Root Causes of Anti-Western Islamic Terrorism

Yoram Ettinger

1. The 60 year old Palestinian “Claim of Return” has always been top heavy on Muslim rhetoric but very low on Muslim commitment. It has been dwarfed by the 516 year old Moslem “Claim of Return” to Andalucia (Spain), which constitutes a universal-mainstream Moslem ethos, commemorating the 1492 “Injustice” and “Expulsion” from the “Abode of Islam” (Dar-a-Salam) in Europe.2. The arena of Islam’s Golden Era was not between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean; it was – according to Moslem ethos - in the area conquered by Moslem invaders of Spain, highlighted by 9th century Granada’s Alhambra Palace. In 714 AD, Moslems – originally from the Arabian Peninsula – occupied the Iberian Peninsula, southern France, Sicily and the coast of Italy, declaring it the Abode of Islam. In 1492, Ferdinand and Isabella defeated the last Moslem bastion in Spain, Granada. Since then, Moslems have mourned the loss of “Al Andaluz,” which they consider an eternal “Islamic Trust” (Waqf) – as is any area once governed by Moslems.



3. The March 11, 2004 Madrid Bombing – 191 murdered and 2,050 injured by 10 bombs on 4 trains – was executed primarily in revenge for the “injustice of Andalucia.”



4. “The cell that carried out the [March 11, 2004] attacks began planning them as much as a year BEFORE the war in Iraq began…The legend of ‘the last sigh of the Moors’ is often repeated in cassette tapes and pamphlets of militant Islamic clerics like the Moroccan Sheik Mohammed al-Fazazi...Investigators say a purported Al Qaeda splinter group based in Morocco may have provided theological and perhaps financial backing to the "sleeper cell" that carried out the Madrid train bombings on March 11. Spain’s top counterterrorism magistrate, Baltasar Gazon, has outlined those cells in an indictment that suggests cells in Spain were central to the plot to carry out the 9/11 attacks in the US” (Boston Globe, Charles Sennott, March 28, 2004).



5. Bin Laden: “Let the whole world know that we shall never accept that the tragedy of Andalucia would be repeated in Palestine” (Washington Post, Oct. 21, 2007).
6. Andalucia and Bosnia – as parts of the “Greater Moslem Homeland” - feature in the children’s website of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood. Plans are underway – funded by Saudi Arabia - to construct the second largest mosque in the world, a ‘European Mecca’ in Córdoba, which was the capital of Al Ándaluz.

7. Al-Qaeda deputy Ayman Al-Zawahiri on imperial Islamic ambitions: “Strive to establish the Caliphate; fight until the word of Allah [reigns] supreme...aspire to liberate every inch of Islamic land from Andalucia to Chechnya (December 16, 2007, the Islamist website http://www.ek-ls.org). Bin Laden and other Moslem terrorists demand the “restoration” of the Muslim caliphate from Andalucia to the Philippines.”.

8. The July 7, 2005 London bombing – 52 murdered and 700 injured – was carried out in order to advance the goal of global Moslem domination, not just Iraq. Moslem aspirations have been undermined by the US and its allies, most notably Britain and Israel.

9. The preoccupation with Iraq or with the Palestinian issue – as a supposed root cause of anti-Western Islamic terrorism – diverts Western attention away from the strategic goal of rogue Moslem regimes. Thus, it rewards these regimes and advances their agenda in Europe and elsewhere, while undermining the national security of western democracies.

* The previous three parts of the series on the “Root Cause of Anti-Western Islamic Terrorism” are issues #197, 199 and 201 of the “Jerusalem Cloakroom.”