A Moral Victory for the U.S., but Not the End of the Story

You can’t say that al-Qaida has been beaten terminally because the organization is founded on religion, and you can’t defeat religion. Jihad does not dwell in bases but rather in hearts.

In the World Trade Center in New York, next to ground zero, there was a small and dreadful museum built. The pictures of a great many of those who perished in the catastrophe of the twin towers — 2,998 in number — are hung on a huge cork board, together with personal effects and documents found on the spot and not claimed by anyone.

I visited there a month ago. Petrifying pictures of people stuck on the upper floors, who jumped down to their death or were scorched alive in fire, arouse in a visitor feelings of compassion and rage. The record of unthinkable annihilation, minutes after the explosion of the towers, reinforces the shock even more. How far cruelty can reach …

But what brings you to the verge of tears are placards, signs and notes written by hand, the means through which numerous families tried to find their lost dear ones after the disaster. “Anyone seen them, anyone heard of them?” the family members asked, attaching pictures and descriptions of the victims’ faces, pointing out where they were seen for the last time and hoping for news of life to break in.

Yesterday, Yehudit Levinger told Kol Israel about the desperate search among the hospitals for her son Shai Levinger Z”L,* who worked on the 103th floor. Everything was in vain. Those looking for miracles shouldn’t have been in the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.

For a Decade There Hovered a Feeling of Injustice

Peter Zinger, a friend from New York, woke me up yesterday before dawn right after he heard about President Obama’s statement. He was just insanely happy. I can understand him. There’s a feeling of injustice here which has been hovering for 10 years, and now it found some kind of peace.

How is it that someone who committed such a heinous crime has walked free for so long, leaving behind him the suffering of thousands of innocent people and families, bragging of his exploits and continuing to preach for indiscriminate terror for no logical reason?

Bin Laden and his doctrine are no different in their essence from Nazism. In both cases the goal is about striving to exterminate as many people as possible, including women and children, solely on the grounds that they come from a different background: Jews, according to Nazism; or Westerners (“crusaders”) and Jews, according to al-Qaida.

In the both cases, the end justifies the means. Had bin Laden gotten a dirty nuclear bomb in his possession, he wouldn’t have hesitated to throw it on Washington or Tel Aviv. In all likelihood, he would have found some rationale for his acts in the verses of Quran.

Not a Final Termination

In view of that, the elimination of bin Laden is not the end. You can say that Nazism was beaten, because it leaned on a political ideology. You can’t say that al-Qaida was or will be beaten, because this organization is based on religion — and religion cannot be defeated.

The Islamic jihad was battered, but it will keep functioning and putting down roots everywhere. And this jihad does not exist just in the operational headquarters of terrorist organizations, but rather in hearts. This is about a phenomenon and not an army. About education, and not just an organized entity. Bin Laden himself was a leader with a quiet charisma, who is still able to attract to him throngs of fanatics who will now seek to imitate his deeds.

You also can’t disregard al-Qaida’s power of imagination and destructive creativity and the mystical self-sacrifice of the people who now will only try to avenge. Fuad Ben-Eliezer** spoke after the terror attack on the twin towers about planes that had turned into bombs, terrorists who had turned into fuses and fuel which had turned into combustion material, as if from a horror movie.

Also, bin Laden’s hiding place in Abbottabad in recent years, in a sizable house near the capital of Pakistan and not in the Tora Bora caves, teaches us a thing about terribly sharp practices of these jihadists. They are unpredictable on scary levels.

The liquidation of bin Laden has released a worldwide sigh of relief. It’s a moral and ethical triumph over international terror. The sense of revenge on bin Laden is legitimate, too, after a decade of provocations. But it’s only a temporary victory; we definitely haven’t heard the end of it.

*Editor’s note: The English abbreviation *Z”L* is an “honorific” in Judaism meaning “of blessed memory.”

**Translator’s note: Israeli politician who has held several ministerial posts, including minister of defense.