If Presidents Bush and Obama stoutly maintained for 10 years that Osama bin Laden was not a true Muslim, then why did President Obama insist on giving bin Laden a Muslim funeral? Either bin Laden practiced a form of Islam or he did not.
In fact, bin Laden deserved no dignity in death, whether he was a representative of a form of Islam or not (and of course he was).
Just as some people sacrifice their lives due to their evil, they sacrifice any claim to burial with dignity.
Bin Laden was one of those people.
There are precedents.
Notwithstanding Judaisms rigorous strictures on respect for the dead well known to anyone who has ever studied these matters, or who has ever volunteered for a chevra kadisha there are exceptions.
Not everyone should be treated with dignity in death.
These exceptions are very rare, to be sure; but then again, the level of evil perpetrated by Osama bin Laden was very rare, too.
It was akin to the evil perpetrated by King Achaz in ancient Israel, who burnt the innocent alive as a form of idolatry. Which really sums it up, doesnt it? Human sacrifice to false gods the evil of Achaz in antiquity is precisely what was resuscitated by bin Laden.
Now, the Talmud (Berachot 10b, Sanhedrin 47a) records that King Achazs son, the righteous King Hezekiah, had the body of his dead father dragged to his grave on a bed of ropes, rather than the bed of gold and silver usually used for a king. Rashi, the commentator, notes that the son disgraced the body of his own father because of his fathers evil. The righteous King Hezekiah wanted to teach the importance of avoiding evil conduct. That is why he extended no dignity in death to King Achaz. That is why bin Laden should have received no dignity in death to teach the importance of avoiding evil. A great teaching moment was lost.
Dumped into the sea, not buried at sea, is what bin Laden deserved. Not to put too fine a point on the difference, but that is exactly what our government was at pains to do. We received hypocritical explanations by the same government that declared bin Laden not to be a representative of Islam, but a distortion thereof. For example, John Brenan, Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, informed us that the burial of bin Ladens remains was done in strict conformance with Islamist precepts and practices. Why?
We all know why. The US genuflected before a religious tradition whose precepts and practices two US presidents declared to be totally violated by bin Laden, and we did this for one reason only: so as not to inflame the emotions of the Islamic supporters of bin Laden.
On the day that bin Laden was assassinated by the US, the US still kowtowed to advocates and perpetrators of the murder of innocents. Even on the day that we proudly took out public enemy #1, our government still could not free itself from the grip of extremists threats. It was still impossible to stand up fully against evil to name bin Laden for what he was: that rare specimen who forfeited dignity in death.
The Islamic burial of bin Laden reminds us of the refusal to publish cartoons critical of Islamic terrorism on the grounds that extremist Muslims would take offense as if a free society must limit itself so as not to offend. That, of course, is the very definition of a non-free society.
In the niceties insisted on for bin Ladens burial, our leaders found it necessary to curtail the full exercise of our freedoms, which, yes, would wisely have denied bin Laden the status of a shrine by disposing of him at sea, but would have done so without respect. The accordance of that respect to a mass murderer granted a level of implicit legitimacy to his extremist followers call them Muslims, call them non-Muslims, call them what you want who would cut down our freedoms altogether.
As Rabbi Ron Y. Eiseman put it succinctly: Does the disposal of the remains of one who is committed to killing innocents in our country and around the globe merit strict conformance with Islamist precepts and practices?
If, as President Obama declared, bin Laden declared war on the US and on innocent people anywhere, there should be no more expectation of dignity in death for bin Laden than for Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot or anyone else on that short, infamous list of those who utterly uprooted their own Divine image.
It may be that our best efforts at respecting bin Laden in death notwithstanding, we failed. A statement supposedly from a son of bin Laden complained bitterly that it is unacceptable, humanely and religiously, to dispose of a person with such importance and status among his people, by throwing his body into the sea in that way, which demeans and humiliates his family and his supporters . . .
If this message is authentic, here is a case where failure flies.
Copyright © 2011 by the Intermountain Jewish News
