FORMER CLASSMATE'S FLOCK UNDER ATTACK HALFWAY AROUND THE WORLD

One of my unique experiences in Israel was my Hebrew class at Hebrew University's Rothberg School, which had a distinctly Asian flavor to it. In our small section, we had a Korean-American whose mother had a ministry in Egypt, a Japanese reporter, a Korean grad student, and Cornelius, a Chinese-Indonesian Protestant Minister. I was reminded of the gracious Cornelius by a quote I saw in a story in the New York Sun, which unlike the Times decided to report on the latest massacre of Indonesian Christians by Islamic militants.

Shouting "kill them all," a dozen men entered the mostly Christian village of Soya on the outskirts of Ambon, the provincial capital and the focus of three years of sectarian violence that killed 9,000 people, witnesses said.

The attackers went from house to house, shooting residents and setting fire to 30 homes and a Protestant church, witnesses said. They said six people were stabbed to death, including a 6-month-old child, six died in fires and two were believed to have been shot.

"The scene is horrible," one witness said on condition of anonymity. "I saw six bodies burned so badly you couldn't recognize them."

The attack came two days after a militant Islamic group, Laskar Jihad, rejected a February peace deal meant to end the fighting between Muslims and Christians in Maluku, a region known as the Spice Islands during Dutch colonial rule.

"It may be the end of the peace deal," said Cornelius Bohm, a Christian pastor in Ambon who said he had "no doubt" that Laskar Jihad was behind the attack. The group could not be reached for comment Sunday.

Perhaps Cornelius is a popular name among Indonesian pastors, but it is more likely my former classmate who is desperately praying for peace and safety from bin Laden's murderous Indonesian allies. Our Hebrew class was Jerusalem as it should be - a place for people of different races and faiths to live and learn together. Hopefully that vision can sustain Cornelius as he tries to survive in the reality created by a religious vision so opposite of his own - one of hate and dominance. One can only hope that the sane Muslim majority of Indonesia reclaims their Islamic heritage and expels the poisionous Wahabi infection that plagues their troubled nation.