Tuesday, November 06, 2007

The Occupied Territories of Morocco

Ceuta and Melilla are two enclaves of sovereign Spanish territory along the coast of Morocco. King Carlos and Queen Sofia of Spain have stirred up a hornet’s nest by visiting Ceuta and Melilla.

According to Reuters:

Morocco hits out at enclaves visit by Spanish king

Morocco’s King Mohammed slammed Spanish King Juan Carlos’s visit to the disputed North African enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla saying it hurt the feelings of the Moroccan people and may imperil the future of bilateral ties.

In a rare statement, read by his adviser Mohamed Mouatassim at a cabinet meeting on Tuesday, the king said:” We emphatically condemn and strongly denounce such an unprecedented visit, a counterproductive step that hurt the deep patriotic feelings of the whole Moroccan people.” Juan Carlos made his first visit to Ceuta on Monday and Melilla on Tuesday since becoming king in 1975.

Last week, Morocco, which claims the two enclaves, recalled its ambassador to Spain for consultation in protest at the king’s trip.

“Facing this nostalgic act of a dark era which had absolutely gone, we had no option but to shoulder the responsibility of the consequences which may imperil the future and the evolution of the links between the two countries to the Spanish authorities,” King Mohammed said.

Remember, Ceuta and Melilla are “disputed” in the same way that the Falkland Islands are “disputed”: that is, they once were claimed by another country, but are now in the possession of a different country, and the majority of their inhabitants are citizens of the country that owns them.

The parallel with “Palestine” is, of course, irresistible. Digital Journal adds this:
- - - - - - - - -
Rabat has recalled its Madrid ambassador for consultations over the visit, with Prime Minister Abbas el-Fassi on Monday comparing the Spanish “occupation” of the enclaves with the “colonial” situation of the Palestinian territories under Israeli rule.

And ANSAmed has more details:

Moroccan Prime Minister Abbas al Fassi yesterday compared the situation in Ceuta and Melilla to that of Palestine occupied by Israel, inviting Spain to “understand that the time of colonialism is finished forever” and that the two cities must return to their motherland through “direct negotiations”. The conservative Spanish press replied today by rejecting the comparison with Palestine. But the observers are wondering about the dimensions of the crisis with Morocco, while waiting for the speech which king Mohamed VI must utter tonight, on the occasion of the 32nd anniversary of the ‘Green March’ organised in Western Sahara by hundreds of thousands of Moroccans, wanted by Hassan II with the purpose to force the Spanish to leave the colony.

There’s one other thing we all should remember: Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and many other Arabs of the Wahhabist persuasion consider Spain — Al-Andalus — to be “occupied territory” as well.

These Salafists are anxiously awaiting the reversal of the Reconquista.


Hat tip: insubria.

17 comments:

Jungle Jim said...

oh well, we can't let those poor muslims get their feelings hurt, can we?

OMMAG said...

You say...
"... The parallel with “Palestine” is, of course, irresistible...."

Hardly unless one is both facile and specious and otherwise incapable of offering an real justification for their BS!

Is Spain evolving from capitulant to belligerant??

Hope so! It will be a delight to see the Islamic totalitarians squirm about that.

Clorinda said...

Is there anything, anything at all, that does not "offend" these people? I have never seen such touchy folks in my life.

And the idea that Spain ... oh, pardon me, I mean Al-Andalus, of course ... is "occupied territory" should give even the most fervent Islam apologist an idea of why it is so important that we fight - AND defeat - these guys.

X said...

It's a shame, the current Kiong of Morocco has presided over the biggest westernisation of any muslim country for the past 30 years. He wanted tourism dollars, so he implemented reforms that allowed women equal rights, increased the age of consent to 16 (from 12) and told the locals that they'd make more money selling tat than picking pockets. It seemed to be working too. Morocco is tipped to be the new Algarve, and there are holiday apartments and timeshares going up at an impressive rate.

It's almost like they can't help reverting to type...

Holger said...

This would be the perfect location for a EU-Guantanamo where all terrorist EU citizens are deported to - for life. The EU should have a "Devil's Island" for all the Islamists whom are non-desirables. If people support terrorism in any way they should be deported for life to this African EU enclave, which already exists in mainly Muslim land.

Zarxos said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Marian - CZ said...

Holger: Svalbard archipelago would make a perfect island prison.

Anonymous said...

There’s one other thing we all should remember: Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and many other Arabs of the Wahhabist persuasion consider Spain — Al-Andalus — to be “occupied territory” as well.

Every territory on Earth is an occupied territory.

Fernando A. Ramírez Martínez said...

Well, we kicked them out once so I guess that we'll be able to kick them out if it becomes necessary, eventually.

xavier said...

Baron:
What an egregious hypocrite. I'll listen to Mohammed when he gives up the Southwest Sahara (aka Spanish Sahara that they usurped from the inhabitants when Spain gave up its claim in '75) until then I'll just ignore him. Too bad the present Spanish government is so typically leftist; a responsible government would've discreetly but bluntly reminded Morocco of its vulnerabilities by tossing out the 500 000 illegal Morrocans, denying the visitors and students reentry to Spain and freezing the various jizya.

xavier

Joaquim Reis said...

What an hypocrit world we live in. Claims of possesion are as stupid as taging certain cultures or religions as "those people". Someone said here "every territory on earth is an occupied territory". So right. The "reconquista" was not a conquista because Christians, or better said converted Goths (our western ancesters)took back the land which muslims took from them before, And the Goths took this land from the Romans, and the Romans from the Lusitans, Hispanics and other people at the time, and so on. In the XX century many countries where forced by war and moral pressures to give away their colonies. In 1975 more than 1 million Portuguese citizens living in peace with the locals were forced back to Portugal from its former colonies because of this, having nothing to do with the dispute between governments and armed forces. And yet we strugle for lands like Ceuta (which the Spanish took from the Portuguese and not Morocco), Gibraltar, the Falklands, and so on with total disregard for the people who actually live there. And we contribute with this to a more and more culture hostil world, with walls comming up when we thought they would never come back, with violent responce to violence, with arrogant defence of the moral superiority of our way of life. Let people live their lives in peace and lets rather put an effort on trying to live together, rather than suspecting about everything that's different.

Mike said...

xavier,

They would rather try to provoke the United States by acting like pirates toward our salvage vessels than deal with their internal problems. It is easier for them to ignore the immigration issue, than to deal with it.

Clorinda said...

joaquim said:
"Let people live their lives in peace and lets rather put an effort on trying to live together, rather than suspecting about everything that's different."

You are absolutely righ, Joaquim. Couldn't have said it better myself.

And I think the best way to achieve that lofty goal is to tell Islamofascists to stop bombing infidels into eternity (let non-Infidels live their lives), and tell "some people" (I beg your pardon, but I know that my identifying them will upset you more than my calling them what I did) to stop telling me to spend my hard-earned money on feeding, educating, and generally supporting illegal immigrants (emphasis on ILLEGAL), welfare bums, social programs that have been proved not to work, but that have very effciently kept certain politicians firmly in their cushy jobs, etc.

Let's start by telling those same people to stop trying their best to prevent me from practicing my religion (including celebrating Christmas) because it's "offensive" and "unconsitutional", while they give other religions a free pass, (even to be taught in schools).

Let's start by telling the above-mentnioned people that they cannot force me to accept the dictates of a "science" whose legitimacy and accuracy even the most respected scientists have doubts about. Let's tell them to let me live my life.

Let's tell the above-mentioned that it is wrong to suspect white American Christian conservatives just because they are different from non-whites, non-Americans, non-Christians, non-conservatives.

Let's tell people that Israelis should not be kicked out of Israel because of the "claims" of Palestinians, any more than the Spanish should "return" Morocco to King Whatshisname. Let Israelis live their lives.

In short, let's make genial and tolerant conviviance an obligation for EVERYONE - as opposed to for SOME GROUPS only.

Let's do all that, and when it happens, I agree with you that life will be a whole lot better for everyone.

Joaquim Reis said...

I totaly agree Clorinda, and appologise if I ofended you with the coment on "those people". I just meant that we shouldn't tag people just because they're muslim, american, european, chinese or whatever. There are good and bad people on every side and we should not assume everybody thinks and acts alike. We should act against any threat, weather muslim, american or other and not be anti-muslim, anti-american, and so on.

Clorinda said...

Thank you, joaquim. I did not intend to sound antagonistic towards you. The problem is that I am SO VERY tired of hearing how people like me are to blame for everything under the sun, while the real culprits get off the hook on account of their "3rd world country" status. That's really getting old.

Persio said...

Let me explain this point:
Ceuta and Melilla never belonged to Morocco. The cities belong to Spain since the XV century. On the other hand, Morocco constituted as a state in 1956.

RanDomino said...

I have found that the amount of time for an illegal territorial conquest to be irreversable practically is as long as the first 'new' person who was born there takes to die of old age. So, roughly 60-70 years. The intention is that reversing the crime should not cause more disruption than it would solve- once people have been born and lived their entire lives in a place, it's hard to argue that they aren't residents.

Obviously, for example, the US and Canada aren't going to send their non-Amerindian populations back to Europe, Africa, and Asia, because it's been too long.

Ceuta and Melilla are demographically Spanish and have been for hundreds of years, so Morocco has no claim to them.

On the other hand, the illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank are nearly all new since the 1980s, so they should be removed.