Once again, the circle widens. Small Arab groups apparently linked to al-Qaida claimed responsibility for the deadly attacks against two synagogues in Istanbul.
In the coming days, it will be debated whether this attack fits in the continuum of the increasingly vocal hatred for Jews and Israel, or the continuum of terrorism that has struck in the United States, Israel, Indonesia, Morocco, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Iraq.
This is, ultimately, a sterile debate. It strains credulity, as some commentators have already done, to portray this only as an attack against Turkey. Two synagogues were bombed during Shabbat prayers. This was an old-fashioned pogrom employing the latest method, the car bomb.
At the same time, however, this was an attack against Turkey. The terrorists who did this were not just out to kill Jews, but to attack Turkey in a way that some might excuse and claim it was “only” the Jews.
Of course this was not “just” an attack against the Jews, for the basic reason that at least three times as many Turkish Muslims were killed as Jewish worshippers. While the attack obviously begins with anti-Semitism, it does not end there.
As Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan put it,
“I consider this as a bomb hurled at Turkey’s peace and
tranquility.”
This attack illustrates the indivisibility of terrorism. The issue is not whether it was against Jews, Turkey or the West: It was all of the above. The attempt to dissect such attacks is often, consciously or not, an attempt by those not yet affected to pretend that the circle of victims will not spread to them.
Jews were attacked because of hatred of Israel, we are told. Or Turkey was attacked because it is close to America and Israel. Maybe, so goes the logic, if we do not cooperate with America or Israel, we will be spared.
Don’t count on it. How many countries have to be hit before Europe concludes, in an operational way, that we are in this together?
The heart of the strategy of terrorism is to bank precisely on Europe’s ability to deceive itself. If the West were as united and single-minded as its attackers, the terrorists would not stand a chance. If the key democracies of the world united to isolate and impose comprehensive sanctions against the handful of states that harbor terrorism, as they did against the former apartheid regime in South Africa, those nations would be forced to abandon terrorism as a tool of national policy. The terrorist network sees that this is not happening and concludes, with some logic, that continued terrorism is necessary to reinforce and deepen the divisions between Europe and the United States.
For all its high moral and strategic pretensions, the European strategy amounts to this: Lie low. Maybe the bullets will fly overhead. Maybe the outlaws will not train their guns on us.
This would be a fine strategy for nations without power, influence or dignity. In fact, it would be understandable and even acceptable if it did not detract from the sheriff’s ability to hunt down the outlaws. The problem is that Europe is not just a cowering, innocent bystander, but more like someone who is not only hiding behind the sheriff, but holding one of the sheriff’s hands behind his back.
Europe claims to believe in multinational action and working through international institutions, such as the United Nations. If so, the tools are all there, waiting to be used. A united Security Council could stop the ruse whereby countries like Syria blatantly claim the right to define terrorism against Israel as “resisting occupation.”
It could impose sanctions of the sort that forced Libya to admit guilt and pay billions in reparations. It could, in short, transform terrorism for countries like Iran and Syria from a policy that pays off to a policy that endangers their regimes.
The longer Europe waits to join the fight in earnest, the more it risks not only its own security, but what it seems to value more — its standing as the world’s self-appointed moral arbiter. Lying low, at the end of the day, is not a terribly effective way to maintain one’s stake on the high moral ground.
This editorial previously appeared in the Jerusalem Post.