: Morocco & Spain: 500 Years of Territorial Claims Continue

It seems silly for people who aren’t familiar with the history of Spain and Morocco, but last week’s tangle of troops on an uninhabited, 30-acre island that the Moroccans call “Leila” and the Spanish call “Parsley” is the latest chapter in a 500-year old territorial struggle that so far has no end in sight. After Morocco sent a handful of troops to the rock 200 yards off the Moroccan coast, Spain sent 75 Legionnaires and war vessels to remove them. The island became uninhabited once again this week after a negotiated cease-fire. Now for the background; follow along carefully: Morocco claims that the rock reverted to their control upon their independence in 1956 and that it is “humiliating” to have the rock in question, along with Morocco-embedded enclaves Ceuta and Melilla, in Spanish hands. Spain claims that the territories are rightfully theirs. “Ceuta is not like Gibraltar,” explained a former Spanish army commander. “Gibraltar was once Spanish, but Ceuta was never Moroccan.” Moroccans contrast Spain’s stated goal of retrieving Gibraltar (which Britain announced this week it would share with Spain), and Madrid’s reluctance to return the favor to Morocco for Ceuta and Melilla. Morocco brings up Spain’s colonial occupation of Morocco, and Spain retorts by pointing out Morocco’s occupation of the Western Sahara. How far back does this go? Muslim Spain and the Inquisition, perhaps?

Shahed Amanullah is editor-in-chief of altmuslim.com.