New York Bomb Plot Raises Disturbing Questions–and Memories

The men arrested for trying to bomb two synagogues and other sites in New York apparently acted alone. They indeed were seeking an opportunity for jihad. But it was primarily in response to the deaths in Afghanistan in Pakistan at the hands of American soldiers. Now it appears that they were deeply involved with an informant who, according to the leader of the mosque, was a government agent who came two years ago to the mosque encouraging meetings on jihad.

So…did the government agent instigate this group of criminal men? Of course, this was a sting operation, but what are the ethics of sting operations? Is it the same infiltrating a mafia group and instigating a crime as infiltrating a house of worship and doing the same? I know the Jewish community would not be thrilled with some government agent who infiltrating Brooklyn and instigated some massive fraud scheme that got a lot of Sabbath observant people imprisoned.

Tough questions. New York did not deserve another terror attack, and Jews feel quite traumatized by this past decade of suicide bombings. I am chilled by the fact that I personally know several people in those Riverdale synagogues that might have been blown to bits one Saturday by these fine gentlemen. Grew up with some of them. And yet blame, or exclusive blame, seems harder for me to pin down. Just yesterday, I was sitting in my house teaching my daughter and heard a long low rumble. Then dismissed it. Half hour later there were no less than 12 emergency vehicles that came screaming down my quiet street, and I was terrified. I immediately thought of the Habad synagogue down the street, a nice place run by a young man who lost his childhood friend in the Mumbai massacre’s one Jewish target. I raced in my car and it was nothing, just a man scared by his faulty fire place.

I still have not gotten over this age of terror. And the war on terror that my taxes went toward for eight long years only made it all worse. It was not a war on terror but a war of terror. When civilized people learn how to fight a war on terror without becoming terrorists themselves then we will have won. The lessons of history demand nothing less.