07-14-2006, 01:33 AM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Zion to Sion </b>
The Pioneer Edit Desk
From Israel, lessons for Mumbai ---- Facetious as it may sound, weeks like this one are ripe for bemoaning the limits to outsourcing, and the fact that the mandate for India's internal security cannot be contracted out to the iron-willed consciousness of Israel. In the past two days, Israel has bombed Beirut airport and begun a naval blockade of Lebanon, aimed at disrupting the supply lines of Hizbullah terrorists and weaponry. It has refused to negotiate following Hizbullah's kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers, recognised that outrage for what it is - an act of war - and gone on the offensive, determined to uproot the sources of terror. In the past fortnight, Israel has also moved its soldiers into Gaza, after fresh attacks from there - even as the rogue "Government of Palestine" looked on encouragingly - and the abduction of a military officer. It is impossible not to contrast these tough and unambiguous measures with the pusillanimity and squeamishness of the UPA Government after the Mumbai train blasts or, indeed, the relentless cycle of terrorist assaults that began almost exactly one year ago, in Ayodhya. <span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'>There is denial about home-grown terrorism - UPA Ministers never tire of claiming that no Indian is a member of Al Qaeda, ignoring the growing number of non-Kashmiri recruits in the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba, with cells uncovered in, at least, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra. There is praise for Mumbai's "resilience" and "spirit", as if these were substitutes for concrete Government action.</span> No country suffers the frequency of bomb attacks that Israel does - in markets, discotheques, restaurants, everyday places. Ordinary Israelis get up, dust themselves and go on with life. They display the remarkable human ability to bounce back that, on the morning of July 12, brought Mumbai back on track. Yet the Government in Tel Aviv doesn't take solace from this, wring its hands, sit down and do nothing. It salutes its brave citizens by destroying - or pre-empting - those who mean them harm.
It is nobody's suggestion that the UPA Government should immediately begin bombing terrorist camps across the Line of Control - though that eventuality is a compelling and perhaps inevitable option - but what of action against indigenous bastions of terrorists and their logistical support structures, against institutions and groups known to be hand in glove with Laskhar, Jaish-e-Mohammed and their sister organisations, a crackdown on jihadi fifth columnists within India? This is a national imperative, however much "secular" UPA allies may protest. The post-bombing arrest of 200 people in Mumbai is a case in point. <b>It is unlikely these people were actually involved in the suburban train strikes. They are probably SIMI/Islamist sympathisers whose names have long appeared in police records but who have never been questioned, let alone taken into custody, as the Congress and its allies went looking for their votes and repealed POTA</b>. If hard steps had been taken a year ago, Mumbai's trains would probably still have been safe. The terrorists would have been warned: Governments change, but this is a country you don't mess with. In the summer of 2006 those messages are being delivered loud and clear - as it happens, by Israel. Meanwhile, Mr Manmohan Singh can go back to his fiddle.
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The Pioneer Edit Desk
From Israel, lessons for Mumbai ---- Facetious as it may sound, weeks like this one are ripe for bemoaning the limits to outsourcing, and the fact that the mandate for India's internal security cannot be contracted out to the iron-willed consciousness of Israel. In the past two days, Israel has bombed Beirut airport and begun a naval blockade of Lebanon, aimed at disrupting the supply lines of Hizbullah terrorists and weaponry. It has refused to negotiate following Hizbullah's kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers, recognised that outrage for what it is - an act of war - and gone on the offensive, determined to uproot the sources of terror. In the past fortnight, Israel has also moved its soldiers into Gaza, after fresh attacks from there - even as the rogue "Government of Palestine" looked on encouragingly - and the abduction of a military officer. It is impossible not to contrast these tough and unambiguous measures with the pusillanimity and squeamishness of the UPA Government after the Mumbai train blasts or, indeed, the relentless cycle of terrorist assaults that began almost exactly one year ago, in Ayodhya. <span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'>There is denial about home-grown terrorism - UPA Ministers never tire of claiming that no Indian is a member of Al Qaeda, ignoring the growing number of non-Kashmiri recruits in the Lashkar-e-Tayyeba, with cells uncovered in, at least, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra. There is praise for Mumbai's "resilience" and "spirit", as if these were substitutes for concrete Government action.</span> No country suffers the frequency of bomb attacks that Israel does - in markets, discotheques, restaurants, everyday places. Ordinary Israelis get up, dust themselves and go on with life. They display the remarkable human ability to bounce back that, on the morning of July 12, brought Mumbai back on track. Yet the Government in Tel Aviv doesn't take solace from this, wring its hands, sit down and do nothing. It salutes its brave citizens by destroying - or pre-empting - those who mean them harm.
It is nobody's suggestion that the UPA Government should immediately begin bombing terrorist camps across the Line of Control - though that eventuality is a compelling and perhaps inevitable option - but what of action against indigenous bastions of terrorists and their logistical support structures, against institutions and groups known to be hand in glove with Laskhar, Jaish-e-Mohammed and their sister organisations, a crackdown on jihadi fifth columnists within India? This is a national imperative, however much "secular" UPA allies may protest. The post-bombing arrest of 200 people in Mumbai is a case in point. <b>It is unlikely these people were actually involved in the suburban train strikes. They are probably SIMI/Islamist sympathisers whose names have long appeared in police records but who have never been questioned, let alone taken into custody, as the Congress and its allies went looking for their votes and repealed POTA</b>. If hard steps had been taken a year ago, Mumbai's trains would probably still have been safe. The terrorists would have been warned: Governments change, but this is a country you don't mess with. In the summer of 2006 those messages are being delivered loud and clear - as it happens, by Israel. Meanwhile, Mr Manmohan Singh can go back to his fiddle.
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