What the Gaza Roadmap Actually Says - Pierre Rehov

 

by Pierre Rehov

[T]he same clause in the roadmap names the custodian: the new Palestinian NCAG [National Committee for the Administration of Gaza], and "no weapons shall be transferred or handed to Israel or non-Palestinian parties." What could possibly go wrong?

 

• Everything then turns on a question the announcement left unanswered: Has Hamas agreed to surrender the power and weaponry that have defined it for decades, or only to change the label on them?

• [T]he same clause in the roadmap names the custodian: the new Palestinian NCAG [National Committee for the Administration of Gaza], and "no weapons shall be transferred or handed to Israel or non-Palestinian parties." What could possibly go wrong?

• When the sequence ends, NCAG alone – the Palestinian one – will be permitted to hold and control arms in the Gaza Strip.

• Hamas has spent nearly four decades converting truces into arsenals.

• Israel withdrew every soldier and expelled every Jewish resident from the Gaza Strip in 2005, and what grew there since is an Iranian-sponsored war machine: rockets, a vast terrorist tunnel network, weapons factories wedged into crowded neighborhoods, and a school system that teaches children that terrorism is a career.

• Billions of dollars of international aid arrived, earmarked for housing, clinics and employment. Instead, the funds were used to produce weaponry and build an underground military comprising at least 350 miles of terror tunnels with 5,700 entry shafts, and command centers in and under hospitals.

• [W]hat Hamas has done just during this ceasefire: Israeli military intelligence estimates that Hamas has rehabilitated its forces to roughly 27,000 men under arms, while the movement continues paying monthly salaries to some 49,000 officials, running 13 municipalities and the ministries of economy, education, health and welfare, collecting taxes on commerce, and skimming the international aid funds. It still rules about 40 percent of the Gaza Strip, the part where most of the population lives.

• The clans that fought against Hamas are excluded. Hamas itself is merely processed, "vetted," reassigned and kept on salary.

• Verification rests on institutions that scarcely function.... Certifying the demilitarization of a territory holding 27,000 trained and heavily armed Hamas terrorists is not a mission for a company-sized pilot project.

• Above that force sits a Gaza Executive Board on which Turkey and Qatar hold seats, two governments whose usefulness to Washington derives precisely from their access to Hamas. Qatar, Hamas's patron, has been invited to certify the disarmament of its client.

• "Qatar is at the top of funding terrorism worldwide.... Even more than Iran," according to Udi Levy, a former senior official of Israel's Mossad spy agency who dealt with economic warfare against terrorist organizations.

• Qatar most likely sees its sole mission in Gaza as making sure that Hamas remains armed and in power to further the agenda of the Muslim Brotherhood, of which, largely thanks to funding from Qatar, Hamas is the Palestinian branch.

• Qatar, of course, through its Al Jazeera media empire, is the Muslim Brotherhood's chief megaphone throughout the Middle East and South Asia.

• The motto of the Muslim Brotherhood is: "Allah is our objective; the Prophet is our leader; the Quran is our law; Jihad is our way; dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope."

• Under Trump's September 2025 peace plan, the Israeli army pulled back to a line leaving it in control of roughly 53 percent of Gaza, and has since pushed to about 60 percent. That presence is the reason Hamas signed anything. Trading it for a schedule of "certifications" would repeat the oldest error in Middle Eastern diplomacy: an irreversible Israeli concession bought with a reversible Palestinian promise.

• Tunnels must be photographed and destroyed or rendered unusable, weapons production facilities destroyed, not sealed off, and all rockets removed from Gaza. Command structures must be dissolved, Hamas and Islamic Jihad barred from every armed institution, including the police -- and each stage confirmed by Israeli and American intelligence rather than by a committee sitting in Cairo. That is what compliance would look like.

• Until then, the Israeli soldiers holding the line remain the only verification mechanism Israel actually has. They should stay where they are.

On July 30, US President Donald J. Trump announced that his Board of Peace had obtained an agreement for the disarmament of Hamas and of every other armed group in Gaza. Everything turns, however, on a question the announcement left unanswered: Has Hamas agreed to surrender the power and weaponry that have defined it for decades, or only to change the label on them? Pictured: Trump speaks during the Gaza Peace Summit in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt on October 13, 2025. (Photo by Yoan Valat/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)

On July 30, US President Donald J. Trump announced that his Board of Peace had obtained an agreement for the disarmament of Hamas and of every other armed group in Gaza. The 15-point roadmap published the following morning promised the transfer of government to the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), an International Stabilization Force (ISF), an International Verification Committee, and a phased Israeli withdrawal from Gaza tied to certified progress.

The roadmap's governing formula could hardly be more categorical: "One Authority, One Law, One Weapon." Gaza would stop being a territory where ministries, terrorist battalions, clan networks and foreign patrons compete beneath the fiction of Palestinian government.

Everything then turns on a question the announcement left unanswered: Has Hamas agreed to surrender the power and weaponry that have defined it for decades, or only to change the label on them?

The text rewards a slow reading. Its central security clause commits the parties to a "process to decommission and store heavy weapons, military production sites, depots of weapons, and tunnels." Storage is not destruction, however, and the same clause in the roadmap names the custodian: the new Palestinian NCAG, and "no weapons shall be transferred or handed to Israel or non-Palestinian parties." What could possibly go wrong?

When the sequence ends, NCAG alone – the Palestinian one – will be permitted to hold and control arms in the Gaza Strip.

Israel has always demanded demilitarization, meaning all weapons taken out of Gaza. What this roadmap prescribes is a change of custody within Gaza, certified by a body that does not yet exist and enforced by an ISF that has barely arrived.

The roadmap also writes into its first article the aim to "facilitate launching a credible political path that achieves self-determination and Statehood" – the reward for terrorism that Hamas has demanded for a generation.

The quarrel over sequence follows directly. Senior Hamas official Ghazi Hamad – who has vowed that the terrorist group will repeat the October 7 attack time and again until Israel is annihilated -- made the storage of weapons conditional on Israeli withdrawal, the entry of NCAG, and the dismantling of the clan militias Israel has armed.

Jerusalem reverses the order. The Prime Minister's Office rejected the proposal as falling short of full demilitarization, and Israeli officials repeated their opposition to any pullback from the "Yellow Line" security demarcation before disarmament is completed and verified.

The Board of Peace, for its part, has already declined to enforce Israel's obligations for a ceasefire while Hamas withholds its signature.

Hamas has spent nearly four decades converting truces into arsenals.

Israel withdrew every soldier and expelled every Jewish resident from the Gaza Strip in 2005, and what grew there since is an Iranian-sponsored war machine: rockets, a vast terrorist tunnel network, weapons factories wedged into crowded neighborhoods, and a school system that teaches children that terrorism is a career.

Billions of dollars of international aid arrived, earmarked for housing, clinics and employment. Instead, the funds were used to produce weaponry and build an underground military comprising at least 350 miles of terror tunnels with 5,700 entry shafts, and command centers in and under hospitals. October 7, 2023 was the return on that investment.

A terrorist organization that diverted concrete for tunnels, international aid funds for a military buildup, and uses ceasefires for rearmament has not earned the presumption of good faith. This roadmap extends it anyway, and adds an offer of amnesty for those who hand over their weapons.

That presumption is harder still to defend given what Hamas has done just during this ceasefire. Israeli military intelligence estimates that Hamas has rehabilitated its forces to roughly 27,000 men under arms, while the movement continues paying monthly salaries to some 49,000 officials, running 13 municipalities and the ministries of economy, education, health and welfare, collecting taxes on commerce, and skimming the international aid funds. It still rules about 40 percent of the Gaza Strip, the part where most of the population lives.

The "Security" clause of the roadmap shows how the machinery is likely to fail:

"Newly-trained police personnel shall be incorporated into existing police structures. All police personnel shall undergo a comprehensive vetting. Those who do not meet the required standards of vetting shall be offered alternative civilian roles consistent with their earlier experience or retire in accordance with the Palestinian law. None of those shall be deprived of their financial rights, particularly due to political affiliation."

American officials briefing reporters confirmed that serving Hamas "policemen" will be eligible for the new force. The article governing the Israeli-supported clan militias that oppose Hamas is drafted with an entirely different hand: " Members of those militias shall not be integrated in the security and police services." The clans that fought against Hamas are excluded. Hamas itself is merely processed, "vetted," reassigned and kept on salary.

Verification rests on institutions that scarcely function. The International Verification Committee is to be assembled from the guarantor states, the Board of Peace and the ISF. Israel's cabinet approved an initial entry of 200 soldiers drawn from Morocco, Kosovo, Albania and Kazakhstan, against pledges of 5,000, of which only a handful have reached the region. Certifying the demilitarization of a territory holding 27,000 trained and heavily armed Hamas terrorists is not a mission for a company-sized pilot project.

Above that force sits a Gaza Executive Board on which Turkey and Qatar hold seats, two governments whose usefulness to Washington derives precisely from their access to Hamas. Qatar, Hamas's patron, has been invited to certify the disarmament of its client.

"Qatar is at the top of funding terrorism worldwide.... Even more than Iran," according to Udi Levy, a former senior official of Israel's Mossad spy agency who dealt with economic warfare against terrorist organizations.

Qatar most likely sees its sole mission in Gaza as making sure that Hamas remains armed and in power to further the agenda of the Muslim Brotherhood, of which, largely thanks to funding from Qatar, Hamas is the Palestinian branch.

Qatar, of course, through its Al Jazeera media empire, is the Muslim Brotherhood's chief megaphone throughout the Middle East and South Asia.

The motto of the Muslim Brotherhood is:

"Allah is our objective; the Prophet is our leader; the Quran is our law; Jihad is our way; dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope."

Against this architecture, Israel holds the one instrument that has produced any movement at all. Under Trump's September 2025 peace plan, the Israeli army pulled back to a line leaving it in control of roughly 53 percent of Gaza, and has since pushed to about 60 percent. That presence is the reason Hamas signed anything. Trading it for a schedule of "certifications" would repeat the oldest error in Middle Eastern diplomacy: an irreversible Israeli concession bought with a reversible Palestinian promise.

Inspections can be postponed, inventories disputed, tunnels concealed, and crises manufactured around aid convoys. By the time the deception becomes undeniable, Israeli soldiers would be fighting their way back onto ground they have already taken twice.

Parts of the roadmap need to be upheld. Mediators in Cairo insisted that the framework allows no exceptions for particular weapons or particular people, and that it rests on reciprocity rather than trust. Tunnels must be photographed and destroyed or rendered unusable, weapons production facilities destroyed, not sealed off, and all rockets removed from Gaza. Command structures must be dissolved, Hamas and Islamic Jihad barred from every armed institution, including the police -- and each stage confirmed by Israeli and American intelligence rather than by a committee sitting in Cairo. That is what compliance would look like.

Until then, the Israeli soldiers holding the line remain the only verification mechanism Israel actually has. They should stay where they are.

Pierre Rehov, who holds a law degree from Paris-Assas, is a French reporter, novelist and documentary filmmaker. He is the author of six novels, including "Beyond Red Lines", "The Third Testament" and "Red Eden", translated from French. His latest essay on the aftermath of the October 7 massacre " 7 octobre - La riposte " became a bestseller in France. As a filmmaker, he has produced and directed 17 documentaries, many photographed at high risk in Middle Eastern war zones, and focusing on terrorism, media bias, and the persecution of Christians. His latest documentary, "Pogrom(s)" highlights the context of ancient Jew hatred within Muslim civilization as the main force behind the October 7 massacre.

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/22769/gaza-roadmap-contents

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The Scramble for Ceuta: What Really Caused Last Week’s Invasion of the Spanish City? - Raw Egg Nationalist

 

by Raw Egg Nationalist

There’s a lot going on here—geopolitics is a complicated business—and already explanations have hardened into self-confirming dogmas.

 

 

“We don’t know who engineered this crisis,” Javier Bardem said on Instagram, “but we know who benefits from a weakened, destabilized Spain: Israel and the Western far right eager to turn migration into a weapon against Muslims.”

Fresh from pontificating about the size of Donald Trump’s manhood at Cannes, the Hollywood actor took aim at the Orange Man again last Friday, accusing him and his puppet master Netanyahu of pushing 50,000 Moroccans to enter the Spanish city of Ceuta, in scenes reminiscent of a terrifying big-budget movie. World War Z or maybe, given the amphibious nature of the incursion, Saving Private Ryan; perhaps a mixture of both. “Apocalyptic” was not, for once, an exaggeration.

Spain has been Europe’s “loudest voice” against the US and Israel, Bardem said, and now she was being punished for her defiance. The migrants who entered Ceuta, most of them swimming around the huge fences that separate this tiny outpost of Europe from the vastness of Africa, were unwitting pawns in a high-stakes game whose real locus is the Middle East: Gaza, a Palestinian state, Iran, the Strait of Hormuz.

Spain has indeed been an annoying tábano (horsefly) biting the exposed flesh of the US and Israel. Its socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has strongly opposed the war with Iran, refusing to provide support in any form. He denied the US use of joint airbases at Rota and Morón and closed Spanish airspace to American planes, except in emergencies. He described Iran’s religious government as “hateful” and repressive but said it was possible to oppose it without backing an illegal war. Sánchez and his government have been no less resolute in their opposition to Israel’s war with Gaza, which began in late 2023. That following May, Spain, Ireland, and Norway officially recognized the State of Palestine. Spain has accused Israel of genocide multiple times, halted arm sales, recalled its ambassador from Tel Aviv, urged the EU to suspend its association agreement with Israel, and encouraged sporting and cultural boycotts.

Realizing perhaps that he was in dangerous territory himself—almost suggesting that mass migration can do really bad things to Western nations—Bardem then executed a stunning about-turn. Migration isn’t a weapon being used against Europeans by Africans. It’s actually being used against Africans by Europeans.

“Ceuta is in Africa, not Europe,” he said. “This isn’t an ‘invasion’ of the West. If anything, it’s the reverse, given Morocco functions increasingly as a Western-aligned client state.”

Phew.

Squaring the circle decisively, Bardem concluded, “This has nothing to do with Islam ‘invading’ Europe, and everything to do with punishing the loudest European government still willing to call a genocide a genocide.”

In response to the posts, US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee called Bardem “another dim-witted actor.”

You could be forgiven for knowing nothing at all about Ceuta; I’ll admit I didn’t know much myself. One of the last remaining fragments of Europe-in-Africa, the city was captured for the kingdom of Portugal in 1415 from the Marinid Dynasty that ruled much of the Maghreb, now modern-day Morocco. It became joint possession of the combined Spanish and Portuguese crowns in 1581 and then exclusively Spanish from 1668. Its importance in Spanish history is belied by its size (population: 84,000), not least of all because it was the stronghold from which General Francisco Franco began the military uprising that became the Spanish Civil War, saving the country the horrors of communist rule.

A majority of Ceuta’s population is European, but close to 40% are Arab-Berber Muslims. Since its independence from France in 1956, Morocco has never recognized Spain’s sovereignty over Ceuta. Although Spain returned other colonial holdings to Morocco—Tarfaya in 1958 and Ifni in 1969—it has doggedly held on to Ceuta and Melilla to the east. A steady stream of migrants has flowed towards the two enclaves ever since, punctuated by the occasional crisis that has seen up to 10,000 migrants arrive on Spain’s doorstep all at once. The last was in the spring of 2021.

The idea that the latest crisis is a kind of punishment-beating for Spain, a drubbing handed down from Washington and Jerusalem, has gained wide currency on the internet. Rep. Thomas Massie, now cast in the mould of Trump-hating, anti-“Epstein class” rabble-rouser, pointed to a recent House bill (HR 8595) that he claimed, “greenlighted the transfer of Spanish territory to Morocco.”

“Every Republican except me voted for it,” he said, “but now THEY are acting shocked at the invasion.”

“This very recently passed House bill directs at least $40 million to Morocco with a wink and a nod, and encouragement that this land is theirs. Same bill gives $3.3 billion to Israel.”

In two brief paragraphs, the bill does indeed direct $40 million to Morocco, and notes the “historic alliance between the United States and Morocco, as formalized in 1786 by the Moroccan-American Treaty of Peace and Friendship.” It also includes a Committee note that “the Spanish-administered cities of Ceuta and Melilla are located in Moroccan territory and remain the subject of Morocco’s longstanding claim,” adding that the Committee “supports efforts by the Secretary of State to encourage diplomatic engagement between Morocco and Spain on the future status of Ceuta and Melilla.” The bill does also make provision for an extra $3.3 billion of aid to Israel. The bill has not yet been signed into law.

Massie has since walked back his claims a little, but he still seems to be suggesting the bill had something to do with the incursion. Supporters and followers of the Kentucky Pinecone have been quick to join even more dots, and he’s been happy for them to do so, so long as the shapes they draw make the Republican party, and by extension President Trump, look bad.

“TRANSLATION: CIA now actively subverting Moroccan regime/government with Congressional approval,” one anonymous poster wrote.

Massie’s response: the bullseye emoji.

Matters haven’t exactly been helped by the response of prominent Israelis and supporters of Israel on X, which has been crowing, to put it mildly. Evidence of guilt, many say; others, evidence of a perverse inability to shut the fuck up when you’re already hated enough. Danny Danon, a prominent member of the Knesset, Tweeted, “Spain, which never misses an opportunity to lecture Israel, has declared a state of emergency in Ceuta following the crisis over its immigration policy. Maybe before it continues lecturing us, it’s time it explained to the world why it still maintains colonial enclaves in Africa.” Danon was one of the principal advocates of transferring the entire population of Gaza to Europe, to bring about a permanent settlement to the “Palestinian question.” He wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed laying out the plan, in November 2023.

The posts are too numerous to mention, but others include a picture of Spain divided in two, with one half labelled “Morocco,” the other “Spain.” The caption: “2 States for 2 Nations. Living side by side. In peace and prosperity.”

Older posts were also reheated. Candace Owens dug up a thread of posts by Benjamin Netanyahu’s son Yair from 2019 in which he seemed to suggest Israel has been actively funding attempts for the transfer of Ceuta and Melilla to Morocco. Netanyahu-Frère encouraged Arabs to turn their attention to Spain’s “colonial” possessions in North Africa if they actually wanted to liberate “occupied” lands. The real target of the posts, though, was Spaniards who support a two-state solution. “Let’s make a deal: we won’t 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,” he wrote. The implication, missed by most of those reading it, was that Israel wasn’t funding NGOs in Spain but could if it wanted to do what Spain is doing in Israel.

More incriminating still, we were told, was a recent piece by the pro-Israel think tank Middle East Forum, written during the early days of the Iran War, in March. The author, Michael Rubin, said Spain’s Prime Minister should “make good on his anti-colonial rhetoric and end [Spain’s] occupation in Africa.” The short piece called for Moroccans to flood Ceuta and Melilla and take them back by force.

The rhetoric is charged, to say the least. “Moroccans should gather, send bulldozers to the border, and then enter Ceuta and Melilla unarmed to raise the flag. Sánchez and the Spanish press bleat, but they have no grounds to act. Nor, for that matter, would NATO, even if Moroccan forces entered the towns to restore order and organize the dispatch of settlers across the Strait of Gibraltar and back to Spain.” Rubin suggested an invasion of Ceuta and Melilla would not trigger Article V of the NATO treaty (mutual self-defense), so Spain should not come crying to daddy when she finds herself helpless against the sheer weight of Moroccans taking back what is rightfully theirs.

Rubin, unsurprisingly, was among those gloating at last week’s invasion. “The United States and Israel must impose sanctions on Spain if it uses any American or Israeli defense or police equipment against innocent Moroccans in occupied Ceuta,” he tweeted, linking to an article he had written about how Spain, not Israel, is the real colonial power.

Simpler explanations have been offered, including by Spain’s own right wing. They blame the Spanish government for opening the doors and inviting anyone and everyone to come in. This is what leftist governments do across the West, and the effects are the same, whether we’re talking about Justin Trudeau in Canada or Angela Merkel and her famous “Wir schaffen das!” in 2015. In January of this year, the Sánchez government rammed through a royal decree, bypassing the usual protocol, to allow the legalization of half a million migrants in Spain. Many accused the government of wanting to buy votes to keep the resurgent right out of power, a charge that was strenuously accepted. “Of course we want them to vote,” Irene Montero, an MP in the leftist coalition, said at a campaign event. “We’ve got papers, regularization now, and now we’re going for nationality or changing the law so they can vote, of course.” She even referenced the Great Replacement, the “conspiracy theory” that mass migration is being used to alter the demographics of Western nations for the purpose of social engineering. “Hopefully the replacement theory [is real],” she said. “Hopefully we can sweep this country clean of fascists and racists with migrant people, working people… Of course I want replacement: replacement of fascists, of racists, of freeloaders…” It’s now clear that as many as 1.3 million illegal immigrants have applied for the new scheme, almost triple the number Sánchez promised.

Miguel Tellado, the Secretary General of Spain’s People’s Party, blamed Sánchez directly for Ceuta.

“No one can be surprised that thousands of people want to enter a country that regularizes more than a million irregular immigrants overnight,” he wrote on X.

“They come with the expectation that Pedro Sánchez will sooner rather than later turn them into Spanish citizens. Not only are we not stopping the avalanche, but we are sending the message that those who come soon will be able to become Spanish.

“The person responsible for what is happening in Ceuta is the president of the government. One more reason to kick him out as soon as possible.”

Santiago Abascal, the leader of Spain’s Vox party, called for Sánchez to be prosecuted.

The Spanish and Moroccan governments, by contrast, have both pointed the finger at people smugglers and social media. They claim smugglers took advantage of a recent Spanish Supreme Court ruling to convince tens of thousands of would-be Europeans that they could literally swim to freedom and a new life. At the end of June, the Court said deportations can only be fast-tracked for foreigners who arrive by land and attempt to overcome “border containment elements” like fences and walls. Posts on social media encouraged the false belief that swimming round Ceuta’s border, instead of climbing over it, would confer a special status on migrants that would make it easier for them to stay in Spain.

“Misinterpretations reinforced among some of those who wished to migrate the conviction that it was possible to avoid immediate return,” Moroccan officials said.

The Spanish government has carefully avoided blaming the Moroccan government, but it’s hard to believe the invasion took place without Rabat’s prior knowledge at some level, given its scale. And the Moroccan government has its own reasons to use migration against Spain, reasons that have nothing to do with events far away in the Middle East. The previous crisis, in 2021, when about 10,000 migrants entered Ceuta, coincided with a period of tension with Morocco’s main regional competitor, neighboring Algeria. Diplomatic relations broke down so seriously that the Maghreb-Europe Gas Pipeline, passing through Algeria, via Morocco, to Spain, was turned off. The gas was pumped to Spain via a different pipeline, bypassing Morocco entirely and depriving her of income and influence. The direct trigger, though, appears to have been Spain’s offer of medical treatment to the leader of the breakaway Polisario Front, which wants the former Spanish colony of Western Sahara, now largely annexed by Morocco, to be an independent state. The same regional tensions—competition with Algeria, the uncertain status of Western Sahara—converged again in the last two weeks. On 20 July, just ten days before the latest crisis, Pedro Sánchez made an official visit to Algeria and announced a major bilateral summit in the fall. Sánchez described Algeria as a “strategic partner” and “friendly nation,” compliments that were sure to anger Morocco. Three days later, Spain’s parliamentary Justice Commission approved a proposal to make it easier for Sahrawis—residents of Western Sahara—born when Spain controlled the region to apply for Spanish citizenship.

There’s a lot going on here—geopolitics is a complicated business—and already explanations have hardened into self-confirming narratives. As we know only too well in the internet age, people who’ve made up their minds see only the facts they’ve told the algorithm they want to see. But one thing, I think, is clear through the fog and the haze. The scramble for Ceuta is part of a much larger scramble that’s taking place and will take place in the coming years and decades, as huge numbers of people, driven by the promise of a better life, move north into Europe. Stephen Smith has called this the “scramble for Europe,” in a 2019 book of the same name.

Africa, a continent that is still poor but already a demographic billionaire—and will become a demographic multi-billionaire within thirty years—is knocking on Europe’s door. Not only is its population growing, but it is by far the youngest in the world. Between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, four Africans out of ten are less than fifteen years old, and seven out of ten are under thirty. The balance between the past and the future is heavily tilted towards the future. A growing number of these young Africans have the means and the informed view of the world that allow them to leave in search of a better life wherever the prospects are bright. And that better life is not just a reverie: they see it on satellite TV and the internet; they are partaking in modernity by “screen-shopping” around the clock. Some of their brothers and sisters are already living in the Global North, where this virtual reality is reality tout court. So the most audacious or enterprising—sometimes the least stable as well—will head out to Europe, the closest emporium (and sometimes their former imperial metropole).

As Smith demonstrates, the movement is inevitable. Millions, probably tens or even hundreds of millions, will come. Europe will have to find a way to deal with them. Smith’s hope is that order can be maintained. Ceuta is an early indicator of just how naïve that hope is likely to prove. 

Raw Egg Nationalist is Dr. Charles Cornish-Dale, an Oxford- and Cambridge-educated historian and anthropologist, who rose to prominence as “Raw Egg Nationalist.” He has a large social media following, is a bestselling author, has appeared on national television, and has influenced debates on health, fitness, politics, and culture. His latest book is 'The Last Men: Liberalism and the Death of Masculinity.'

Source: https://amgreatness.com/2026/08/05/the-scramble-for-ceuta-what-really-caused-last-weeks-invasion-of-the-spanish-city/

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IDF launches precise strikes in southern Lebanon in retaliation for Hezbollah ceasefire violations - Sarah Ben-Nun, Jerusalem Post Staff

 

by Sarah Ben-Nun, Jerusalem Post Staff

Prior to the strikes, the IDF issued an evacuation warning for civilians present in the targeted areas for the first time since June.

 

Smoke rises from southern Lebanon during an Israeli military operation, July 30, 2026.

(photo credit: AYAL MARGOLIN/FLASH90)

The IDF has begun a wave of precise strikes against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon on Wednesday after, for the first time since June, issuing an evacuation warning for civilians present in the area of the strikes.

The military stated that the strikes were initiated in retaliation for blatant ceasefire violations by Hezbollah.

The IDF’s Arabic Spokesperson, Lt.-Col. Ella Waweya, issued the evacuation warning for the village of Al-Mansouri on X/Twitter, instructing all residents to move at least 1,000 meters north of the village.

 

#عاجل ‼️انذار عاجل الى سكان لبنان المتواجدين في قرية المنصوري

🔸في ضوء قيام حزب الله الارهابي بخرق اتفاق وقف اطلاق النار يضطر جيش الدفاع للعمل ضده بقوة. جيش الدفاع لا ينوي المساس بكم.

🔸حرصًا على سلامتكم، عليكم إخلاء منازلكم فوراً والابتعاد عن القرية شمالًا لمسافة لا تقل عن… pic.twitter.com/TD6HkM2pmE

— Lieutenant Colonel Ella Waweya | إيلا واوية (@CaptainElla1) August 5, 2026

Waweya warned that anyone who remains near Hezbollah facilities or terrorists is putting their life at risk.

Strikes occured as Israel, Lebanon held talks on Hezbollah disarmament framework

The strikes started as Israeli and Lebanese delegations met in Rome for a second day of talks regarding the continued implementation of a plan for Hezbollah disarmament, IDF withdrawal, and Lebanese military deployment.

The negotiations follow a US-brokered framework reached on June 26 that calls for Hezbollah’s disarmament, the deployment of the Lebanese Armed Forces across southern Lebanon and a gradual Israeli withdrawal. The talks have since focused on translating those principles into practical arrangements on the ground.

Representations of the Israeli and Lebanese flags at a memorial near the Israel-Lebanon border, after Israel and Lebanon signed a framework agreement following US-mediated talks, as the town of Metula, Israel, appears in the distance, June 27, 2026; illustrative. (credit: AMIR COHEN/REUTERS)

As part of an initial pilot program, Lebanese troops have deployed in Froun, Srifa and Zawtar al-Gharbiyeh. Israel withdrew from Zawtar al-Gharbiyeh before the Lebanese deployment, while the other two communities were already outside the IDF-held security zone. The program is intended to test whether the Lebanese military can clear designated areas of Hezbollah weapons and prevent the group from reestablishing a military presence.

Military activity has continued alongside the diplomatic process. Israel says it remains deployed in a security zone in southern Lebanon to prevent attacks on northern communities and has continued targeting Hezbollah operatives and infrastructure it says violate the ceasefire arrangements. In July, the IDF said troops operating in Haddatha had destroyed more than 90 Hezbollah sites and located more than 150 weapons during a month of operations.

Sarah Ben-Nun, Jerusalem Post Staff

Source: https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/article-904682

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‘AP’ calls Michigan primary for El-Sayed, RJC says Dems elected ‘most antisemitic US Senate candidate in America’ - Rebecca Szlechter, JNS Staff

 

by Rebecca Szlechter, JNS Staff

Alyza Lewin, president of U.S. affairs at the Combat Antisemitism Movement, stated that El-Sayed’s victory “should raise alarm bells for Jewish Americans across the country and everyone who believes in civil rights for all.”

 

Democratic Senate candidate from Michigan Abdul El-Sayed addresses supporters at his election night event at the Majestic Theatre in Detroit, Mich., on Aug. 4, 2026. Credit: by Jeff Kowalsky/AFP via Getty Images.

With 99% of votes counted in the Democratic primary for Michigan Senate, the Associated Press called the race for Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, who is anti-Israel, who beat Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.), who has drawn support from AIPAC.

Some 15,000 votes separate the two, with El-Sayed recording 740,950 votes (48.5%), just ahead of 726,057 (47.5%) for Stevens.

Mallory McMorrow had 61,250 (4%), many more votes than the margin between the other two.

Matt Brooks, CEO of the Republican Jewish Coalition, stated on Wednesday that Democrats had nominated El-Sayed.

“Abdul El-Sayed is a direct threat to Michigan’s Jewish community,” Brooks said. “El-Sayed has called the government of the Jewish state as ‘evil’ as Hamas, ‘struggled’ to say that Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish state and empathized with a terrorist who tried to murder Jewish schoolchildren at Temple Israel in the Detroit suburbs and yet Michigan Democrats just picked him as their nominee for the United States Senate.”

“Michigan’s Jewish community does not need this explained to them. They lived it. They watched the smoke rise over Walnut Lake Road in March. Then they watched Abdul El-Sayed reach for a microphone and offer his rationale for why the attack happened: not to blame the terrorist but to place the blame 6,000 miles away and the burden on the Jews of West Bloomfield,” the RJC leader stated. “Their own rabbi called it what it was: offensive. El-Sayed later told his own supporters that saying it was a ‘risk.’ It wasn’t a risk, but it was a clear revelation.”

The RJC referred to El-Sayed as “the most antisemitic U.S. Senate candidate in America.”

El-Sayed’s “campaign’s primary organizing principle is that a pro-Israel Jewish American advocacy group is a hidden hand behind everything wrong in Michigan—an argument so ugly that Haley Stevens herself called it blatant antisemitism.”

“There is nothing complicated about the choice this November,” Brooks stated. “Mike Rogers is a distinguished Army veteran and former FBI special agent, who chaired the House Intelligence Committee. He spent fourteen years in Congress as one of the most reliable pro-America, pro-Israel voices in the House, and he has been unflinching about confronting antisemitism wherever it appears.”

“To our friends in Michigan’s Jewish community, including the tens of thousands who have voted Democrat their entire adult lives and now find themselves politically homeless: this is the moment for real change and action,” he said. “There are more than 100,000 Jewish voters in the Wolverine State. We are not a rounding error; we are the decisive margin. Mike Rogers has earned your vote.”

Alyza Lewin, president of U.S. affairs at the Combat Antisemitism Movement, stated that El-Sayed’s victory “should raise alarm bells for Jewish Americans across the country and everyone who believes in civil rights for all.”

“Spewing conspiracy theories that blame Jews, or ‘Israel’ as the collective Jew, for society’s misfortune is not only antisemitic. It’s bad leadership. It’s a tactic designed to deflect attention from genuine problems plaguing society,” Lewin stated. “When leaders refuse to recognize that Jews are defined by more than faith, when they deny Jewish peoplehood and the Jews’ ancient history rooted in the land of Israel, that fuels antisemitism and jeopardizes civil rights protections for Jews in America.”

“Hatred that targets Jews on the basis of their connection to Israel is not a political debate. It is antisemitism, full stop,” she added. “We’ve seen in New York City what happens when rhetoric targeting Jews is legitimized—hate crimes against Jews rise. We must be vigilant to ensure this pattern does not repeat itself, gain acceptance and become normalized on Capitol Hill.”

The American Jewish Committee stated that El-Sayed’s “nomination as the Democratic candidate for Senate in Michigan is a deeply troubling reflection of the growing mainstreaming of divisive rhetoric and exclusionary politics in America.”

“At the same time, Congresswoman Stevens’ strong showing demonstrates that there is still a place and support for nuanced, moderate voices,” the AJC said. “We are concerned by El-Sayed’s framing of American politics as a zero-sum game that too often casts those who disagree as the enemy.”

“He has said that he has ‘a lot of contempt’ for the current political system and frames those who disagree with him as being corrupt and bought by special interests, rather than simply having opposing viewpoints,” it added. “It’s one thing to disagree over policy. It’s another to delegitimize those with whom you disagree. This approach is fundamentally at odds with the principles of civility, pluralism and robust democratic debate that are central to our democracy. Of particular concern to the Jewish community is El-Sayed’s portrayal of supporters of Israel as illegitimate and morally corrupt, while simultaneously demonizing Israel itself.”

The Jewish Federation of Detroit stated that as a nonprofit, it does not endorse or oppose candidates. “We believe deeply in the power of democratic participation and encourage each member of our community to take seriously their responsibility to learn about the candidates and their positions and to vote in November,” it said.

“We will continue to engage across the political spectrum to advocate for issues essential to our future, including standing against antisemitism, violence and bigotry, ensuring the safety and security of the Jewish community and houses of worship and championing Israel as a Jewish and democratic state,” it added. 

Rebecca Szlechter, JNS Staff

Source: https://www.jns.org/news/u-s-news/in-michigan-primary-ap-has-yet-to-call-rjc-says-dems-elected-most-antisemitic-u-s-senate-candidate-in-america

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Schumer backs El-Sayed after progressive wins Dem nomination in Michigan Senate primary - Ben Whedon

 

by Ben Whedon

Schumer, this cycle, has become something of a boogeyman for progressives, who have painted him as an establishment puppetmaster working to keep progressive candidates off the ticket.

 

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer endorsed progressive Abdul El-Sayed on Wednesday after he won the Democratic nomination for Michigan's open Senate seat.

Schumer, this cycle, has become something of a boogeyman for progressives, who have painted him as an establishment puppetmaster working to keep progressive candidates off the ticket.

"Democrats are united by a common purpose: putting a check on Donald Trump by defeating his Republican enablers and taking back the Senate," he and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., said in a joint statement, obtained by Politico. "We look forward to working with Abdul and Democrats across Michigan to win this seat in November."

El-Sayed defeated Rep. Haley Stevens, D-Mich., in a close contest that was not called until Wednesday morning. The race was widely viewed as a proxy between the progressive left and the political establishment.

But El-Sayed had been expected to win by a large margin and the state primaries returned relatively mixed results for progressives in the Wolverine State.

Ben Whedon is the Chief Political Correspondent at Just the News. Follow him on X.

Source: https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/schumer-backs-el-sayed-after-progressive-wins-dem-nomination

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FBI Follies: Bureau secretly probed Trump as a Russian asset for firing Comey: declassified memos - John Solomon

 

by John Solomon

Documents declassified by the White House Government Transparency Task Force show the investigation – codenamed "Oxferd Comma" – was launched in the immediate aftermath of Comey’s May 9, 2017 firing and was predicated on allegations that the bureau’s own agents had mostly dismissed by that time.

 

The FBI opened a criminal probe specifically targeting Donald Trump in May 2017, alleging the newly elected president may have been acting as a Russian asset when he fired then-Director James Comey even though the bureau’s own evidence overwhelmingly showed at the time there was no collusion with the Kremlin.

Internal memos newly declassified by the White House show the investigation – codenamed "Oxferd Comma" – was launched in the immediate aftermath of Comey’s May 9, 2017, firing and was predicated on an allegation that previously released memos show the bureau’s own agents had mostly dismissed.

“The FBI is opening a full investigation based on an articulable factual basis that reasonably indicates that President Donald J. Trump may be or has been, wittingly or unwittingly, involved in activities for or on behalf of the Government of the Russian Federation which may constitute violations of federal criminal law or threats to the national security of the United States,” the electronic communication opening the probe on May 16, 2017, stated.

Goal of the investigation was to determine if Trump was directed by or controlled by the Russian Federation 

“The goal of the investigation is to determine if President Trump is or was directed by, controlled by, and/or coordinated activities with, the Russian Federation in a manner constituting a threat to the national security of the United States and/or a violation of federal criminal statutes,” it added. “In addition, this investigation will also seek to determine whether President Trump and others yet to be named obstructed and/or conspiracy to obstruct any associated FBI investigation.”

OXFERD COMMA - Opening EC - redacted and declassified by FBI 7.30.26 (2).pdf

The memo, written by the FBI's counterintelligence division and approved by then-FBI General Counsel James Baker and then-Assistant Director for Counterintelligence William Priestap, made clear the concerns about Russian influence and obstruction included Comey’s firing, in part because of the public explanations Trump gave for the termination.

“This alternative explanation can be reasonably read to imply that the FBI's counterintelligence investigation was a factor in President Trump's decision to terminate Comey,” the memo stated.

Both the Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein were advised that the probe had been launched, the memos show.

OXFERD COMMA - FBI Informs DOJ - redacted and declassified by FBI 7.30.26.pdf

The FBI marked the investigation as a “sensitive investigative matter” and declared it was “the least intrusive method to address the serious national security risk posed by the activities alleged.”

But that decision proved anything but nonintrusive: it prompted the appointment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller by Rosenstein and a nearly two-year probe that hampered the start of the Trump presidency even though Mueller's team, like the FBI before it, was unable to substantiate any collusion between Russia and Trump’s campaign during the 2016 election.

MuellerReportFinal.pdf

A subsequent investigation by Special Counsel John Durham – released by the Biden Justice Department in 2023 – concluded there was no basis for the FBI to even open the original Crossfire Hurricane investigation into alleged Trump-Russia collusion.

durhamreport (1).pdf

The newly declassified Oxferd Comma memos show the case was closed on April 9, 2019, a few weeks after Mueller's probe was sunset with a final report and no charges against Trump.

"The Special Counsel provided the Attorney General with a confidential report explaining his prosecution and declination decisions," the closing memo noted.

OXFERD COMMA - Closing communication - redacted and declassified by FBI 7.30.26 (1).pdf

The memos are being released as federal prosecutors in Fort Pierce, Fla., reportedly investigate whether the FBI, DOJ and intelligence agencies engaged in an ongoing conspiracy to violate the civil rights of Trump and his supporters through repeated criminal investigations that lacked evidence of wrongdoing.

It was well known that the FBI wanted to investigate Comey’s firing by Trump as an act of obstruction and that such concerns led to Mueller’s special counsel appointment.

Records would later show Comey was fired on the merits because the DOJ believed he mishandled the Hillary Clinton email investigation, and the department’s own independent inspector general would later conclude that Comey “violated long-standing department practice and protocol” with his conduct in the Clinton case.

DOJOIGReportComeyClintonCase.pdf

The new FBI memos, identified and declassified by the White House Government Transparency Task Force, reveal for the first time that the FBI predicated the obstruction case against Trump – and gave it a codename — on the concern the then-president may have been an asset of Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

But previously released FBI and DOJ records show the notion of Trump being a Russian asset had already been widely dismissed by agents and analysts working for months beforehand on the Crossfire Hurricane case that examined Russia-Trump collusion.

In fact, the lead agent in the Crossfire Hurricane case texted his colleague the same week that Oxferd Comma was opened suggesting he did not believe the allegations were substantiated.

“I hesitate in part because of my gut sense and concern there's no big there there,” then-Deputy Assistant Director Pete Strzok wrote FBI special counsel Lisa Page on May 19, 2017.

Strzok Page text messages 5-19-17 - No Big There.pdf

Strzok’s text sentiments were confirmed by another key colleague working on the case, Special Agent William Barnett, who would later tell the Justice Department that by early 2017 the FBI had mostly ruled out that the Trump campaign and its various players like retired Gen. Mike Flynn or advisers Carter Page and George Papadopoulos had colluded with the Kremlin, according to an FBI interview report of Barnett released in 2020.

“BARNETT still did not see any evidence of collusion between the TRUMP Campaign and the Russian Government,” the summary of the agent’s interview revealed.

FBIAgentBarnettInterviewNoCollusion.pdf

By the time the FBI tried to portray Trump as under Putin’s grip to justify the opening of the Oxferd Comma investigation, it had also learned that the original allegations of collusion came from Hillary Clinton’s campaign, and were funneled to the FBI in a dossier written by a former British spy named Christopher Steele, who was paid by the Clinton campaign’s law firm, and that the Steele dossier’s contents had mostly been uncorroborated or debunked and were part of a political dirty trick.

The first warning signs of those concerns actually emerged in late summer 2016 when CIA Director John Brennan personally briefed then-President Barack Obama and the FBI that U.S. intelligence had intercepted Clinton’s plan on or about July 26, 2016, to manufacture a scandal alleging Trump was conspiring with Russia to hijack the 2016 election.

“We’re getting additional insight into Russian activities from [REDACTED],” Brennan notes of his conversation with Obama stated. “CITE [summarizing] alleged approved by Hillary Clinton a proposal from one of her foreign policy advisers to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by the Russian security service.”

Brennan Notes-CIA Brief to Obama.pdf

The intelligence made clear Clinton’s plan was to “smear” Trump, and it was shared directly with the FBI, including Comey at an Aug. 3, 2016 briefing, according to a classified annex to a DOJ report made public last year. That briefing occurred just four days after the Crossfire Hurricane probe was launched into alleged Russia collusion.

“On August 3, 2016, during a meeting at the White House, CIA Director Brennan briefed President Obama, Vice President Biden, DNI Clapper, FBI Director Comey, and other U.S. officials regarding Russian interference efforts as well as the T1 intelligence received concerning the referenced plan by the Clinton campaign," the annex noted.

declassified_durham_annex_released_by_chairman_grassley.pdf

By early 2017, well before the launch of the Oxferd Comma probe, the FBI had evaluated every statement in the Steele dossier, concluding that some were provably false and most others were either internet rumors or unable to be corroborated, according to a spreadsheet that FBI analysts created.

Steele Spreadsheet-1.pdf

Some of the subsources and sources in the dossier distanced themselves from what Steele claimed they said. In fact, the FBI knew that Steele’s primary subsource, Igor Danchenko, was suspected for years of being a Russian asset.

AG Letter to Chairman Graham 9.24.2020.pdf

In an interview with the FBI in February 2017, Danchenko claimed some of the information attributed to him in the Steele dossier was simply hearsay, according to FBI interview memos released back in 2020.

170209-danchenko-interviews.pdf

By early January 2017, the FBI also cleared another of the targets of the Russia collusion probe, then-National Security Adviser Mike Flynn. “No derogatory information was reported back to the FBI,” a Jan. 4, 2017 FBI memo closing down the Flynn investigation stated.

The FBI would invite Flynn into an interview after clearing him of wrongdoing, then charge him with false statements in that interview. Their conduct with Flynn concerned some of the agents in the case, including Priestap, the FBI's counterintelligence chief.

“What’s our goal? Truth/Admission or to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him fired?” Priestap wrote at the time.

FlynnFBINotes.pdf

In his interview with the FBI years later, Agent Barnett described the FBI’s investigation into Russia collusion as a misguided effort to “get Trump” that resembled a bad version of the popular game of Clue.

“BARNETT and others joked about how the investigation into collusion could be made into a game, which they referred to as ‘Collusion Clue,’” the interview summary of Barnett stated. “In the hypothetical game, investigators are able to choose any character conducting any activity, in any location, and pair this individual with another character and interpret it as evidence of collusion.”

Editor's Note: John Solomon is on leave as Editor in Chief of Just the News while working as the chairman of the White House Government Transparency Task Force. He wrote this story for the White House website, which is allowing any media to publish it. 

John Solomon

Source: https://justthenews.com/index%2Ephp/accountability/political-ethics/hld-fbi-secretly-opened-probe-alleging-trump-fired-comey-because-he

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Rand Paul says he will send Fauci contempt referral straight to DOJ if it passes committee - Misty Severi

 

by Misty Severi

The senator clarified that although Fauci has received a presidential pardon, his refusal to help the Senate is a crime of its own that is not covered under the pardon, which excused any crime committed between 2014 and January 2025.

 

Senate Homeland Security Chairman Rand Paul, R-Ky., said Tuesday that he will send his contempt of Congress recommendation to prosecute Anthony Fauci directly to the Justice Department if the resolution advances out of committee later this week.

The vote, which will take place Thursday, comes after Fauci invoked the Fifth Amendment more than 100 times during his Senate testimony on his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic last week, which he invoked despite already having a presidential pardon.

The senator clarified that although Fauci has received a presidential pardon, his refusal to help the Senate is a crime of its own that is not covered under the pardon, which excused any crime committed between 2014 and January 2025.

"We have a law in Congress that if you will not testify and help an investigation, it's called contempt of Congress. It's a felony," Paul said on the "Just The News, No Noise" TV show. "Now, the prosecution has to be through the Department of Justice. People get confused sometimes, and online people will criticize me sometimes and say, 'why won't you prosecute him?' And it's like, 'Well, I don't have prosecutorial power.'"

Paul said he believes he can bypass the full chamber and send the referral to the DOJ directly because the recommendation is not a law and that the referral poses several important questions for a court to decide.

"The legal question is: Can someone plead the fifth? Can they plead their constitutional right not to incriminate themselves when they've already been given immunity through a pardon?" he asked. "There are arguments for this, and there are some precedents." 

The question dates back to a late-1800s Supreme Court decision, which held that once a witness has “received a pardon, he can no longer set up his privilege, since he stands, with respect to such offense, as if it had never been committed.”

The Fifth Amendment protects individuals from being compelled to provide testimony that could reasonably be used against them in a criminal prosecution, but the privilege exists only when there is a genuine risk that truthful answers could expose the witness to criminal liability. A full presidential pardon generally removes that risk for the federal offenses it covers. 

The Supreme Court later added an important qualification in 1915, which held that a pardon is not effective unless it is accepted by its recipient. An individual may reject the pardon in order to preserve the Fifth Amendment privilege, but Fauci accepted it.

Fauci's attorneys dispute the narrative that it is illegal for their client to plead the Fifth because Fauci still faces potential criminal exposure arising from future testimony – particularly if prosecutors were to allege that statements made under oath during the hearing constituted perjury or false statements. 

They also argue he could be subject to state criminal investigations, which would be beyond the reach of a presidential pardon.

Paul also noted that he'd like to stop people from getting as powerful as Fauci was, highlighting his long tenure as the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which made him intimidating to people who needed his approval for projects. 

"He had too much power and for too long," Paul said on the show. "I think term limits for his position is a good idea too. His reign was so long that he accumulated so much power that people feared him, and they knew that their grants were dependent upon him and upon pleasing him."

The senator added that he has tried to pass an amendment in committee that would divide Fauci's previous position into three different ones that need Senate approval, emphasizing that Fauci was never confirmed by the upper chamber.

The NIAID director is a career civil service position within the National Institutes of Health, who is selected by NIH leadership and not the president.

Misty Severi is a news reporter for Just The News. You can follow her on X for more coverage. 

Source: https://justthenews.com/government/congress/rand-paul-says-he-will-send-fauci-contempt-referral-straight-doj-if-it-passes

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To antisemites, Israel and the Jews are the reason for everything - Jonathan S. Tobin

 

by Jonathan S. Tobin

Blaming the Jews for a crisis in a Spanish enclave in Morocco shows how “genocide” blood libels spread. Meanwhile, Europeans face a real problem: Muslim immigration.

 

Migrants wait to receive water on the beach next to the CETI (Centros de Estancia Temporal de Inmigrantes) in Ceuta, Spain, on Aug. 2, 2026. Spain’s interior ministry deployed members of the armed forces and Guardia Civil officers there after tens of thousands of migrants suddenly entered the Spanish enclave in North Africa.

The least surprising aspect of last week’s astonishing spectacle in a Spanish enclave on the coast of North Africa was who was blamed for it. Within hours of a crisis caused by as many as 60,000 Moroccan citizens swarming into the port of Ceuta, a technically autonomous city that belongs to Spain, Jew-haters on the right and the left, in addition to social-media accounts around the world, began spreading the claim that the entire thing was a plot hatched in Jerusalem.

Antisemites in the 21st century, just like the ones who perpetrated the Holocaust in the 20th century and persecuted Jews for two millennia before that, have the same belief system. When it comes to the world’s problems, no matter what the question, the answer always lies with the Jews. This particular set of conspiracy theories about Morocco and Spain was quickly debunked and dismissed as nonsense by all but the most extreme and paranoid Israel-haters. But the exercise was nevertheless illuminating.

The same lies and liars

That’s because we have seen the same sort of ill-informed thinking, dubious dot-connecting, obvious prejudice and online algorithms at work in the 34 months since the horrifying atrocities of the Hamas-led Palestinian Arab assault in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. In that time, the same lying activists and influencers spread blood libels about Israel committing “genocide” and being an “apartheid” state. They have been put to use to create a narrative by which the side that actually intends to commit genocide—the Palestinians—was depicted as the innocent victims of the war that followed and the Israeli victims of Oct. 7 were painted as genocidal monsters.

The fact that a left-wing activist and inveterate Israel-basher like actor Javier Bardem would promote the notion that Israel had hatched a plot to somehow induce tens of thousands of Moroccans to push their way into Spanish Ceuta without legal permission makes sense only if you see the whole world through the lens of Jewish conspiracy.

His reasoning, if we can dignify it with that term, is rooted in the fact that the Spanish government led by Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez is the most anti-Israel in Europe, and given the hate for the Jewish state on the continent, that’s really saying something. Anything that embarrasses Sánchez or points out his hypocrisy must have an Israeli origin. Fellow leftist Ana Kasparian, co-host of the far-left “The Young Turks” podcast, agreed.

The same kind of motivation led American podcasters and antisemitic conspiracy theorists Candace Owens and Alex Jones to chime in, backing up claims about the Israeli origin of the incident. They pointed to a seven-year-old tweet by Yair Netanyahu, the 35-year-old son of the Israeli prime minister, when he pointed out and poked fun at the Spanish government’s hypocrisy in opposing the right of Jews to live in their ancient homeland while claiming that parts of Africa were integral to the Spanish republic.

And to show how far the rot has spread, they were joined in pointing to that tweet by Sean Davis, CEO and founder of The Federalist (where I used to be a senior contributor), in claiming that the younger Netanyahu was guilty of encouraging Moroccans to invade “Spain.” Davis, who was once supportive of Israel, is now so twisted by his opposition to the war on Iran and his support for Vice President JD Vance’s refusal to disavow the antisemitism of his friend—former Fox News host Tucker Carlson—that he, too, thinks that the Jewish state is somehow behind events in North Africa. Later, he also blasted Israel as somehow not caring about the Islamicization of Europe, which is nonsense.

This is a time when opposition to Israel has become the organizing principle of the ascendant left wing of the Democratic Party, and is serving a similar role on the less powerful but very noisy far right. Both factions and their foreign counterparts are therefore unsurprisingly resorting to the traditional tropes of antisemitism. In this way, they both see, as their medieval and 20th-century totalitarian forebears did, the Jews and now their state as the scapegoat and the secret key to understanding all the woes of the world.

A centuries-old conflict

That this would be the way so many people reacted to the news from Ceuta is both appalling and ironic.

Ceuta has been a source of tension between Spain and the Moroccan people for centuries, with the latter claiming that one of the last vestiges of Madrid’s African empire (along with the separate enclave of Melilla 140 miles to the East) belongs to them.

In the centuries after Islamic invaders were finally expelled from their last principalities on the Iberian Peninsula in 1492, both Portugal and Spain waged wars to maintain their hold on the parts of the North African coast closest to their nations. Spain controlled part of Morocco from the late 16th century on. They fought a bloody war—known to history as the Rif War—to suppress anti-colonial Moroccan forces in the 1920s and were on the verge of losing it until France, which itself controlled even more of that country as part of its then vast colonial empire, joined forces with them to suppress the rebels.

It was from Spanish-controlled Morocco, including Ceuta, that Gen. Francisco Franco launched his rebellion against the country’s republican government in 1936. That began the Spanish Civil War, which his right-wing Catholic and fascist forces won with the assistance of Nazi Germany and fascist Italy. After the Second World War, Spain lost most of its Moroccan colony, as well as the Saharan possession, to its south after Franco’s death in 1975. They managed to hold onto Ceuta and Melilla. But Morocco still claims sovereignty over both and considers Spanish rule there to be an anachronistic vestige of a bygone era of European imperialism.

The policies of the current leftist government of Spain have, in principle, been welcoming to immigrants from the Middle East and North Africa. That has continued even as other Europeans, like the Italian government led by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, have sought to end the flood of migrants that is altering the culture and identity of their nations. Indeed, in a shot fired over the bow of Sanchez’s government, Meloni claimed that what happened in Ceuta was both “shocking” and “striking evidence” that uncontrolled illegal immigration poses a direct threat to Europe’s border security.

She’s right about that, though as the Moroccans who swarmed into Ceuta soon learned, there was nothing for them in the enclave and no easy path to get into Spain, where they had hoped to find jobs and a more prosperous life than that available to them in their native land.

What happened to the anti-imperialists?

But though Sánchez, like most other European leftists, has encouraged the swamping of Europe by millions of mostly Muslim migrants from the Third World, even he has been adamant in reasserting that Ceuta is an integral part of Spain. The spectacle of that many Moroccans overrunning the border into Ceuta caused him to fly there and assert that Spain will not give it up—and that all the illegal immigrants must go back where they came from.

We don’t know what set off the rush into Ceuta, though as The New York Times reported, Moroccan authorities at the border appear to have let it happen rather than stop it. But the assumption that somehow Israel must be behind it as part of an effort to undermine Sanchez is far-fetched.

Morocco signed the Abraham Accords with Israel in September 2020, and its government has treated the remnant of the once numerous Jewish community there well. The regime led by King Mohammed VI has diplomatic and security ties with Israel. And that makes it suspect in the eyes of anti-Israel fanatics. You have to be a devotee of antisemitic conspiracy theories to believe that this makes it an Israeli puppet.

Morocco has its own agenda with respect to Ceuta and Melilla, which it occasionally deploys to deflect domestic criticism against the government. You would think that those who claim to be against imperialism and colonialism would normally be expected to support Morocco’s claims. Yet in a world in which the only thing that matters is whether you are part of the international crusade to destroy the Jewish state, Spanish sovereignty over these enclaves—like the illegal occupation of Northern Cyprus by Turkey—cannot be criticized or exposed by stunts like last week’s incident.

Israeli schadenfreude

It’s true that Israelis and friends of Israel have engaged in some schadenfreude over Sánchez’s discomfort. Danny Danon, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, did just that when he wrote on X that “Spain, which never misses an opportunity to lecture Israel, has declared a state of emergency in Ceuta following the crisis over its immigration policy. Maybe before it continues lecturing us, it’s time it explained to the world why it still maintains colonial enclaves in Africa.”

Danon’s barb was spot-on, even if some argue that Israelis should refrain from comments in the hope of not alienating the right-wing Spanish parties hoping that events in Ceuta will help defeat Sánchez in elections in 2027 and bring to power a government that is more sympathetic to the Jewish state.

The notion that anything Danon said now or Yair Netanyahu commented on nearly a decade ago serves as proof of an Israeli conspiracy says more about those obsessed with the Jews as the puppet masters of world events than it does about anything Jerusalem does.

But as mad as all the conspiracy-mongering about Israel and Ceuta may be, it illustrates what is driving commentary about Israel. Much like the big lies about famine or “genocide” in Gaza or the equally libelous claims about Israel being an apartheid state, the allegations about it being behind the ancient dispute between Morocco and Spain don’t have to be true for vast numbers of people to believe it or for false claims to spread like wildfire on the internet.

How antisemitism spreads

A detailed report about the Ceuta border crisis published by the Combat Antisemitism Movement explained how this worked. Some 173 high-impact posts published on X in the 72 hours following the July 30 incident that spread lies about Israel being behind it had a reach of 103.1 million accounts, and accumulated 57.5 million views and 1.9 million “Likes.” What’s more, these were not the work of isolated lunatics but of monetized influencers, backed up by celebrities like Bardem and faux experts like the antisemitic Kenneth Roth, the Israel-obsessed former head of Human Rights Watch.

While this is just one fake story, the “genocide” blood libels that are believed, as if it were revealed Divine truth by millions of Americans on the left and the far right, were produced in the same way with the same bogus sources and magnified by professional hate-mongers.

What makes this big lie even worse is that Ceuta points to a broader European problem—unchecked Muslim immigration from the Third World—that has materially altered the politics of many countries on the continent. The red-green alliance of Marxists and Islamists driving the post-Oct. 7 global surge in antisemitism is rooted in that development that journalist Douglas Murray wrote about in his prescient 2017 book, The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam.

Rather than focus on threats to the West that the question of the preservation of Europe presents, instead the world seeks a Jewish or Israeli explanation for something that has nothing to do with them. That they do so is neither an innocent mistake nor the result of a misunderstanding. It is pure, unadulterated prejudice put forward by unabashed bigots like Owens and Jones, as well as those posing as defenders of human rights like Bardem and Roth. And it filters into the thoughts of more mainstream figures like Davis, who ought to know better, though he seems to have been drawn by the likes of Carlson into a conspiratorial rabbit hole.

This makes it clear that the argument Americans are having about Israel isn’t really about the merits of a war on Iran or what the best policy is for combating Hamas and Hezbollah, Iran’s genocidal terrorist proxies. The discussion about “genocide” or the fabrications about Israel manipulating America are examples of the kind of antisemitism that ought to be confined to the fever swamps of the far right and left in the same way people should treat the conspiracy theories about Ceuta. Instead, they are now mainstreamed by the media and embraced by powerful and loud voices that are having an impact on both our discourse and elections. 

Jonathan S. Tobin is editor-in-chief of JNS, a columnist for Newsweek and a contributor to many other publications. He covers the American political scene, foreign policy, the U.S.-Israel relationship, Middle East diplomacy, the Jewish world and the arts. He hosts the JNS “Think Twice” podcast, both the weekly video program and the “Jonathan Tobin Daily” program, available on all major audio platforms and on YouTube. Previously, he was executive editor, then senior online editor and chief political blogger, for Commentary magazine. Before that, he was editor-in-chief of The Jewish Exponent in Philadelphia and editor of the Connecticut Jewish Ledger. He has won 60-plus awards for his columns, commentary, art criticism and other writing. He appears regularly on television, commenting on politics and foreign policy. Born in New York City, he studied history at Columbia University.

Source: https://www.jns.org/opinion/column/jonathan-s-tobin/to-antisemites-israel-and-the-jews-are-the-reason-for-everything

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