Originally published September 11, 2013
In a broadcast following the attacks of 9/11, bin Laden began his statement with the following:
Let the whole world know that we shall never accept that the tragedy of Andalusia would be repeated in Palestine. We cannot accept that Palestine will become Jewish.
By mentioning the “tragedy of Andalusia,” bin Laden referred to the bloody expulsion of Muslims from the Iberian Peninsula by the Spanish and Portuguese. The final Muslim kingdom fell in the year 1492.
Bin Laden believed the same thing was happening today to the displaced Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Since the formation of Israel in 1948, Palestinians had been pushed further and further from the lands they had inhabited for centuries. Just as Westerners had conquered Spain, bin Laden thought the West was now in the process of conquering Palestine.
His solution was to commit violence against the premiere Western power, the United States. He declared, “Those who live in America will never taste security and safety unless we feel security and safety in our land and in Palestine.”
Through the use of terrorism, he thought – wrongly – that he could gain the support of the Muslim world and intimidate the United States and our allies.
Does any of this provide justification for bin Laden’s actions? No, of course it doesn’t. But it helps explain why he did the things he did and shows just how much his worldview differed from our own.
For bin Laden and his followers, it seemed perfectly natural to cite an event that occurred 509 years ago. Their understanding of history ran literally from the founding of Islam in the 6th century AD. To them, something that happened half a millennium ago could carry the same weight as something that happened yesterday.
Compare that to the way most Americans view history. We generally have a poor awareness of world events before 1776. Even then, many Americans struggle with the details of things that happened before World War II. We often function best when remembering what happened on recent episodes of reality TV.
Where bin Laden’s historical consciousness spanned centuries, we’re lucky if ours covers six decades.
By understanding the motivations of people who would do us harm, it becomes much easier to stop and, as necessary, destroy them.
Along that line of thinking by the Muslim extremists, I heard a pundit suggest that a significant difference between the terrorists and, perhaps, everyone else: they worship death and we worship life.
It seems that Muslim terrorists look forward to their 70 virgins in their afterlife.
We, on the other hand, gladly choose this hell on earth for as long as we can before heading off to heaven (or Hell).