Abrabanel: Musings on the Jewish condition

It appears the Indian doctors are now saying the Mumbai victims were not tortured:

Dr. Gajanan Chawan, who saw the bodies, told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday he did not believe the wounds he observed suggested the hostages had been tortured prior to their deaths.

Asked if he saw any evidence of torture on the bodies, Chawan replied, “No, I don’t think so.” He added that the majority of the wounds he could identify had been caused by firearms.

On Monday, a morgue employee at the JJ hospital who had also seen the bodies told the Post by telephone that the bodies of the Jewish victims had a higher number of gunshot wounds than the bodies of other victims.

“On the Jewish bodies, there were more injuries in numbers, they were firearms injuries,” the morgue official said.

A strange sort of comfort, but comforting nonetheless.

Back in Tel Aviv, however, the incredible police mobilization earlier in the week produced results. According to a close friend in the Tel Aviv District Police, three terrorists were captured with explosives in a small apartment on Levinsky Street. Almost nothing was said on the news, so it may be the beginning of something big – a terror network we’ll hear about again when it is rolled up for good.

The Border Guard is out in force in the streets of Tel Aviv, checking cars one by one in some of the poshest parts of the city. We passed them on the way to work this morning and wondered.

It turns out there is some hard intelligence about an imminent terror threat in the city:

Tel Aviv police were on high alert Tuesday morning after receiving intelligence on plans to carry out a terror attack in the city.

In light of the alert, roadblocks were set up on roads leading in and out of the city, and policemen were deployed in large numbers on the streets. Police also sent a helicopter to aid it in its search for suspects.

The increased level of security led to heavy traffic in the Gush Dan area, and police were advising drivers to avoid the area at this time.

Obviously you noticed the Mumbai terror saga. But in all the noise and on-site reporting, I hope you didn’t miss this:

The doctors who conducted the autopsies on the victims say that many of the bodies showed signs of torture. One doctor explains that “of all the bodies, the Israeli victims bore the maximum torture marks. It was clear that they were killed on the 26th itself. It was obvious that they were tied up and tortured before they were killed. It was so bad that I do not want to go over the details even in my head again.”

As the intelligence services and Indian newspapers have reported, Ajmal Kamal, the terrorist arrested at the Jewish Nariman House, “said they were specifically asked to target the foreigners, especially the Israelis.”

We go, as always, into fire. We emerge, as always, the ones remembered for good.

Little Moshe will grow up a prince among his people. The nasty kind of Islam that sent those brutal men will be brutalized by its own creations.

Hizbullah and Iranian agents are probably in Venezuela right now engaged in a serious effort to kidnap Jewish businesspeople, according to Western officials quoted in a Los Angeles Times article from today.

The piece is decent. It gives good background on the ties between Venezuela and Iran. Buried a few paragraphs down, it offers this chilling assessment:

Agents of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and Hezbollah have allegedly set up a special force to attempt to kidnap Jewish businesspeople in Latin America and spirit them away to Lebanon, according to the Western anti-terrorism official. Iranian and Hezbollah operatives traveling in and out of Venezuela have recruited Venezuelan informants working at the Caracas airport to gather intelligence on Jewish travelers as potential targets for abduction, the Western anti-terrorism official said.

Our sources in the Israeli government who track such things tell us that the relations between Chavez and the Jewish community have improved since their low-point last December, when police raided the famous La Hebraica social club just hours before a national referendum on constitutional changes that would have strengthened Chavez’s presidential powers.

For example, they say, recent anti-Semitic remarks by some government officials were condemned and punished by the country’s Interior Minister.

Israel cannot easily protect Jews in Venezuela. Operations are limited by the local government’s vigilance and animosity, and by a real fear from the community itself. Mr. Chavez, these Jews are in your care. Do not fail them.