Anti-Muslim Groups Unite Through Internet
By DEAN E. MURPHY
The unusual alliance brings together two extreme religious philosophies
from different parts of the world that, at first glance, have little in
common. But living elbow-to-elbow in the ethnic mix of New York, the small
groups of Hindus and Jews have discovered that sharing a distant enemy is
sufficient basis for friendship. So tight is their anti-Muslim bond that some of the Hindus marched
alongside the Jews in the annual Salute to Israel Parade on Fifth Avenue
last month. Yesterday, several of the Jews joined a protest outside the
United Nations against the treatment of Hindus in Afghanistan by the
Taliban regime. "We are fighting the same war," said Rohit Vyasmaan, who helps run the
Hindu Web site, HinduUnity.org, from his home in Flushing, Queens.
"Whether you call them Palestinians, Afghans or Pakistanis, the root of
the problem for Hindus and Jews is Islam." The budding Hindu-Jewish relationship presents a view that counters a
popular perception of New York City -- not as an open door to immigrants
seeking a better life, but as a political way station, where some people
come or stay not to make money but to engage in politics from
afar. "I would love to move back to India provided the situation improves
there," Mr. Vyasmaan said. "We have made a promise to do so." Mr. Vyasmaan, who is 30 and came to New York from New Delhi when he was
13, said matter-of-factly that he and many others expect to die in the
battle for Hindu supremacy. Nonetheless, he is protective of the
identities of some of HinduUnity.org's biggest financial backers. Some of them have been implicated in Hindu nationalist acts in India
and are only in the United States biding their time, he said. One of the
site's major supporters on Long Island was involved in destroying an
ancient mosque at Ayodhya in northern India in 1992, Mr. Vyasmaan said.
The mosque was built on a site that is also holy to Hindus. The incident
led to widespread rioting between Hindus and Muslims in India, and it is
still profoundly divisive. "Now they won't let us build a temple at the site of the mosque," Mr.
Vyasmaan said. "So there is more controversy. He plans to go back." HinduUnity.org advertises itself as the official site of Bajrang Dal, a
fundamentalist Hindu movement in India that has chapters throughout that
country and has frequently clashed with Muslims and was among the groups
blamed for the 1992 attack. The Web site also goes by the name Soldiers of
Hindutva, a term that refers to the primacy of Hindu religion and culture.
Mr. Vyasmaan said the Web site has 500 people affiliated with it. The Jews in Brooklyn, meanwhile, are followers of Rabbi Meir David
Kahane, the assassinated Israeli politician whose teachings advocated the
expulsion from Israel of all Arabs, most of whom are Muslim. Their headquarters in Brooklyn was raided in January by the F.B.I. as
part of a federal investigation into their association with two Kahane
political parties that were banned in Israel and designated as terrorist
organizations by the State Department. The designations followed a series
of violent attacks on Palestinians, including the killing in 1994 of 29
Muslims in the West Bank by Baruch Goldstein, a Kahane adherent who was
born in Brooklyn. Central to the Kahane message is that all Jews belong in Israel, making
any Jew in the United States a temporary resident. Many of the group's
biggest supporters shuttle back and forth between Israel and New York,
keeping one foot in each country. Rabbi Kahane was Brooklyn-born, as were many of his supporters, and was
shot to death at a Manhattan hotel in 1990. His son, Binyamin, who took up
his father's teachings, also carried an American passport but spent most
of his time in Israel. He was killed with his wife when their car was
ambushed in the West Bank in December. During his last visit to New York, two weeks before his death, Binyamin
Kahane reminded a gathering of several hundred supporters in Brooklyn of
their obligation to settle in Israel. The Brooklyn group runs a Web site, Kahane.org, that aims to keep the
Kahane movement alive despite the political crackdown in Israel and the
terrorist designations in the United States. The site's manager, Michael
Guzofsky, said the Jewish-Hindu relationship in New York is a practical
one that reflects a common suffering at the hands of Muslims. The alliance
is born from adversity, he said, and transcends the differences in their
religious traditions, which, he acknowledged, the two groups have never
addressed in detail. "I definitely understand their pain even if I don't know much about
their faith," Mr. Guzofsky said of the Hindu fundamentalists. "Their Web
site is a little more militant than ours, but an eye for an eye, a tooth
for a tooth kind of speech is something you can find in the Old Testament.
I am not going to judge people who have been oppressed by others and who
fight back." The Hindu Web site is up and running only because Mr. Guzofsky and
other Kahane backers came to its rescue. Several weeks ago, the company
that ran the site's Internet server, Addr.com of Greenwood Village, Colo.,
notified Mr. Vyasmaan that it was canceling its contract. Matt Johnson, a representative of Addr.com, said that the company had
received complaints about offensive content on the site, which contains
historical accounts about Hinduism and the centuries-long conflict between
Hindus and Muslims in South Asia. This week, a commentary on the site
called on Hindus "to stand up and take arms" against Muslims in India,
urging them to "exterminate and banish" them. The site also urged Hindus
to "Fight if you must! Die if you must!" Mr. Johnson said representatives from HinduUnity.org contended that the
Web site was informational and did not advocate violence. But after three
days of telephone calls between New York and Colorado, Mr. Johnson said,
the company decided to pull the plug, saying that HinduUnity.org was a
hate site. When Mr. Vyasmaan got word of the decision, his first call was to Mr.
Guzofsky's office at the Hatikva Jewish Identity Center in Brooklyn. Mr.
Guzofsky had run into a similar problem in December, when he was forced to
find a new server because of complaints about the Kahane site. Mr.
Guzofsky was in Israel, but he returned the phone call within hours and
quickly set out to solve Mr. Vyasmaan's problem. The solution came by means of a businessman in Annandale, Va., Gary
Wardell, who designs and services Web sites and who branched out into the
server business last year. Mr. Wardell offered to help Mr. Guzofsky in
December when he read about kahane.org's problems, eventually taking on
the job as the Kahane site's host. Although Mr. Wardell said he is
converting to Judaism from Christianity and has taken an avid interest in
the teachings of Rabbi Kahane, he said his motivation in assisting Mr.
Guzofsky was as much financial as religious. "I am a small business and I need customers," Mr. Wardell said.
"Sometimes when you have bills to pay, that takes the focus of your
attention." Early last month, when Mr. Guzofsky told him about HinduUnity.org, Mr.
Wardell agreed to a similar business relationship for the same bottom-line
reasons, he said. Mr. Guzofsky said his group had not officially endorsed the views on
the Hindu Web site, but they support the right of the Hindus to express
them. For that reason, there is a link to HinduUnity.org on the Kahane Web
site and, Mr. Guzofsky posted an announcement this week about the Hindu
protest outside the United Nations. "It is a core issue of free speech," Mr. Guzofsky said. "We have made
it clear to the folks at HinduUnity.org that if their site ever comes down
again, we will offer them a mirror site with ours so people can be updated
concerning their events. I would hope they would do the same for us." Mr. Vyasmaan said there is no doubt that the favor would be returned.
Already, he said, Hindus associated with the Web site have written to
Congress urging that the two Kahane political parties be removed from the
State Department's list of terrorist organizations. It is a cause very
dear to Mr. Guzofsky, who said he was recently asked by the authorities to
submit fingerprints and handwriting samples for use in their investigation
into his Brooklyn operations. Mr. Vyasmaan said doubters of the Hindu-Jewish commitment need to look
no further than his home in Flushing, where he displays a large picture of
Rabbi Kahane. "He was a great man," Mr. Vyasmaan said. "It almost appeared as if he
was speaking for the Hindus."
Web
site run by militant Hindus in Queens and Long Island was recently shut
down by its service provider because of complaints that it advocated
hatred and violence toward Muslims. But a few days later, the site was
back on the Internet. The unlikely rescuers were some radical Jews in
Brooklyn who are under investigation for possible ties to anti-Arab
terrorist organizations in Israel.
For some of the Jews in Brooklyn and the Hindus in Queens and
Long Island, their time in the United States is temporary, made necessary
only because of the threat of Islam in South Asia and the Middle East.
Ultimately, members of both groups said, they must leave New York to
confront the enemy face-to-face.
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