Was the killer in Norway insane? If so, he can plead innocent by reason of insanity and be put away in a mental hospital. And if so, we have nothing on our hands but a dreadfully tragic individual and his unspeakable actions.
People tend to respond to mass murderers instinctively by calling them mad or insane or sick. If so, we have just exonerated the worst mass killers of all, the Nazi members of the Einsatzgruppen who personally pulled the trigger each and every killer, pulled the trigger on hundreds and thousands of people, one after the other. We do not regard the Nazis as having been mad or insane or sick. We regard them as evil.
Same for the killer in Norway. To attribute his killings to mental illness is, on the legal level at the least, to exonerate him. This, we cannot do, any more than we can exonerate the Nazi killers in the Einsatzgruppen. Both pulled the trigger on innocent people. This isnt insanity: this is the carrying out of a deliberate agenda, however perverted that agenda may be.
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We cannot escape the reality that a deliberate, political agenda motivated the Norway killer. He himself laid it out. His job was to be, in his mind, a good Christian, that is, to rid the land of Muslims. Now, Muslims and Christians fought and killed each other in the thousands and hundreds of thousands for centuries. We thought we had gotten past that. In the fanatical minds of a few, apparently we have not.
We cannot escape another reality. Honest readers of the killers online tirades have no problem naming the killers self-description. He is, he said, a Christian. However unrepresentative and perverse the believing Christians find this killer, it is openly admitted that in his own mind he is a Christian, and he does represent, even by his own actions alone, a certain hateful embodiment of Christianity today.
Most are not denying this ugly fact. Yet and here is the other reality when the Fort Hood killer does his evil work his own religion is denied or apologized for. We dont know for sure whether he was a Muslim. Or: Its wrong to blame all of Islam for what he did. Or: You cant say he was a Muslim, because that is hateful. In short, every manner of apologia to duck the ugly reality that, in the case of the killer in Norway, is, by most, not ducked.
The man in Norway who killed in the name of Christianity cannot be explained away; the men who killed on 9/11 in the name of Islam cannot be explained away; Baruch Goldstein who killed in the name of Judaism cannot be explained away.
The larger issue? The larger issue is, simply, that intolerance flows on many sides in this epoch of ours. By far the preponderant intolerance flows from radical Islam, which means, simply, that those Muslims who kill innocents in the name of religion are enemies, and the rest of the Muslims are not; that those Christians who kill innocents in the name of religion are enemies, and the rest of the Christians are not; and that members of any other religion who kill innocents in the name of religion are enemies, and the rest are not.
The larger issue is, further, that the best political framework for a mixed society a society of people of different religions and political beliefs is the society with a constitution guaranteeing equal rights regardless of religion and political belief. Grade school civics, no? Well, no, because from Oslo to Fort Hood, from the cafes of Tel Aviv to the deserts of Afghanistan, from Saudi Arabia to Itamar, this so-called simple point equal rights under a constitution is not understood, or is openly rejected. If nothing else, the killings in Norway teach us that people of good will have a long way to go before equality before the law is accepted.
Still another larger issue. If so-called neo-Nazi right-wing Christian politics can motivate a killer in Norway to pull the trigger due to Islam, he can also be motivated to act against Judaism. Jewish communities in Europe, beware!
As for the killers Zionism, this, we hope, will be seen as the absurdity it is. Alas, in todays climate, some of the shameless enemies of the national liberation movement of the Jewish people will latch onto even the rantings of the Norway killer. Jewish communities everywhere, beware!
Beyond or perhaps before all of these issues is the tremendous, gratuitous, horrible suffering of countless loved ones, friends and neighbors in Norway. Our hearts go out to these people and, at the time of this countrys national trauma, we extend our condolences and our understanding. Surely Americans, having suffered through 9/11, can identify with the pain and the vulnerability that Norwegians now experience. Surely Israelis, having suffered through countless such attacks, can likewise feel the pain of Norway. For whatever it is worth to the grieving families, we extend our deepest condolences and hopes for a better future.
Copyright © 2011 by the Intermountain Jewish News
