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Tuesday, December 27, 2005

Spain is "occupied territory"

Hamas has a children's newspaper that describes the Spanish city of Seville, calling on Muslims to liberate it as well as the rest of Spain.

This is not surprising; Bin Laden himself mentioned "the tragedy of Andalusia" in his videotaped message right after 9/11, referring to the Muslim loss of sovreignty over Spain in the 15th century. And the phrase "tragedy of Andalusia" is not particular to Bin Laden; other Islamist websites use it freely, sometimes as veiled threats.

Here is an excellent Muslim analysis of how mainstream Muslims think of "al-Andalus." Many feel that Madrid was the target of Islamic terror more because of Andalusia rather than Iraq.

It seems that most Muslims feel that once some territory is Muslim, it is Muslim forever and needs to be taken back forcefully. In other words, there is no difference between the West Bank, Israel and Spain; it is more a matter of where to focus first.

And it is instructive that Muslims are teaching this to their children, today.