ANALYSIS/OPINION:
It’s been a great week for terrorists. The week that began Aug. 12 with the deadly car-ramming in Charlottesville, Virginia, moved on to see more violence in Europe; from the north, in Finland, to the south, in Spain. The Western world’s total body count last week was 17 dead and 142 injured – a tragedy for so many innocent people and their families, and a triumph for evil.
The terror world expressed its jubilation in tweets and online posts.
Every terrorist incident occurs in a political and cultural context, and this week’s murders are no exception.
Politics and culture practically invited those terrorists to Barcelona.
Barcelona was not a random or unexpected terror target. It came as no surprise to Spanish and international security agencies. In fact, two weeks ago the director of SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors radical Islam, reported the threat from a pro-ISIS twitter account of an imminent attack in Spain. That terrorist group announced its mission to “reconquer Al-Andalus”- the Arabic name for the Iberian Peninsula.
Radical Islam considers most of today’s Spain and Portugal to be occupied territory; territory they are entitled to liberate, since it was under Muslim control at one time in history, before 1492.
But it’s not just history that made Barcelona a prime target. Barcelona is in the Spanish province of Catalonia, which has the highest number of mosques that practice Salafism, the extreme version of Islam. Salafism is promoted and funded worldwide by Saudi Arabia, and is one of the religious filters that warps history and experience into a justification for terrorism.
Salafi schools and mosques exist all around the U.S. and Europe, including two in suburban Washington, DC.
That’s the terrorist side of the picture.
On the victim side we see the high level of tolerance for terrorism that permeates the European continent, from Scandinavia on down. The European Union in general, Spain in particular, and Barcelona itself, have all been slow, weak and selective in their objections to terrorism…when it happens elsewhere. Europeans have sympathized with terrorists and made excuses for them. They even support some institutions that facilitate terrorism in other countries, in the mistaken belief that they are immune themselves. One might have thought that by now Europe would “get” the message to the contrary, written in blood by terrorists from Paris and London, Brussels, and Hamburg, Nice and many other cities. But sadly, Europe still does not understand.
Just a few months ago, in May, the Barcelona Book Fair featured a convicted terrorist on their program.
Leila Khaled is a current member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which has been designated by the United States and the European Union as a terrorist organization. She hijacked TWA Flight 840 in 1969 and a year later participated in the hijacking of EL AL Flight 219 as a member of Black September, the organization responsible for the massacre of 11 Israelis at the 1972 Munich Olympics. Khaled lives in Jordan now, and was invited to be the star guest at Barcelona’s “Revolution is Life” book fair back in May.
There were strong objections to having her come to Spain. Among those who protested were Fadi Hassan, president of the Basque Country Palestinian Community, who wrote a letter saying Khaled did not represent Palestinian women or the Palestinian people. “Her invitation blocks peace,” he wrote.
Nevertheless, Khaled received a visa for Europe. A poster featuring her with a gun was plastered all over Barcelona. The poster’s words say, “Don’t forget the struggle.” The poster’s image says “violence is more than just acceptable, violence is glamorous”.
Many roads lead to terrorism. As with any crime, terrorists require motive, means and opportunity. We need to give them less opportunity by becoming less vulnerable. Security is one important part of the equation. Other important parts are the words spoken and actions taken – and those not taken - by government, NGOs, businesses, and bystanders – including the international community.
What is the lesson of Barcelona and the rest of last week’s carnage? Just this. If you want to invite terrorists into your community, here’s what you can do to make them feel welcome: Call them by any other name than terrorists – call them freedom fighters, liberator, nationalists, or lower your standards because they feel marginalized, victimized and desperate. Then give them a platform for recruiting; it could be a house of worship or a school, or a website on your network. Give them credence by debating them as if they are just another legitimate point of view. Fail to condemn them when they attack someone else somewhere else.
Or…we can pull in the welcome mat and become less tolerant to the intolerant – to ideologies that justify or use violence, regardless of their political point of view.
Sadly, terrorism and the threat of terrorism are not going away any time soon. Terrorists are committed to their ugly ideologies.
Which means our commitment to the safety, sanity and freedom of our communities must become even greater.
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