Bin Laden's deputy calls for global war on 'crusaders'

[barb162]

Bin Laden's deputy calls for global war on 'crusaders'

Brian Whitaker in Beirut
Friday July 28, 2006
The Guardian


Al-Qaida's deputy leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, made a dramatic intervention in the Lebanese crisis yesterday with a videotape calling on Muslims everywhere to rise up against Zionists and "crusaders".
"How can we remain silent while watching bombs raining on our people?" he asked. "O Muslims everywhere, I call on you to fight and become martyrs in the war against the Zionists and the crusaders," he said in the eight-minute tape, entitled The Zionist-Crusader War on Lebanon and the Palestinians, parts of which were broadcast by al-Jazeera television yesterday.

Zawahiri also criticised "impotent, treacherous" Arab governments for their feeble response to the Israeli attacks. "My fellow Muslims, it is obvious that Arab and Islamic governments are not only impotent but also complicit ... and you are alone on the battlefield. Rely on Allah and fight your enemies ... make yourselves martyrs."

"All the world is a battlefield open in front of us," he added. "The war with Israel does not depend on ceasefires ... It is a jihad for the sake of Allah and will last until religion prevails ... from Spain to Iraq." (Spain was under Muslim rule for several centuries, starting in 711 and ending with the fall of Granada in 1492.)

snip
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1832142,00.html

This idiot even wants to get Spain "back" ????

[madeline_con]

1. And some Israelis want to go to the Euphrates....

both sides are nuts.

[Behind the Aegis]

2. ....

:crazy:

[Igel]

4. Few enough.

And few note what the part of the Euphrates the OT is talking about. Many more Palestinians believe Israelis believe this than there are Israelis that believe it, IMHO.

But that was only a brief extension, by conquest, even in the OT narrative.

[Igel]

3. Not the first time it's been mentioned.

Comes up infrequently. But al-Andalus is big deal in the Islamic hagiography loosely termed "history".

They wrote the history, one of great beneficence and tolerance. That it was more written than enacted in many cases eludes the Kufi-script-based thinking, but it was at least no worse overall for Jews than the rest of Europe was. For Spaniards and Catholics, not so good. But in any event, the last few hundred years were Islamic tyranny, as the triumphant Islam was gradually rolled back--always producing humiliation and hate, since it's just so wrong wrt the way things really are--and as clerics from N. Africa turned up and decided that the brand of Islam in al-Andalus was too corrupt. It's one part of Islamic history that Bat Ye'or eviscerates in her usual "here is what contemporary sources actually say."

You know, I recently pointed out on some thread that of all the moved populations from just after WWII, only the Palestinians were not resettled--some rejecting it, and those around rejecting them. It just dawned on me there's a parallel.

Spain kicked out Muslims. They settled in NW Africa, Morrocco and environs. And there are still whole villages claiming to descend from those Muslims, harboring grievances against the injustice done to Allah himself, and trying to preserve "authentic" traditions for the refugees from al-Andalus, but mostly just preserving their sense of humiliation as they've done for the last 500 years, and making sure their kids feel properly humiliated.