12-Oct-14: Anniversary reflections on the Bali Islamist massacre

October 12, 2002

Today marks twelve years since jihadist terrorists carried out a ghastly bombing attack on night club spots on the Indonesian island of Bali. There's some background in today's Sydney Morning Herald: "Quiet ceremonies to mark Bali bombing".

The Kuta Beach massacre was the deadliest act of terrorism in the history of Indonesia: 202 people were killed that night. 164 were foreign nationals, 38 were Indonesian citizens. 209 people were injured.

Almost immediately after it happened on October 12, 2002, the editorial team at the Herald-Sun newspaper in Melbourne, Australia, contacted Arnold Roth. This was only a year after the death of the Roths' daughter Malki. Both Arnold and Malki were born in Melbourne. The Herald-Sun requested a first-person response, an open letter to the families of the Indonesian attack victims. 

Malki's death, like those of the Bali massacre victims, came at the hands of terrorists acting in the name of Islam. Arnold felt he had something to say and set everything else aside to quickly write an op-ed [background here]. He sent it off to the Herald-Sun. Then... silence. 

For reasons that have never been explained, his article never appeared in the pages of the Melbourne newspaper. The paper's editor at the time never troubled himself to respond to several emails from Roth asking for an explanation. Eventually, the Jerusalem Post picked it up and published it in the paper's December 9, 2002 edition. Here's the text.

A letter to the families of the Kuta Beach victims
Arnold Roth, Jerusalem

I never felt more like a father than when taking the hand of my little daughter Malki and crossing the street with her. There is something so right and solid about being your child's protector. 

I never felt more wretched, frightened and alone than on the night the call came saying her body had been identified. My daughter was murdered by a deliberate act of explosive horror. I was not there to protect her. 

Grieving for your murdered loved one will be the most intensely lonely and personal thing you ever do. No one else can feel the depth of pain inside you. Friends and family will want to share the burden, to wrap their love and support around you, to lighten the load by their sincere care and concern. But the ache remains, along with the feelings of guilt. The cold truth will never change: an innocent life was deliberately and violently erased - and the monsters that did it are delighted with their work of their hands. 

I wish I could pass along some wisdom that might help you through this awful time. I can't. The best I can do is share some thoughts. The massacre at Kuta Beach is too raw, too huge, for anyone to fully comprehend. Time will help you to put it into a context, but you should not expect the answers to come easily... or ever. 

Time plays a key role in Jewish mourning observances. Some practices are specific to the first seven days. Others are designated for the first thirty days. And in the specific case of the death of a parent, Judaism prescribes a full year of mourning. This seems strange. A parent's passing, no matter what the circumstances, is always hard. Isn't the death of a life-partner or a child harder? But that's the point: a year after a parent dies, you can expect that life starts getting back to normal. But there's no normal life after burying a child or a spouse. 

It's a certainty you are thinking about the people who did this. You may be imagining them getting out of bed that day, praying to their god, storing their equipment and driving the lethal load to a site of pleasure and enjoyment - their minds focused on a lust for the destruction and death of others. Like me, you may feel this was barbarism: cold-blooded, primal, bestial - an act of pure hatred. 

But get ready for the cold, clinical analysis of others. For them, the terrorists are "militants". The hatred is "desperation". The pointless destruction of life is "strategic". An Australian journalist requested an interview with me in Jerusalem days after Malki was murdered last year. When I agreed, he told me it would make sense for his audience only if he could combine it with an interview of the suicide-murderer's father. He said there were two sides to the story and the opinions of the bomber's family were a "counterpoint". I was dumbfounded. His professional standards demanded, he said, that the interview could not take place under any other conditions. So it never took place. 

Some people see life as if through a TV screen. For them, your private loss can only be understood as part of a political drama. Point and counterpoint. But no one should tell you how to mourn, how to grieve. There is no standard - no over-mourning, no under-mourning. No one can tell you how it feels or how it ought to feel. 

If you're asking what can be done, I want to offer this. When a young life ends, a huge empty space is left behind. How do you fill it? With hatred, thoughts of revenge, evening up the score? After our daughter's death, we sat down as a family and asked ourselves how her life and actions should be remembered. We decided to raise money and give practical help to families raising a child with disabilities. Malki, a very practical teenager, did this herself and believed in it. It would have made her smile. 

Perhaps it's not politically correct to say this, but I believe evil does exist in the world - a great deal of it. 

How do you answer evil? For us, the right response has been to do things which we hope will increase the stock of good in the world. We know this will have no impact on the barbarians who killed our children and loved ones. But we're absolutely determined that they won't be impacting us any more than they already have. They and their values are irrelevant to our lives.

About two and a half years ago, we commented on the trial of one of the Bali bombing perpetrators, Umar Patek, and the lessons that might be learned from it: see "31-May-12: Highly effective terrorist, now on trial, is really sorry. Not." And then on his sentencing: "22-Jun-12: Only twenty years prison because he expressed remorse... but not really".

09-Sep-14: In Australia, terrorism no longer as far away as it once seemed

Australian woman recruited by the Islamist thug
(photo below) whose arrest is now being sought.
Educated at St Hilda's School, Southport,
Queensland, this woman was shot dead
in January 2014 in war-torn Aleppo, Syria.

Having spent a major part of our lives in Australia, and raising part of our family there, it's worrying and depressing to see terror take centre-stage in one of the world's most congenial societies.

ASIO seriously considering raising Australia's terror threat level to high | ABC Australia News | September 9, 2014 | The head of Australia's domestic spy agency, David Irvine, says the country's official terror threat level could be upgraded in the next few days. ASIO's director-general has told the ABC's 7.30 that the threat had been building in Australia over the past year and he had an "elevated level of concern". The threat has been at medium since 2003, which means an attack is possible and could occur. If it is raised to high, it means an attack is likely... "I'm certainly contemplating very seriously the notion of lifting it higher because of the numbers of people we are now having to be concerned about in Australia, because of the influence of Syria and Iraq on young Australians both in terms of going to those places to fight, but also in terms of what they are doing here in Australia with a potential intent to attack."

And this

Same Australian woman some time
later, prior to her violent death
[Image Source]

Arrest warrant for Islamic State jihadist accused of sending Australians to Syria | ABC Australia News | September 9, 2014 | Police have issued an arrest warrant for a former Kings Cross nightclub bouncer believed to be Australia's most senior member of the Islamic State (IS) militant group in Syria and Iraq, following an investigation by the ABC's 7.30 program. Authorities say Mohammad Ali Baryalei, 33, has used a trusted position in IS operational command to funnel more than half of the 60 Australians currently fighting in the wars. Counter-terrorism sources have told 7.30 Baryalei recruited a who's who of Australian IS fighters, including senior fighters Mohamed Elomar and Khaled Sharrouf, who has posted pictures online of his seven-year-old son holding a severed head in Syria, as well as videos of himself and Elomar executing prisoners in Iraq... Australian Federal Police say an arrest warrant has been issued against Baryalei for "terrorism-related activity". "Should Baryalei return to Australia, this warrant authorises law enforcement to arrest him immediately," an AFP spokesman said. "As this matter is ongoing it would not be appropriate for the AFP to comment further." Baryalei is from an aristocratic family from Afghanistan who came to Australia as refugees when he was a child. The 33-year-old was an aspiring actor who had a fleeting appearance on the true-crime series, Underbelly, but years ago turned to radical Islam in Sydney. Baryalei became a leader of the Street Dawah preaching movement in Sydney, where he formed a cell of jihadists. He proselytised with at least five men who went on to die in Syria and Iraq and many more who are still fighting.

Mohammad Ali Baryalai, highest-ranking
ex-Australian in ISIS: He and
family were received as refugees in
Australia. Now returning the favour

This Iranian source, quoting Australian authorities in May 2014, said that "as many as 12 Australians had died fighting in Syria. Most were young men, including several from Melbourne." Also that "nearly 150 Australian citizens were being monitored for fighting or planning to fight in foreign conflicts".

An especially sober Australian view of the threat it faces was articulated by a former head of the Australian armed forces, Professor Peter Leahy, last month. He warned that "the country was ill-prepared for the high cost of fighting a war that would be paid in “blood and treasure” and would require pre-emptive as well as reactive action".

Australia needs to prepare itself for a century-long war, both overseas and at home, against radical Islamic militants. Currently the director of the National Security Institute at the University of Canberra, Prof. Leahy [said] that as a liberal, secular society, Australia is perceived as 'the far enemy' by radical Islamic groups and individuals, and would no doubt continue to be targeted. "We are already affected in that there are places that would be wise for us not to travel to and there have been terrorist bombings in places that we do travel to, as we can see from 9/11 and both of the Bali bombings..." [The Australian, August 9, 2014]

We published an open letter in the wake of the massive 2002 Bali terrorist attack in which Australian victims figured prominently. It's here.

2-Feb-14: In Australia, evidence that Syria's bloodbath is bringing jihad down under

Melburnians old enough to remember when the international airport was located at Essendon might also recall a large advertising sign on Mt Alexander Road which, as we recall it, proclaimed: "Fly Qantas to the World".

The picture of the drinks coaster on the right is the only souvenir we could find on-line of that rather dated commercial message. Growing up in Australia, there really was the sense that Australia was located somewhere just off to the side of the rest of the world, and that from Melbourne and Sydney you needed an airline to get there.

Times have changed. In the Melbourne Age yesterday, a news article ["Al-Qaeda terrorist threat to Australia"] says what observers paying attention to the rising tide of overt sympathy for Islamist jihad will have noted long ago: Australia today faces challenges not so different to those taxing the minds and resources of authorities in Western Europe and Asia. And while the outcome is still uncertain, the results till now are none too encouraging.

The report quotes the US director of national intelligence, James Clapper, who says terrorist organizations connected to Al-Qaeda, already known to be successfully enticing Australians to join the Syrian bloodbath, have established training camps in Syria to provide a basis for terrorist attacks on Australian soil by returning jihadists. Some key points:

• "As many as 200 Australians are believed to have travelled to Syria to help rebels trying to topple dictator Bashar al-Assad." 
• "US intelligence has evidence of ''training complexes'' within Syria ''to train people to go back to their countries and conduct terrorist acts''.
• "About half of the Australians fighting in Syria are believed to be members of Jabhat al-Nusra. Others have joined the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), an even more militant Islamist group with strong ties to al-Qaeda."



A world away from the peaceful Australian
Gold Coast, Amira Karroum was killed
alongside her Muslim husband Yusuf Ali
in Syria [Image Source]

• Australia's counter-terrorism ambassador Bill Fisher shares the assessment. He says that while "the likelihood of an attack like 9/11 in the West has lessened", the threat of "smaller but nonetheless deadly attacks is very real - hitting bars where Westerners congregate overseas, and other soft targets. In this respect, the threat is worse"...

Australia's awareness of how threats like these translate into tragic outcomes took a startling turn upwards when a jihadi terror attack on a tourist spot in Bali, Indonesia in 2002 cost more than two hundred innocent lives, including those of 88 Australians. [See our contribution in the wake of the tragedy: "11-Oct-07: Kuta beach, five years on"].

Since then, there have been reports and video clips of religious calls to violence by Australian Islamic figures [here, here, here among numerous other instances], violent street demonstrations in Sydney [here, here, here and elsewhere], and front-page reports like this January 2014 article entitled "Amira Karroum was one of many Australians being recruited to fight in Syria" about a young Australian woman who seemed so ordinary, so unremarkable, "the unlikeliest terrorist" until - after her violent death - she is revealed to have written to family:

"Everything is temporary... Islam is my identity. The burqa is my shield. Jannah (the Islamic garden of paradise) is my destination.'' [Telegraph, Sydney, January 18, 2014]

A year ago, Qantas - which faces non-trivial commercial challenges - entered into a strategic partnership with Emirates, a highly successful, well funded airline that is wholly owned by the government of Dubai, a monarchy.

Dubai's government has been wholly controlled by the Al Maktoum family since 1833, entirely untroubled by the need for elections. Qantas, the Al Maktoum business partner, now happily channels much of its Europe-bound traffic via Dubai (concerning which, we posted a string of comments in 2012 and 2013 starting with this one). The volume of passenger and freight traffic between the Middle East and Australia has grown accordingly and is likely to keep doing so. This is going to have an impact. As the Dubai-based on-line journal Arabian Business recently noted:

"Dubai controls strategic trade routes in the world and also more than 65 terminals across the world, including new developments underway in India, Africa, Europe and South America. What this means is, Dubai can influence global trade through these particular ports and have controls over them... Once they implement this and once Dubai starts implementing this in relation to its own trade, what you will see is the beginning of Islamisation that is led by Dubai.” [Arabian Business, October 2, 2013]

Concerns about a Dubai role in the funding of terror get occasional media attention, like this January 2010 piece from The Guardian, "Dubai's dark side targeted by international finance police":

"Fears are intensifying that the emirate has become a global centre for terror funding, money-laundering, drug money and mafia cash..." [The Guardian]

Significant changes have clearly overcome once-isolated Australia's place in the world in the past decade or two. So the notion that religiously motivated terrorists - jihadis - are eyeing far-away places like Australia ought not to be a surprise to anyone. The reality is that neither distant Australia nor anywhere else on earth is far enough away from "the world" to be insulated from the threats that the loathsome jihadists embody.

The warning that hardened Islamist fighters, energized by what they may have seen or done in the slaughter-house that Syria has become, are returning to hospitable Australia with mayhem on their minds ought to continue to get serious attention.

12-Oct-12: How do you answer evil? Ten years after the Bali terror bombing

Flowers at the site of the October 12, 2002 bombings of the Sari Club and Paddy's Bar in Bali [Image Source]

Today marks ten years since jihadist terrorists carried out a ghastly bombing attack on night club spots on the Indonesian island of Bali. The Kuta Beach massacre was the deadliest act of terrorism in the history of Indonesia: 202 people were killed that night. 164 were foreign nationals, 38 were Indonesian citizens. 209 people were injured.

Almost immediately after it happened on 12th October 2002, the then editorial team at the Melbourne (Australia) Herald-Sun newspaper contacted Arnold Roth. This was only a year after the death of the Roths' daughter Malki. Arnold and Malki had both been born in Melbourne. The Herald-Sun requested a first-person response, an open letter to the families of the Indonesian attack victims. 

Malki's death, like those of the Bali massacre victims, came at the hands of terrorists acting in the name of Islam. Arnold felt he had something to say and set everything else aside to quickly write an op-ed [background here]. 

He sent it off to the Herald-Sun. Then... silence. 

For reasons that have never been explained, his article never appeared in the pages of the Melbourne newspaper. The paper's editor at that time never respond to several emails asking for an explanation. 

Eventually, the Jerusalem Post picked it up and published it in the paper's December 9, 2002 edition. Here it is:

A letter to the families of the Kuta Beach victims
Arnold Roth, Jerusalem

I never felt more like a father than when taking the hand of my little daughter Malki and crossing the street with her. There is something so right and solid about being your child's protector.

I never felt more wretched, frightened and alone than on the night the call came saying her body had been identified. My daughter was murdered by a deliberate act of explosive horror. I was not there to protect her.

Grieving for your murdered loved one will be the most intensely lonely and personal thing you ever do. No one else can feel the depth of pain inside you. Friends and family will want to share the burden, to wrap their love and support around you, to lighten the load by their sincere care and concern. But the ache remains, along with the feelings of guilt. The cold truth will never change: an innocent life was deliberately and violently erased - and the monsters that did it are delighted with their work of their hands.

I wish I could pass along some wisdom that might help you through this awful time. I can't. The best I can do is share some thoughts. The massacre at Kuta Beach is too raw, too huge, for anyone to fully comprehend. Time will help you to put it into a context, but you should not expect the answers to come easily... or ever.

Time plays a key role in Jewish mourning observances. Some practices are specific to the first seven days. Others are designated for the first thirty days. And in the specific case of the death of a parent, Judaism prescribes a full year of mourning. This seems strange. A parent's passing, no matter what the circumstances, is always hard. Isn't the death of a life-partner or a child harder?

But that's the point: a year after a parent dies, you can expect that life starts getting back to normal. But there's no normal life after burying a child or a spouse.

It's a certainty you are thinking about the people who did this. You may be imagining them getting out of bed that day, praying to their god, storing their equipment and driving the lethal load to a site of pleasure and enjoyment - their minds focused on a lust for the destruction and death of others. Like me, you may feel this was barbarism: cold-blooded, primal, bestial - an act of pure hatred.

But get ready for the cold, clinical analysis of others. For them, the terrorists are "militants". The hatred is "desperation". The pointless destruction of life is "strategic". An Australian journalist requested an interview with me in Jerusalem days after Malki was murdered last year. When I agreed, he told me it would make sense for his audience only if he could combine it with an interview of the suicide-murderer's father. He said there were two sides to the story and the opinions of the bomber's family were a "counterpoint". I was dumbfounded. His professional standards demanded, he said, that the interview could not take place under any other conditions. So it never took place.

Some people see life as if through a TV screen. For them, your private loss can only be understood as part of a political drama. Point and counterpoint. But no one should tell you how to mourn, how to grieve. There is no standard - no over-mourning, no under-mourning. No one can tell you how it feels or how it ought to feel.

If you're asking what can be done, I want to offer this. When a young life ends, a huge empty space is left behind. How do you fill it? With hatred, thoughts of revenge, evening up the score? After our daughter's death, we sat down as a family and asked ourselves how her life and actions should be remembered. We decided to raise money and give practical help to families raising a child with disabilities. Malki, a very practical teenager, did this herself and believed in it. It would have made her smile.

Perhaps it's not politically correct to say this, but I believe evil does exist in the world - a great deal of it.

How do you answer evil? For us, the right response has been to do things which we hope will increase the stock of good in the world. We know this will have no impact on the barbarians who killed our children and loved ones. But we're absolutely determined that they won't be impacting us any more than they already have. They and their values are irrelevant to our lives.

31-May-12: Highly effective terrorist, now on trial, is really sorry. Not.

Hundreds of dead victims; no wonder he's jubilant.
The smiling Amrozi, from the JI group, before
his career was terminated
by an Indonesian firing squad in 2008 [Source]

A series of horrific bombings in the nightclub zone of the Indonesian island of Bali in 2002 killed 202 people, 88 of them Australians. 240 other people were injured. Some of the background is in Arnold Roth's "A letter to the families of the Kuta Beach victims", published shortly after the massacre.

Over the years, the Indonesian authorities have captured several of the jihadist fugitives who carried out the Bali outrage as well as other terror attacks on Christian churches, the US consulate and several Indoensian hotels. The organisation at the heart of the terrorist campaign is Jemaah Islamiyah, an Islamist group headed by a religious functionary, Abu Bakar Ba'asyir. The Indonesians tried and convicted three: 'Imam' Samudra, Mukhlas (aka Ali Ghufron) and Ghufron's younger brother, the notorious "smiling assassin" Amrozi bin Nurhasyim. They were executed by firing squad in November 2008. Being Islamic terrorists, there was no remorse. All shouted Allahu Akbar in their final moments.

Now it's the turn of Umar Patek. He's on trial in another Indonesian court this week on charges of terrorism and mass murder. An article today ["Bali bombing accused accused begs for leniency"] in the Melbourne Age captures the way in which this jihadist's story is being told:

Umar Patek is a tiny man, pixie-faced and slump-shouldered inside the white baju koko worn by devout Muslims. ''I'm a quiet person, shy, and low in education,'' he told the Herald in an exclusive interview just before his trial... Throughout the four months of his trial at the West Jakarta District Court he has emphasised his smallness, his unimportance. He was ''a deer'', he told the court yesterday, among the ''elephants'' of the plot... In his heart, though, Patek said he knew what he had done. ''My conscience says I am guilty,'' he confided. ''I did mix [explosive] materials.'' Despite this, his lawyers have argued that he should be found not guilty of the bombings, and guilty only of forging passports. He opposed the killing of innocents..."

A British report ['I'm sorry from the bottom of my heart'] takes up the theme:

"An emotional Patek today told a courtroom: 'I still feel guilty.' He later added: 'From the bottom of my heart, I apologize to the victims and their families.' Patek said: 'I knew about the plan. I helped mix some of the chemicals use in the explosives. ... Why didn't I inform the police?'

Yes, indeedie. Quite easy to warm to the "pixie-faced" "little" fellow who really, between you and me, did nothing more serious than mix a mere 50 kg of explosives. And even that he did "half-heartedly only because the person who was mixing looked tired and tense. It's not my soul's calling and it's against my conscience" [an actual quote]. 

And warm to him and his conscience is just what important sections of the media are doing. Today's Reuters report ["Umar Patek apologizes for Jakarta bombings"] dwells on the "I'm so sorry" aspect of this story. So too does Radio Australia ["Accused Bali bomber Umar Patek has asked for forgiveness from the victims of the attacks, which killed 202 people, including 88 Australians"] and the UK Daily Mail ["The militant Muslim accused of the Bali bombing which killed over 200 people today apologised for the first time to victims of the atrocity"].

But it's a fairly conditional kind of "sorry" from the terrorist who is on trial for his life. Reuters and others choose not to report that Patek said his role was "small" but it is "Jewish slander'' that has made it seem larger [source]. His real goal had been to "retaliate" for "the killing of Muslims in Palestine". He questioned why this should be done in Bali. After all, he said, "Jihad should be carried out in Palestine instead. But they said they did not know how to get to Palestine" [source].

It happens to be a line of reasoning that resonates well in Indonesia. Just two years ago, that country's minister of justice, Patrialis Akbar, was caught on video telling Al Jazeera that he would like the Jemaah Islamiyah terrorists to go to Israel instead and bomb civilians there. His country's government would even give them some practical help. [Elder of Ziyon reported on this in 2010.] 

Writing in the Indonesian Bali Times, Richard Boughton's is one of the few voices that capture the illogic and hypocrisy that infect both media coverage and much public opinion about terrorism in general and this Indonesian case in particular:

There are right people to murder and wrong people to murder, and Umar is merely sorry he murdered the wrong people... He thought preferable victims might have been found in Israel or Palestine... We understand. We understand that Umar Patek is not sorry at all. We watch him speak with dispassionate composure, and spin an outrageous tale of absurd justification. No tear is shed, no groan of regret uttered. [After ten years on the run] someone told Umar that it would be a good idea to apologise at this point. Say you’re sorry. It plays well in the Indonesian courts. You might get out alive. You might get off with just 10 years or so. You might even get a slap on the wrist along with an order to behave. And so he forces out the words which should from the outset have forced themselves from the mouth of any sane or worthy human being. I’m sorry, he says. I’m really very sorry. 

Boughton knows that this sorry from a captured terrorist on trial for his life is meaningless, worthless. Sadly, some of the most influential media channels (and politicians) don't. And so terrorism continues and thrives. The war goes on.

Smiling, smiling, the whole lot of them are smiling: The terrorist Patek shakes hands with the entire team of government prosecutors except one [explanation here] at an adjournment of his trial earlier this year

The "pixie-faced" Patek is charged with being the man whose bomb caused
the Kuta Beach devastation of October 12, 2002

11-Oct-07: Kuta beach, five years on

It's been five years since terrorists carried out a ghastly bombing attack on entertainment spots on the Indonesian island of Bali. 

The jihad attack was the deadliest act of terrorism in the history of Indonesia. 202 people were killed. 164 were foreign nationals, 38 were Indonesian citizens. 209 people were injured.

Many were Australians. 

The Melbourne Age has published an especially evocative slide show (here) today to honor the anniversary. Back in 2003, the same paper published an excellent overview ("The night terror touched our lives") of those terrible events.

When the Kuta Beach massacre happened on 12th October 2002, the Melbourne Herald-Sun newspaper contacted Arnold Roth, one of this blog's authors. They asked for a first-person response, an open letter to the families of the victims. 

Like most of the victims of Bali massacre, our daughter Malki was also an Australian-born victim of vicious terrorists acting in the name of Islam. She had been murdered one year earlier. Arnold's article was duly submitted, but for some reason was never published in the pages of that Melbourne newspaper. 

The paper's editor at the time failed to respond to our several emails asking for an explanation. Nor did anyone else at the paper. 

A mystery.

The Jerusalem Post eventually published it instead, on October 30, 2002 [it's archived here].

Here it is.

A letter to the families of the Kuta Beach victims
Arnold Roth, Jerusalem

I never felt more like a father than when taking the hand of my little daughter Malki and crossing the street with her. There is something so right and solid about being your child's protector.

I never felt more wretched, frightened and alone than on the night the call came saying her body had been identified. My daughter was murdered by a deliberate act of explosive horror. I was not there to protect her.

Grieving for your murdered loved one will be the most intensely lonely and personal thing you ever do. No one else can feel the depth of pain inside you. 

Friends and family will want to share the burden, to wrap their love and support around you, to lighten the load by their sincere care and concern. But the ache remains, along with the feelings of guilt. 

The cold truth will never change: an innocent life was deliberately and violently erased - and the monsters that did it are delighted with their work of their hands.

I wish I could pass along some wisdom that might help you through this awful time. 

I can't. The best I can do is share some thoughts. The massacre at Kuta Beach is too raw, too huge, for anyone to fully comprehend. Time will help you to put it into a context, but you should not expect the answers to come easily... or ever.

Time plays a key role in Jewish mourning observances. Some practices are specific to the first seven days. Others are designated for the first thirty days. And in the specific case of the death of a parent, Judaism prescribes a full year of mourning. This seems strange. A parent's passing, no matter what the circumstances, is always hard. Isn't the death of a life-partner or a child harder? But that's the point: a year after a parent dies, you can expect that life starts getting back to normal. But there's no normal life after burying a child or a spouse.

It's a certainty you are thinking about the people who did this. You may be imagining them getting out of bed that day, praying to their god, storing their equipment and driving the lethal load to a site of pleasure and enjoyment - their minds focused on a lust for the destruction and death of others. Like me, you may feel this was barbarism: cold-blooded, primal, bestial - an act of pure hatred.

But get ready for the cold, clinical analysis of others. For them, the terrorists are "militants". The hatred is "desperation". The pointless destruction of life is "strategic". 

An Australian journalist [Tim Palmer] requested an interview with me in Jerusalem days after Malki was murdered last year. When I agreed, he told me it would make sense for his audience only if he could combine it with an interview of the suicide-murderer's father. He said there were two sides to the story and the opinions of the bomber's family were a "counterpoint". I was dumbfounded. His professional standards demanded, he said, that the interview could not take place under any other conditions. So it never took place.

Some people see life as if through a TV screen. For them, your private loss can only be understood as part of a political drama. Point and counterpoint. But no one should tell you how to mourn, how to grieve. There is no standard - no over-mourning, no under-mourning. No one can tell you how it feels or how it ought to feel.

If you're asking what can be done, I want to offer this. 

When a young life ends, a huge empty space is left behind. How do you fill it? With hatred, thoughts of revenge, evening up the score? After our daughter's death, we sat down as a family and asked ourselves how her life and actions should be remembered. We decided to raise money and give practical help to families raising a child with disabilities. Malki, a very practical teenager, did this herself and believed in it. It would have made her smile.

Perhaps it's not politically correct to say this but I believe evil does exist in the world - a great deal of it.

How do you answer evil? For us, the right response has been to do things which we hope will increase the stock of good in the world. We know this will have no impact on the barbarians who killed our children and loved ones. 

But we're absolutely determined that they won't be impacting us any more than they already have. They and their values are irrelevant to our lives.

Update "31-May-12: Highly effective terrorist, now on trial, is really sorry. Not."

Update "12-Oct-12: How do you answer evil? Ten years after the Bali terror bombing"

Update "12-Oct-14: Anniversary reflections on the Bali Islamist massacre"

17-Nov-06: Indonesia Shows the Way in Fearlessly Combatting Religion-Based Terror

The world's largest Islamic nation is demonstrating, by its uncompromising actions, precisely where it stands on the global scourge of religion-based lethal hatred, otherwise known as terror.

For some reason, the report below has gotten very little media coverage even though it's already twenty-four hours old at this point. Why is this?

Islamic terrorists set free

Mark Dunn and Shannon McRae (The Herald-Sun, Melbourne, Australia) - November 17, 2006 12:00am
ALMOST 60 jailed Islamic extremists linked to such atrocities as the Bali bombings have been set free. They include 14 terrorists who have been quietly released in the past two months. Many of those who walked free in October and this month had at least two months cut from their sentences under Indonesia's justice system. They were convicted on charges linked to the two Bali bombings, attacks on the Australian Embassy and Marriott Hotel in Jakarta, and other atrocities.
The latest releases, and that in June of Jemaah Islamiah's spiritual leader Abu Bakar Bashir, have outraged families who lost loved ones in the 2002 and 2005 Bali terrorist strikes. Dozens more had been arrested by Indonesian police, often with the help of Australian authorities, and held for just days or weeks before being freed for lack of evidence. Those questioned but freed include Jemaah Islamiah member Bambang Tutuko, who was believed to have been trained in bomb making under the notorious Dr Azahari Husin. He was held for just one day in September 2003.
Australian survivors of the attacks were shocked last night to learn those responsible had escaped justice. "They've probably been in jail for maybe a couple of years. That's not enough. They're accessories to murder, they played a part in killing 202 people," said Melbourne man Dale Atkin, who suffered severe burns in the Sari Club bombing in 2002. Other survivors feared those set free could be plotting more terrorist attacks.
"While they're alive they've still got the opportunity to plan these attacks," said Leanne Woodgate, who escaped death when she fled Paddy's bar.
More than 200 prisoners are in Indonesian jails as a result of terrorism-related offences. But the dozens already released had been arrested for connections to the Bali, Australian Embassy and Marriott bombings, terror-linked weapons offences and a string of Christmas Eve church bombings in 2000. Others had harboured known terrorists who were being hunted for the 2002 Kuta attacks that killed 202 people, including 88 Australians.
Among those freed in the past two months are:
SIROJUL Munir bin Achmad Asumi, convicted of providing money and harbouring terrorists after the Bali bombings, given a two-month remission on a five-year sentence.
GUN GUN Rusman Gunawan, jailed for involvement in JI's al-Ghuraba cell and document fraud. Also linked to financing the 2003 Marriott blast, which killed 12. Released at the end of Ramadan.
MUHAJIR bin Amin, Sukastopo bin Kartomiarjo and Eko Hadi Prasetyo bin Sukastopo, arrested in 2003 for helping hide Bali bomber Ali Imron in Kalimantan – each received a two-month sentence reduction.
MUHAMMAD Rusi bin Salim, KOMPAK member, also concealed the whereabouts of Imron while he was on the run.
PURYANTO, alias Pak De, helped hide Imron and fellow bomber Mubarok – later received a two-month remission.
ABDUL Haer, Mujahidin KOMPAK member arrested in 2003 in connection with attacks in Poso, sentenced to four years but released early.
ARMAN, Andang, Hamdan, Syafri and Hendra Yadi, also Mujahidin KOMPAK members arrested for the Poso attack, released this month.
Freed earlier were JI member Dedi Mulyadi, who was involved in the Christmas 2000 bombings in Java and released in 2004. Firmansyah, alias Edi Harun, was also freed after about two years' jail for helping hide Imron. And like JI leader Bashir who was controversially freed after 2 1/2 years, Abu Jibril, a close associate of Bashir and a primary recruiter for the group, was held for less than 3 1/2 years. Originally detained in Malaysia, Jibril was sentenced to 5 1/2 months for immigration and forgery but authorities could not lay terrorism charges. Dozens of other suspected militants were also picked up but were unable to be prosecuted because of lack of evidence. They include Dahlan, aka Leo, a JI member and trained bomb-maker who was held for a week.

When the Kuta Beach massacre happened on 12th October 2002, this same newspaper - the Melbourne Herald-Sun - contacted us and asked that we write a first-person response, an open letter to the families of the victims. Like most of the victims of Bali massacre, our daughter Malki was also an Australian-born victim of vicious terrorists acting in the name of Islam. She had been murdered a year earlier.

Our article was duly submitted, but was never published in the pages of that Melbourne newspaper. It was, however, subsequently printed in several other places. The paper's editor at the time never responded to our several emails asking for an explanation.

As the Indonesian government shows, people can be a bit strange when terror is on the agenda.

Amrozi bin Nurhasyim (pictured above), one of the Moslem terrorists convicted of the Bali (Kuta beach) massacre, showed zero remorse in his trial. "I am very happy," he said "because they attack Muslims and are inhumane." His only regret was that he wished "there were more American casualties". Seven Americans died in the tragedy, along with 88 Australians, 38 Indonesians, 23 Britons, nine Swedes, six Germans, four Dutch nationals, and others. In all, people from 21 countries were killed.