Morocco blames misinformation for Ceuta migrant rush; Israel conspiracy theories spread
More than 50,000 people crossed into Ceuta by land and sea in an unprecedented surge that began on Thursday at one of the European Union’s only two land borders with Africa, prompting alarm across the bloc. More than 48,000 returned to Morocco within 48 hours and more did so over the weekend, Spanish authorities said.
The ministry blamed the rush of migrants on social media misinformation, human trafficking networks and misinterpretation of a Spanish ruling banning immediate returns of migrants intercepted at sea. That statement was similar to the Spanish Foreign Ministry’s comments on the matter.
Following the crisis in Ceuta last week, posts accusing Israel and Jewish people of orchestrating the event spread quickly on social media, reaching an estimated 103 million people on X within 72 hours, according to an analysis by the Combat Antisemitism Movement’s Antisemitism Research Center (ARC).
Posters falsely claimed that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu directed migrants into Spain due to its policies regarding Israel. In one, viewed 5.3 million times, an AI-generated image showed a boat sporting a giant Netanyahu figurehead, with a line of migrants filing out from his open mouth onto a Spanish beach, ARC said.
Another account claimed Israel had “admitted” engineering the migration through Mossad.
“This is not a story about a few bad actors,” said CAM CEO Sacha Roytman Dratwa. “It is a story about a platform whose design rewards the fastest and most inflammatory explanation available, and on X that explanation is increasingly a Jewish conspiracy.”
The conspiracy theory surrounding Spain’s migrant crisis was further promoted by spokesperson of the Republican Left of Catalonia party Gabriel Rufián, who wrote on X, “The Moroccan dictatorship, in the service of the US and Israel, is once again blackmailing Spain and Europe this summer by turning its own people into disposable cannon fodder.”
https://www.timesofisrael.com/morocco-bl...es-spread/
Javier Bardem amplifies conspiracy theory blaming Israel for Spain border crisis
Bardem reposted an Instagram post suggesting that Israel may have helped engineer the crisis, in which roughly 50,000 young Moroccan men stormed into Spain’s North African enclave of Ceuta. “Spain has been Europe’s loudest voice against Israeli and US war crimes in Palestine, Lebanon and Iran,” the post said.
“We don’t know who engineered this crisis, but we know who benefits from a weakened, destabilised Spain: Israel, and the Western far right eager to turn migration into a weapon against Muslims,” it added.
Bardem circulated the allegation to his millions of Instagram followers alongside another post portraying the crisis as part of an alliance between Israel, the United States and Morocco.
The posts cited a 2019 message by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s son Yair, who sarcastically urged Arabs and Muslims seeking to “free occupied Arab Islamic lands” to begin with Ceuta and Melilla. The years-old exchange concerned what Netanyahu presented as Spain’s double standards over disputed territory.
https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/internati...der-crisis
More than 50,000 people crossed into Ceuta by land and sea in an unprecedented surge that began on Thursday at one of the European Union’s only two land borders with Africa, prompting alarm across the bloc. More than 48,000 returned to Morocco within 48 hours and more did so over the weekend, Spanish authorities said.
The ministry blamed the rush of migrants on social media misinformation, human trafficking networks and misinterpretation of a Spanish ruling banning immediate returns of migrants intercepted at sea. That statement was similar to the Spanish Foreign Ministry’s comments on the matter.
Following the crisis in Ceuta last week, posts accusing Israel and Jewish people of orchestrating the event spread quickly on social media, reaching an estimated 103 million people on X within 72 hours, according to an analysis by the Combat Antisemitism Movement’s Antisemitism Research Center (ARC).
Posters falsely claimed that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu directed migrants into Spain due to its policies regarding Israel. In one, viewed 5.3 million times, an AI-generated image showed a boat sporting a giant Netanyahu figurehead, with a line of migrants filing out from his open mouth onto a Spanish beach, ARC said.
Another account claimed Israel had “admitted” engineering the migration through Mossad.
“This is not a story about a few bad actors,” said CAM CEO Sacha Roytman Dratwa. “It is a story about a platform whose design rewards the fastest and most inflammatory explanation available, and on X that explanation is increasingly a Jewish conspiracy.”
The conspiracy theory surrounding Spain’s migrant crisis was further promoted by spokesperson of the Republican Left of Catalonia party Gabriel Rufián, who wrote on X, “The Moroccan dictatorship, in the service of the US and Israel, is once again blackmailing Spain and Europe this summer by turning its own people into disposable cannon fodder.”
https://www.timesofisrael.com/morocco-bl...es-spread/
Javier Bardem amplifies conspiracy theory blaming Israel for Spain border crisis
Bardem reposted an Instagram post suggesting that Israel may have helped engineer the crisis, in which roughly 50,000 young Moroccan men stormed into Spain’s North African enclave of Ceuta. “Spain has been Europe’s loudest voice against Israeli and US war crimes in Palestine, Lebanon and Iran,” the post said.
“We don’t know who engineered this crisis, but we know who benefits from a weakened, destabilised Spain: Israel, and the Western far right eager to turn migration into a weapon against Muslims,” it added.
Bardem circulated the allegation to his millions of Instagram followers alongside another post portraying the crisis as part of an alliance between Israel, the United States and Morocco.
The posts cited a 2019 message by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s son Yair, who sarcastically urged Arabs and Muslims seeking to “free occupied Arab Islamic lands” to begin with Ceuta and Melilla. The years-old exchange concerned what Netanyahu presented as Spain’s double standards over disputed territory.
https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/internati...der-crisis
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
