Morocco Spain Political Tensions

Celebrations in Rabat and terror in Madrid.

This is the summary of the political and diplomatic scene between Morocco

and Spain. A summary whose headline was written

in bold from inside the Royal Palace in Rabat.

Ceuta, Melilla, and the Chafarinas Islands are colonial issues that do not

lapse with time or even with an apology.

Moroccans waited for a long time

for the government's response or party reaction to the recent media provocations

coming from the northern neighbor.

But this time, the response carried the symbolic weight of the dispute,

proving decisive and seismic in its content, source,

dimensions, and repercussions.

The Royal Palace thus sends a resounding, vocal,

and clear message, as the Commander of the Faithful affirms that what

binds him to his loyal people is the legitimate pledge of allegiance, founded,

in its political standing, on guarding the borders, territorial unity, and security

of the land.

Here, the spokesperson for the royal direction, Mr. Ahmed Toufiq,

Minister of Endowments and Islamic Affairs, did not stop there; instead, he pointed

explicitly and not merely through implication to the city of Ceuta,

which is occupied,

recalling the great scholars of this city who

established the emotional and spiritual bonds that

unite Moroccans

with the sultans of the Moroccan state.

In this context,

strong nations are those that strive to turn

any crisis, no matter how severe, into an opportunity

to be built upon to achieve their strategic goals or build momentum

toward them. One of the "benefits" of the recent occupied

Ceuta crisis is that it drew world attention to one of the oldest

cases of occupation in the world, an occupation that struck large parts of Morocco

during periods of weakness of the Sharifian Moroccan Empire.

While Morocco long ago settled the Portuguese occupation and ended the course

of French occupation since 1955, it is striving to close

the chapter of Spanish occupation, relying on a long-term

and multidimensional strategy, under an international order that does not

rely solely on historical and legal rights to restore sovereignty over

homelands and complete the territorial integrity of nations.