Synagogue Bombings in Constantinople!

[axi]

I hate being the one who has to initiate this thread, but...

THE NEWS

2 high powered remote controlled bombs, in automobiles, exploded at about 09:30, Saturday 15/11/2003 in front of 2 of Constantinople's most central synagogues. The facade of one of the buildings collapsed because of the blast. To the moment the death toll is 23 dead and 100 wounded.

MY COMMENT

In contrast to the many accusations of antisemitism that Israeli politicians lightly throw around the world, against people that criticize Israel's policies, the horrendous act that happened today IS THE ESSENCE OF ANTISEMITISM.

Whoever placed those bombs, were not targetting Sharon, or Israel, or the United States, they were targetting innocent Jews in their place of worship. This bomb may be technically similar to the one that killed 19 Italian soldiers in Nassirijah, but politically it is leagues away from it, since the one was an act of resistance to an illegal occupation, the other is a blind hate crime.

How is this bombing different to one of the bus bombings in Israel, you may ask? Well, a bus bombing in Israel still remains a blind hate crime, but it has a target that unforunately is not neutral to the conflict; as long as the IDF helicopters have no problem to kill Palestinian civilians with bombs, then an Islamist militant has no problem to kill Israeli civilians too. However exporting terrorism to a neutral target (such as Turkish Jews) shows lack of political criterion and, what else, the deepest ANTISEMITISM.

How do you deal with the problem? How will such acts, which as we see are escalating in barbarity, be stopped? Surely, not by bombing another country. If the west wants to be called civilized, perhaps it should start exporting it's political civilization to the Middle East, and not just bombs.

ÌÁ×ÁÉÑÁÍ ÅÄÙÓÅÓ, ÌÁ×ÁÉÑÁÍ ÈÁ ËÁÂÅÉÓ

So said the ancients.

[Az]

the ancients were big fans of squares, I guess.

yeah, well, another terror act. My condolences to the families, as always.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

The bitter irony is that everyone in the synagogues seems to be okay (thank God) and the 23 people killed seem to have been passersby. So the f*ckheads who did this -- who were almost certainly Muslims -- just managed to kill 23 fellow Muslims.

It will be interesting to see how Turkey's crypto-Islamicist government responds to this.

[Az]

What a bunch of morons. my condolences to the Turkish people.

Rufus: I don't think the reaction would be any different. The relations with Israel haven't changed, for example.

[Panag]

hi ,

this morning in a suburb of paris the Israeli school from the organisation if Merkaz Hatorah was burned , 60 french fire fighters tried to do what they can , but failed , wheter this is linked to a criminal intent or act of terror is unknown at this stage , ......

the french minister of the interior , Nicolas Sarkozy shall place a visit to the scene later today , ....

have a nice day

link in french > http://www.france2.fr/semiStatic/61-NIL-NIL-276585.html


when is it going to stop , when is the pain going to stop , when is the suffering going to end , ........

[Gangerolf]

This is terrible


By the way, I hear Leningrad is nice this time of year. I think I'll go there and perhaps stop by Königsberg on the way? Too bad my girlfriend wants to go to Lutetia

[Meticulous Man]

How's Christiania, the Norwegian capital?

[Az]

[Sirotnikov]

Axi, thanks

My condolences to turkish victims of this crime.

I would Just like to say that I don't think that random people on a bus, are much more a side in the conflict than random people in the synagogue.

The only legitimate targets are government or military installations.

As far as the statement saying Israeli helicopters are at times killing palestinian civilians, I welcome you all to take an interest in the history and morality of war.

What takes precidense is that the Israeli helicopters were targetting hamas members, and were making their best to avoid hurting civilians.

Furthermore I would like to contend that the palestinains are often faking civilian casualties.

Two weeks ago Israeli helicopters hit a car with 3 terrorists inside. The Palestinians claimed the car was sorrounded by civilians and that a dozen was killed as a result.

The IAF released pictures from the cameras boarded on the helicpters proving that when both missiles were fired there were no people close to the car. The closes person was some 90 feet away, and that was the only person in sight.

[atawa]

Another waste of human life

My condolances to the family's of those killed in the attacks.

[Shi Huangdi]

"In contrast to the many accusations of antisemitism that Israeli politicians lightly throw around the world, against people that criticize Israel's policies"

Just because Anti-semitism doesn't rise to the level of this in some countries doesn't excuse hate-crimes aainst Jews elsewhere.

You know, the terrorists seem to be doing this quite a bit. Just after an attack in Saudi Arabia that killed only Moslems, several attacks in Iraq that killed plenty of innocent bystandatd Iraqis, and now this, one wonders if Al-Qaeda might be squandering the sympathy it once had in the Islamic world...

[Ned]

Could this be a union of al Qaeda and one or more of the anti-Israel terror organizations such as Islamic Jihad?

On the news this morning is a report that there was a link between Saddam and al Qaeda as early as 1993. Saddam apparently was financing al Qaeda.

[DanS]

It sounds to me like al Qaeda is trying to appropriate the Palestinian struggle to itself. I don't think Islamic Jihad, etc., would want to be overshadowed by al Qaeda.

[GePap]

Turkeys relatively close relations to both Israel and the US make it a target, as well as the stict secularism of the military. The larger of the two mosques has been attacked before by terrorists.

Probably Al Qaeda and Al Qaeda affiliates.

[Bereta_Eder]

I remember seeing on TV the great and fierce demonstrations of people in Turkey when it was announced that Arafat was to be exhiled or killed. They were very big in volume IIRC. I think people identify with the Palestinians because of religion and are uncomfortable with the military alliance of Israel and Turkey.

I retain my doubts on wether that was Al Qaeda or some other indigenous Islamist group. From what I've read the responsibility for the bombing was assumed by the "Islamist Front of Fighters of the Grand Anatolia".

Bombings are frequent in Constantinople though. Only some days back Kurdish separatists planted another bomb IIRC but I think it didn't have fatalities.