Talk Radio Watchdog

The Chabad House in Mumbai, India

Based on how little they’re saying about it, it appears last week’s terror attack in Mumbai had little impact on most of our conservative talk radio hosts. The exceptions are Dennis Prager and Michael Medved, who warn that we in the U.S. should take heed of the message being sent from half a world away… that Jews are in the cross-hairs of terrorist extremists and that our entire nation will come next.

Prager and Medved, both of whom are Jewish, are based in Los Angeles. Their warnings came on their programs and in columns each has written for the conservative TownHall.com website.

Prager says he’s struck by the fact so much of the terrorists’ effort was directed at Mumbai’s only rabbi and by the extent to which they tortured their Jewish victims. The “ultimate issue,” Prager said, is that “evil often begins with the Jews” as victims, and that non-Jews who ignore this are making a mistake.”

It’s ironic that two callers to Prager’s radio show yesterday demonstrated the anti-Semitism he was talking about.The first accused him of “monolithic thinking” and blamed Jews and the CIA for the 9/11 attacks. The second caller wanted to know if Jews could change their “very controlling” nature and said he noticed that Jews are “involved in everything that seems bad.” I guess if you’re a Jewish talk show host whose listeners are from the far right, comments like those come with the territory.

Medved says since 9/11 Americans have been lulled into a “false and foolish sense of security.”

The experience in Mumbai shows the way that a small handful of determined and well-trained fanatics can murder hundreds, while paralyzing the financial center of India for several days.

Medved says the Mumbai attacks are further proof that the U.S. should treat terrorist threats as worldwide war, not merely a problem of law enforcement. He says the carnage at the Mumbai Jewish center demonstrates:

The West needs to understand that Islamo-Nazis feel motivated by implacable hatred for all Jews (and all Christians) rather than objections to particular elements European or American or Indian culture or policy.

Medved contends that gestures like closing the prion at Guantanamo won’t do the trick. He says in the struggle against those “Islamo-Nazis,” we must score a decisive victory.