Secondly, the Crusades happened a very long time ago. From experience, I have never met or heard of an Arab who thought it was anything but a historical event. So, I highly doubt that anyone in the Middle East thinks of the Crusades as being relatively recent.
And yes nobody literally thinks it happened yesterday, so you’re missing the point.
Every nation has a founding myth. Romania's is the struggle against adversity, foreign empires and our resilience over millennia. The American one is freedom (the struggle against tyranny) and the American dream. The British one is resistance against adversity on their island, vanquishing European autocrats. Russia's is liberation from the steppe nomads and then turning the tides in a rough part of the world.
They're half lies, half truth in my experience. You know, myths :-)
American parents will warn their children that if they misbehave, "the boogeyman" will come for them at night. I was told that the Middle Eastern analogue was "Richard will come and get you" — as in Richard the Lion-Hearted. (I have no idea if this is true or not… it sounded like a fun anecdote back in college, now it sounds slightly ridiculous to me, but who knows?)