JTA \u2013 More than\u00a0100 influencer accounts have circulated theories that Israel orchestrated the rush of Moroccan migrants into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, according to the Combat Antisemitism Movement.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Online conspiracy theories proliferated after some 60\u00a0000 people swam and crossed on foot into Ceuta, a small Spanish city on the northern coast of Africa that borders Morocco. At least 88 migrants were killed in the breakdown of border controls, including some who drowned and\u00a0others who\u00a0died in a stampede. Most of the migrants had returned to Morocco by Sunday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ceuta and Melilla, another Spanish city on the North African coast, are the only remaining European-held territories on Africa\u2019s mainland. Morocco does not recognise Spanish sovereignty over Ceuta and Melilla and considers them to be occupied territories.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bleak work prospects for young Moroccans and crackdowns on government critics, combined with confusion over a change in Spain\u2019s border policy and an apparent loosening of patrols by Moroccan authorities, triggered the exodus to Ceuta last week.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A report from the Antisemitism Research Center, an arm of Combat Antisemitism, said\u00a0on\u00a0Sunday that X was quickly flooded with posts attributing the border surge to Israel. The group analysed 173 posts from 119 influencer accounts that racked up a total\u00a0of\u00a057.5 million views.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The theories came from both right-wing and left-wing accounts inside and outside Spain. Some focused on Spanish Prime Minister Pedro S\u00e1nchez\u2019s sharp criticism of Israel\u2019s conduct in Gaza and Iran, arguing that Israel instigated the chaos in retaliation. Others blamed a global conspiracy of Jews working to destroy European societies from within through Muslim migration.\u00a0<\/p>\n
One post from the popular account \u201cForbidden HQ\u201d,\u00a0viewed 5.3 million times, showed a graphic of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu unleashing a stream of migrants from his mouth into Spain.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Other influencers have cited provocative posts from Israeli officials and pro-Israel voices. The far-right commentator Candace Owens resurfaced a 2019 post from Netanyahu\u2019s son.\u00a0In a message to the Spanish people in 2019, Yair Netanyahu said, \u201cLet\u2019s make a deal, we won\u2019t fund NGOs in your country calling you to give away Ceuta and Melilla, and you will *stop* funding NGOs in our country that call us to give away Judea and Samaria.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Podcast host Melissa Witte referenced a March article by Michael Rubin, a fellow at the right-wing Middle East Forum, that said,\u00a0\u201cMoroccans should gather, send bulldozers to the border, and then enter Ceuta and Melilla unarmed to raise the flag.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThey literally did plan this,\u201d Witte said, referring to Israelis. \u201cTo include having their think\u00a0tanks argue for why Morocco taking Ceuta wouldn\u2019t activate NATO.\u201d The Middle East Forum is an American think tank.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Dan Bilzerian, a social media personality with a history of openly antisemitic rhetoric,\u00a0suggested in a X post that S\u00e1nchez\u2019s condemnation of Israel led to Spain being \u201cflooded with thousands of Moroccan migrants\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Spanish and Moroccan governments have not accused Israel of involvement in the chaos at the border. S\u00e1nchez said\u00a0on\u00a0Friday that human traffickers were to blame for exploiting a recent ruling in Spain\u2019s Supreme Court that banned the immediate return of migrants intercepted at sea. Morocco\u2019s Interior Ministry also said\u00a0on\u00a0Sunday that the incident was fuelled by smuggling networks, along with misinterpretations of the court ruling and misinformation on social media.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Pundits have also observed that the absence of Morocco\u2019s border patrol could be a reaction to S\u00e1nchez\u2019s recent official visit to Algeria, which supports independence for Western Sahara, a territory claimed by Morocco.\u00a0<\/p>\n
While S\u00e1nchez has not associated the breach with Israel, Spanish Transportation Minister \u00d3scar Puente appeared to suggest that Israel bore some responsibility in response to a post on X by Danny Danon, Israel\u2019s Ambassador to the United Nations.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cSpain, which never misses an opportunity to lecture Israel, has declared a state of emergency in Ceuta following the crisis over its immigration policy,\u201d Danon said on X. \u201cMaybe before it continues lecturing us, it\u2019s time it explained to the world why it still maintains colonial enclaves in Africa.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Puente responded in Spanish, \u201cWell, things are starting to get pretty clear.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Combat Antisemitism is a pro-Israel coalition that says that it \u201cfights antisemitism wherever it occurs and across the ideological spectrum, including efforts to deny the Jewish people their right to self-determination in Israel\u201d.\u00a0Critics of the organisation say that it stifles criticism of Israel by conflating it with antisemitism.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In 2023, two major US Jewish groups exited Combat Antisemitism after it published a video that blamed rising antisemitism on \u201cwoke ideology\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JTA \u2013 More than\u00a0100 influencer accounts have circulated theories that Israel orchestrated the rush of Moroccan migrants into…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":236263,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[33],"tags":[52964,37,7254,6414,1218],"class_list":["post-236262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-combat-antisemitism-movement","tag-israel","tag-jta","tag-morocco","tag-spain"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/117039767577286312","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236262"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236262\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/236263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}