More Debate in Germany on Saudi Terrorism Links

There are meanwhile, numerous articles and interviews in Germany on the Saudi role in Islamic terrorism, worth special mention are three statements from the Dec. 5-6: Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel said in an interview with Bild am Sonntag that Saudi Arabia is “financing Wahhabite mosques everywhere in the world,” and that “many Islamic trouble-makers are coming from these communities in Germany.” To solve regional conflict in Middle East, Germany depends on Saudi cooperation, “but we must make clear to the Saudis at the same time, that the period of looking the other way is over…. We must use the same standards against the Salafists as against right-wing radical extremists,” Gabriel said.

Thomas Oppermann, chairman of the SPD Bundestag group, called for the Verfassungsschutz, which is responsible for Germany’s domestic security, to have tight supervision over mosque activities and their financing, saying that Wahhabism is also providing “the entire ideology for the IS terrorist group” in other countries. “We don’t need it and don’t want that in Germany.”

Islam expert Guido Steinberg of the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, (the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, SWP) in Berlin also charged, in a radio interview with Deutschlandfunk (DLF), that “one of the origins of IS’ strength is that Saudi Arabia has been propagating this interpretation of Islam in the Arabic world, in the Islamic world, since the 1960s.” The core of Wahhabism and the core of the IS ideology are identical, Steinberg said, adding that “the Saudis don’t like that to be talked about.” What IS does in the areas it has under its control, is a “logical consequence of what the Saudi Arabian Wahhabites have preached for the past two-and-a-half centuries,” Steinberg said. The problem can only be solved by a roll-back against the Saudi religious influence in the Arab world and in Europe “with very drastic measures…. We should rethink our relations to Saudi Arabia somewhat. Our image of it is, in my view, so positive that it no longer fits with reality.”

So far so good: Just add the issue of the classified 28-page chapter of the Joint Congressional Inquiry into 9/11 and the longtime history of Empire dealings with the Saudis, which so far none of the critics of Saudi Arabia has done, despite the fact that we have supplied most of them with ample information.  But it may be hoped that the notorious “wendehals” phenomenon will compel some people sooner or later to also begin to mention the 28 pages.