And so it begins: the application of the "right of return" rhetoric that has worked so well in Israel to Spain, another land that belongs by right to the Dar al-Islam, and now must be reclaimed from the infidels. This demand will probably be granted, with no Spanish politician savvy or courageous enough to demand reciprocal favorable terms for the descendents of dhimmis who were exiled from the crumbling Ottoman Empire when their people were judged to be kafir harbi -- infidels at war with Islam -- and were given the choice of conversion or exile, or in many cases conversion or death. No one will demand reciprocal terms for the descendents of dhimmis who have streamed out of the Middle East to escape the institutionalized discrimination and harassment they lived under there for centuries.
All I want is a villa in Tsesmes, bought and paid for by the Turkish government, along with 24-hour guards to safeguard me from angry jihadists there. As soon as the Turks come across, I will support this call in Spain.
"Citizenship call from Spain's uneasy Muslim past," by Jason Webb for Reuters, with thanks to all who sent this in:
MADRID, June 21 (Reuters) - A call for descendents of Muslims expelled from Spain in the seventeenth century to be given preferential terms for Spanish citizenship has highlighted the country's uneasy relationship with its Islamic heritage.The proposal was made at a meeting this week in Cordoba, a city in Andalusia which was the centre of Islamic civilization in the Iberian peninsula during nearly eight centuries of Moorish rule of much of what is now Spain and Portugal.
In 1609, Spain's King Philip III ordered all Muslims to leave his kingdom, leading to the expulsion of about 300,000 people. Their descendents today mainly live in North Africa and still regard themselves as "Andalusians", after the old name for Muslim Spain -- "Al Andalus"
Giving them preferential terms for Spanish citizenship would be an act of symbolic reconciliation, said Mansur Escudero, head of Spain's Islamic Board, the biggest group representing Spanish Muslims.
"The Andalusians who live in North Africa, most of them in Morocco, in Tunisia, in Libya, they're part of those societies and aren't going to want to come to Spain," Escudero said.
"It would be more of an emotional, moral gesture, a recognition of an historic injustice," he told Reuters, adding that some "Andalusian" families still preserved keys to houses they left behind four centuries ago.
Sephardic Jews, whose ancestors were expelled from Spain in 1492, already have a special right to obtain Spanish citizenship after two years legal residence in Spain, a privilege also available to citizens of Spain's former colonies.
And the Left chimes in to help out their allies:
A small left-wing party, Izquierda Unida, has backed the call for preferential citizenship for descendents of Spanish Muslims. The governing Socialists, who have promoted an "Alliance of Civilizations" between the West and Islam, have yet to give their response, Escudero said....
Perhaps in a few years, decendents of German Nazis can move to France.
More proof that terrorism works and will always be rewarded. Nice one Spain!
Did Spain even concider why Muslims were in Spain in the first place?
Gustavo de Aristegui, a former member of the Spanish Parliament, expert on militant islam and a confidant of former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, predicted it. "It's their obsession number two".
Why does there have to be a "reconciliation" in Spain with Muslims in the first place? Look - you were kicked out and thankfully so, now Begone!
So descendants have the right to return.
Does this mean pc idiots believe that Israel has the right to exist?
Probably not I guess.
They will probably try to implement the “two-state solution.”
Which will probably lead to Israel’s annihilation.
"It would be more of an emotional, moral gesture, a recognition of an historic injustice"
You mean, those who colonised other countries should be allowed a right of return, Mansur?
Right: that means that all descendants of Britons who used to live in India, Pakistan, Kenya, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Singapore etc, should automatically be allowed to return to those countries and live there as full citizens. Re-colonise those countries legally, if you will.
By my reckoning, the Crusaders' descendants should be allowed to settle freely in the Middle East too.
Oh, you oaf, Mansur. You utter idiot.
Bring back El Cid.
Most of us infidels have a hard time tracing our families for more than a couple of hundred years...I suppose this merely means carte blanche for ALL North Africans?
And be thou strong of heart, Lord King,
For this I tell thee sure,
The sod that drank the Douglas' blood
Shall never bear the Moor!"
ftp://gutenberg.readingroo.ms/gutenberg/1/0/9/4/10945/10945-h/10945-h.htm#RULE4_8
These traitors betray their own ancestors who fought for centuries to free them and those like James Douglas who died in their cause.
WTF is going on in the world?!?!?
This is insanity. Do the Spanish have a date already when they will hand over power to the Caliphate of Cordoba?
National Suicide and another step in the direction of the caliphate's return. It is a real pity that we cannot deport leftists to islamic lands so that they can "enjoy" the culture firsthand.
And will the more than one million people who had lived in Algeria before being booted out -- the French, along with Spanish, Italians, Maltese and others, and who lived under the intelligent French administration that brought to Algeria its first schools and colleges, its first hospitals, its first modern techniques of agriculture, in short, between 1830 and 1962, whatever civilisation it may be said to possess (it has been downhill all the way ever since, the decline not quite as complete as it might have been only because, until the last ten years, there was still the continued connection to the West and Western ways that came with a steady flow of teachers sent from France (before the situation in Algeria got too dangerous) to teach French, and therefore to keep up an intellectual connection with French literature, among the elite, and also the back-and-forth movement of Algerians living in France also provided a civilising influence.
Of course, few pieds noirs or their descendants (should they be called "Infidel refugees" unto the third or nth generation, on the model of the so-called "Palestinian" refugees who, no matter when they were born, are apparently forever entitled to the status of "refugee"?) would want to go back and live under Muslim rule. Muslims, however, are quite content to move to Europe, because they are given complete legal equality, access to all the benefits that an advanced Western state so generously provides, and what's more, the ability to freely proseyltize, and to have huge families that are an ever greater drain on Infidel taxpayers, and have helped to damage the educational systems which, in turn, leads to Infidels, in their own calculation of the expense of raising a child, to now factor in the cost of private education -- which, in turn, further discourages Infidels from having children, or more than one or two. And so the demographic conquest, by Muslims able to take advantage of everything, and yet offering nothing but inculcated hostility, hostility sometimes disguised and sometimes open, and expressed in any number of ways, from attacks on Infidel-owned property, or on Infidels themselves -- criminal activity that is justified, in the Islamic view, because Infidels are not entitled to their positions or possessions, not entitled to be anyhing but subjugated to Muslim rule and Muslim dominance.
Demography does turn out to be destiny. Muslims must, if Infidels wish to survive themselves, or to preserve the civilizational legacy they inherited and have done so little to deserve, that art, that science, that solicitude for mental and other kinds of freedom of the individual, all of which are discouraged by, or flatly contradicted by, the spirit and letter of Islam.
The Western world owes a debt to those who gave it what is best in that world, and it is precisely what is best that is under attack, and always will be under attack, from Islam and the ahderents, whether "moderate" or not (and who can say with certainty? Who can know what "moderate" will become "immoderate" out of this or that personal prompting?). It can not be otherwise.
This is simply ridiculous, with no chance of ever becoming reality. First of all, in Spain (as is the case of Portugal) power rotates between two parties: the centre-left Socialist Party, and the centre-right Partido Popular (in Portugal we have the centre-right Social-Democrats which basically have the same agenda). Any of the two would be sure to lose a lot of votes if they were stupid enough to support such a measure. Therefore, the only parties that will support such measures will be the extreme-left parties that are to pathetic to ever dream of achieving power. 300,000 were kicked out, so I guess that would make what? 3 million "Andalusian" descendants?
Second, Spain and Portugal's history (and to some extent, our culture) is built from two main events: the Reconquista, and the Age of Exploration (and the Imperial days that followed). Both were our golden period, particularly the latter. The first, while less universally important (particularly for non-Iberians), was crucial in the development of a national identity. Most school children are taught a slightly bleached version of the Muslim occupation and of the Reconquista, but still this is one version where it is fairly easy for them to find their heroes, and their villains. Portugal's first king, who conquered two thirds of our national territory from the Moors, is still one of the most popular historical figures in Portuguese history.
As a final sidenote, the Moors were last defeated in Portugal in 1249. So that 800 years presence is a load of crap, at least regarding Portugal. Get your facts straight.
Second sidenote: the Moors were expelled by Felipe III because they were acting as a fifth column for the Turks, and they could note be relied upon. A tragedy, but still a lot better than being decapitated in the Medina marketplace.
Third sidenote: not that any European would ever want to move to the shit hole that North Africa and the Middle East have become, but when exactly can those of us with ancestors persecuted by the Moors can expect a "right of return"? Or even better, when can Christian populations living in Muslim countries can expect a "right to exist"?
What is that, never? Just what I thought...
Has Spain forgotten the tragic events of March 11, 2004 ?
It's been said that "God must love the poor, he has created so many of them". I would add that "God must really, really love the stupid, he seems to be increasing their numbers EXPONENTIALLY".
Hopefully Spain's government has better sense that to approve this end-run by Spain's Islamic Board.
If the Spanish want to give the Arabs their right of return, then they should equally do the same for the Jews who were persecuted and expelled during the times of the Spanish Inquisition.
Spain has a long history of Jewish persecution.
There's the massacre of the Jews of Cordoba, in April 1014, and the reaminder who didn't accept forced conversion to Christianity fled.
In 1066 in Granada, Spain, 1,500 Jewish families were killed. The remainder fled.
In 1150, the Berber Muslim army invaded Spain, Algeria and Tunis. Their intolerance led to many Jews taking flight.
In July 1320, a crusade against the Jews was started. It spread throughout most of southern France and northern Spain. One hundred and twenty communities were destroyed. At Verdun, 500 Jews defended themselves from within a stone tower where they killed themselves when they were about to be overrun.
In 1321 Henry II of Spain forced all Jews to wear the yellow badge.
In June 1361, Ferrand Martinez, Archdeacon of Ecija, began to incite mobs into attacking the Jewish quarter. The campaign soon spread throughout Spain, except for Granada. The Jewish quarter in Barcelona, located for over 400 years near the castle, was totally destroyed. Over 10,000 Jews were killed, and many others chose conversion and became New Christians or Conversos. Of these, many continued to practice Judaism in secret while paying lip service to the Church. They became known by the Christians as Marranos. The Jews never used the term Marrano themselves although some knew of it. Many scholars have speculated that the origins of the word stemmed from Latin, Arabic and even Hebrew, but in fact it was the Spanish term for pig or pork an expression of extreme disgust on the part of the Christians. The Jews refered to them as anusim "those who were forced to convert". Eventually, these mass forced conversions led to the establishment of the Inquisition.
And so began many years of forced conversions, massacres of Jews, and theft of Jewish land, property and money.
If the Spanish want to give the Arabs their right of return, then they should equally do the same for the Jews who were persecuted and expelled during the times of the Spanish Inquisition.
You're a little late. Spain already did that, under Franco. (His Foreign Office kept busy issuing Spanish passports during World War II to any Jews who could plausibly assert Spanish ancestry, and thus get out of Germany or German-occupied Europe.)
The red rats in charge, what do you expect?
The idea to open the floodgates for the Islamo-proletariat is nothing new. The red bacteria sees massive infiltration of Islamofascists as legitimate means to stay in power, to bring us the socialist utopia, what else?
Of course a false assumption, but the damage is already done.
It will be very hard to undo.
Internment and deportations, now!
The rest of the world will find out that the war on Israel is a rehersal and test lab for the global jihad.
The only question is when.
Hopefully the place won't be a complete wreck by then.
Under this same mentality, anyone who "expelled" or was "forced" to emigrate would be able to apply for the right of return. The ensuing chaos would be unimaginable.
Calls for children of death camps guards to be given preferential citizenship in Poland next?
"Under this same mentality, anyone who 'expelled' or was 'forced' to emigrate would be able to apply for the right of return. The ensuing chaos would be unimaginable."
-Eleanor at June 25, 2007 3:36 PM
I myself demand no more than 4 vacation homes in the 3 countries my ancestors were forced to leave.
Gimme Gimme Gimme!
So much for the notion of Macho. Be more like Pusso.
No. Wait. Those Machos are the aboriginal Amerinds who cloak themselves in the murky rubric of being Hispanic, whatever the hell that is. Mosquito, Aztec, Inca, Maya, you name it. Less the 5% of Hispanics who are Spanish, these are the rest.
These are the forthcoming New Moslems from the south of the border.
So much for the notion of Macho. Be more like Pusso.
No. Wait. Those Machos are the aboriginal Amerinds who cloak themselves in the murky rubric of being Hispanic, whatever the hell that is. Mosquito, Aztec, Inca, Maya, you name it. Less the 5% of Hispanics who are Spanish, these are the rest.
These are the forthcoming New Moslems from the south of the border.
So much for the notion of Macho. Be more like Pusso.
No. Wait. Those Machos are the aboriginal Amerinds who cloak themselves in the murky rubric of being Hispanic, whatever the hell that is. Mosquito, Aztec, Inca, Maya, you name it. Less the 5% of Hispanics who are Spanish, these are the rest.
These are the forthcoming New Moslems from the south of the border.
"The Andalusians who live in North Africa, most of them in Morocco, in Tunisia, in Libya, they're part of those societies and aren't going to want to come to Spain," Escudero said. It would be more of an emotional, moral gesture, a recognition of an historic injustice," he told Reuters, adding that some "Andalusian" families still preserved keys to houses they left behind four centuries ago."
If the Spaniards actually fall for this snake oil salesman's line (or what we Americans call the classic "I've got a bridge for sale" con), then perhaps they simply don't deserve to maintain ownership of their land, their culture or their heritage. But then that pretty much goes for all of the west these days.
What about all the victims of Muslims in Spain and their descendants today in Spain and Portugal ? Will they receive compensation from the Muslims?
It’s strange that when Muslims lose a war against non-Muslims it is a "historic injustice”. But when non-Muslims lose a war by Muslims it is preordained by Allah.
Hypocrites.
In the Sixth Century, Ethiopians ruled the Sudan and part of the Arabian Peninsula.
They should also be encouraged to exercise their right-of-return. With the help of Halliburton's new Addas Ababa office.
National Suicide and another step in the direction of the caliphate's return. It is a real pity that we cannot deport leftists to islamic lands so that they can "enjoy" the culture firsthand.
______
We might not have to wait long...
We are going to have to kill alot of people. War is coming fast.
Jerusalem, ever consider that the reason the Spanish persecuted the Jews was because the Jews in Spain were willing collaborators with the Muslims and ran many of their business affairs for them? Liken it to the Vichy helping the Nazis and you'll see the parallels.
Having read the same claims regarding keeping the keys of a lost residence by the Palestinians this must be one of Islams big sympathy grabbers for their dispossessed minons.
If right of return is the name of the game I guess I will return to Strasburg, France and claim the property on which my family was murdered by the Catholics. But, we of course are Christians and probably would be restricted from consideration.
What is the Spanish thinking? Do they believe making dhimmi's out of the current population will buy them good treatment by the Muslims?
For the first time in history, the power to wipe Mohammed's scourge from the face of the earth is in our hands, and we just sit and argue amongst ourselves about how and whether or not. When next we look away from our petty arguments, we will be living under sharia.
History will just shake its head at us and say "internal strife caused the downfall of western civilization".
If right of return is the name of the game I guess I will return to Strasburg, France and claim the property on which my family was murdered by the Catholics. But, we of course are Christians and probably would be restricted from consideration.
Posted by: CLL1709 at June 26, 2007 10:22 AM
I was thinking a suite at Versailles would be just compensation, seeing as how it was Louis XIV who revoked the Edict of Nantes.
To be fair, from 1790-1945, France did offer citizenship to Huguenot descendents who wanted to return. Of course, the Huguenots did well for themselves elsewhere, and to my knowledge, there was no great migration back, thank-you-very-much. What's interesting is that the descendents of those Moors exiled to lands with the same religion and culture want to return to Spain, a country with a different religion and culture from theirs. Wonder what could be causing the difference ...
"If the Spanish want to give the Arabs their right of return, then they should equally do the same for the Jews who were persecuted and expelled during the times of the Spanish Inquisition."
- Jerusalem Posts
The article actually does mention that the Sephardic Jews already have such a right:
"Sephardic Jews, whose ancestors were expelled from Spain in 1492, already have a special right to obtain Spanish citizenship after two years legal residence in Spain, a privilege also available to citizens of Spain's former colonies."
..
And then there are a few minor inaccuracies in your post:
"There's the massacre of the Jews of Cordoba, in April 1014, and the reaminder who didn't accept forced conversion to Christianity fled."
In 1014, Cordoba was not only still in muslim hands, it was even the capital of the Caliphate of Cordoba.
And Cordoba would remain the capital of the caliphate until 1031, and it would remain firmly in muslim hands until 1235, so it is rather unlikely that the Jews of Cordoba would have become the victims of persecution from Christians...
"In 1066 in Granada, Spain, 1,500 Jewish families were killed. The remainder fled."
Granada remained under muslim rule until 1492, so this has to be another massacre that the Muslims were responsable for, not the Christians.
"In 1150, the Berber Muslim army invaded Spain, Algeria and Tunis. Their intolerance led to many Jews taking flight."
That's most propably the Almohads that you're talking about.
And while you're quite correct that the Almohads, along with their predecessors, the Almoravids, fiercely persecuted Jews and Christians alike, I would just like to say that I fail to see how Spain would be responsable for atrocities that were committed by Moorish muslim invaders and rulers...
Dae Rolf
Personally I fail to see why modern spain is responsible for anything that happened centuries ago.
Do people have it so good now, that they have to complain about things that happened to distant ancestors centuries ago?