Politically moderate Basque leaders have said that outlawing Batasuna will not lead to peace in the troubled Basque region.
Mr Aznar particularly wants people who live in the Basque country but are not Basque nationalists to vote next month.
And its university press has a large series on Basque topics, including the writings of the celebrated Basque-American author Robert Laxalt.
Elections in the Basque region of Spain resulted in gains for the country's ruling centre-right party and for radical Basque nationalists.
On August 27th, the Basque regional police began to implement a legal order to shut down Batasuna offices throughout the Basque country.
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Spanish and moderate Basque political leaders have been quick to condemn the decision by the Basque separatist group, ETA, to end its 14-month-old ceasefire.
If ETA can argue that even the Basque parliament is governed by "outsiders" and "colonists", it may increase its support among more moderate Basque nationalists.
Until the mood in the Basque country turned sour last December, he had managed to get along, though not warmly, with the mainstream (non-violent) Basque nationalists.
Basque peace could be a pay-off for Mr Zapatero's softly-softly approach to Spain's most enduring political problem: regional tensions in the Basque country and in Catalonia.
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Basque nationalists trace the roots of the homeland to pre-Roman times and many dream of reuniting all seven historic Basque provinces, three of which are in France.
It is hoping to oust the moderate Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) from the Basque parliament, and is even considering a pact with the Socialists to achieve this.
ETA, whose name stands for Basque Homeland and Liberty, has been fighting to win independence for Basque regions in northern Spain and southwestern France for 33 years.
EH, this might deepen the sharp divide between Basques who see themselves as Spanish first and Basque second, and those who consider themselves solely or primarily Basque.
For Catalan, read Galician or Basque or whatever: when the Basque government was recently renegotiating its financial accord with the centre, a similar demand almost killed the deal.
ETA's, which might help put some pep into a mooted all-party initiative to re-examine the constitutional status of the Basque country and the neighbouring part-Basque province of Navarre.
For sure, Basque separatists, who take about 12% of the vote in the Basque region, connive at a lingering terror campaign that has taken some 800 lives in 30 years.
There the Basque government is heavily promoting Euskera, the Basque tongue, which is less widely spoken in the region than Catalan is in Catalonia (and is harder for Spanish-speakers to learn).
ETA, an acronym for Basque Homeland and Freedom in the Basque language, once enjoyed a greater degree of sympathy, especially in the days of dictator General Francisco Franco, who brutally repressed Basque culture.
In Idaho and Nevada, many cities hold annual Basque festivals with traditional sporting contests weight-carrying, wood-chopping, sheep-hooking and pelota (similar to jai-alai in America) as well as dancing exhibitions, Basque-language Catholic masses and bread-baking contests.
Last month, ETA appeared to suffer a further setback when the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV), which advocates independence from Spain through peaceful means, won 33 seats in the 75-member parliament in Basque regional elections.
Meanwhile, since the Basque Nationalists are no longer co-operating with Herri Batasuna in the Basque parliament, they are now a minority government which could, at any time, fall to a vote of no confidence.
Conservatives, Socialists and even the communist-led United Left have welcomed the sentences, while Basque nationalists of all stripes, who win just under half the votes in the Basque country, have expressed varying degrees of condemnation.
The leader of the Spanish opposition party, the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE), Joaquin Almunia, rejected ETA's claim that it was resuming the armed struggle because the other Basque parties had failed to rally to its call for pan-Basque elections.
Mr Zapatero's troubles began in late December when the Basque assembly voted for the Ibarretxe plan, which seeks to introduce Basque citizenship, an independent judiciary, a penal system, devolved responsibility for social security and the power to sign international treaties.
So long as the tension does not become thorough-going violence, it seems likely that both sides the government in Madrid and Basque nationalists across the board in the Basque Country will wait until the elections in June before they consider changing tack again.
This is not a call for independence, but for a range of incremental measures, varying from a right to field Basque sporting teams (at a time when most Spaniards would not look kindly upon the dismemberment of their beloved La Roja world champions) to powers over workforce training and referendums in two tiny enclaves the PNV claims should be Basque.
Spain's new constitution of 1978, three years after Franco's death, divided Franco's centralised country into 17 regions, granted privileges to those parts (the Basque country, Catalonia and Galicia) with historic identities of their own, made Castilian pre-eminent as Spain's official language, but gave other languages principally Catalan, Basque, Valencian (a dialect of Catalan) and Galician equal status in areas where they were spoken.
Over the weekend two Spanish regions, Galicia and the Basque country, are set to hold elections.
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The attack happened less than three weeks before regional elections in the Basque Country.
Herri Batasuna hold seats in the Basque and Navarre regional parliaments and the national congress.
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