Muslims, even if it were permitted or desired.  Yom ha Shoa, the remembrance of the unspeakable annihilation of Jews on no basis except heritage, is whispered in Osama's fatwa, and broadened to include an entire nation, or more accurately, western civilization and culture.

America is not only hospitable to Muslims, but even now, officially tiptoes to assure them they are respected and not held responsible for the faction who would destroy us.  Pres. Obama was careful to say in his announcement that Osama "Bin Laden was not a Muslim leader. He was a mass murderer of Muslims. Indeed, al Qaeda slaughtered scores of Muslims in many countries including our own."

I don't think al Queda was aiming for Muslims when it took down the Twin Towers, but I also don't think killing Muslims who defend America would be seen as more than collateral damage to the jihadists who have such low regard for human life, even their own.

Jewish tradition teaches that certain individuals and groups are imbued with a proclivity toward evil, and we remember these destructive forces ("Amalek") yearly before Passover.  As we offer thanks to the courageous American security and military personnel who sought and destroyed Osama--for eight years under President Bush, and for two more under President Obama--we need to remain vigilant and cautious.  On an individual, spiritual level, the timing is right to pursue personal elevation as a means to replace the world's evil with good.

The headlines are just a reminder that little in this world is truly coincidence.