{"id":572953,"date":"2026-08-03T07:38:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-03T07:38:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/572953\/"},"modified":"2026-08-03T07:38:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T07:38:11","slug":"ceuta-crisis-fuels-israel-conspiracy-theories-israel-jewish-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/572953\/","title":{"rendered":"Ceuta crisis fuels Israel conspiracy theories – Israel & Jewish News"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Aug. 3, 2026 \/ JNS)\n <\/p>\n

Hours after tens of thousands of people from Morocco stormed into Spain\u2019s Ceuta enclave on Thursday, Spanish actor Javier Bardem shared a theory on who was behind this mass breach of his native country\u2019s borders.<\/p>\n

The theory reposted by Bardem\u2014a vocal champion of the Palestinian cause who\u2019s publicly accused Israel of committing genocide\u2014blamed Israel, implying it somehow orchestrated the invasion 3,200 miles away from its territory to punish Spain\u2019s government for its anti-Israel policies.<\/p>\n

U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee called Bardem\u2019s repost a \u201claughable new blood libel by another dim-witted actor,\u201d and described Bardem as \u201c\u2018Dumb & Dumber\u2019 rolled into one person,\u201d referring to the 1994 comedy film starring Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels.<\/p>\n

Yet the posts and reposts of conspiracy theories about Ceuta by anti-Israel individuals spread like wildfire, often accompanied by antisemitic rhetoric, demonstrating the demand for this type of content.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, at least 50,000 people, mostly young men, broke through the fence that surrounds Ceuta as others landed on its shores, overwhelming security forces and flooding the enclave. At least 72 people died because of crowd crushes, clashes and drowning, authorities said, adding that most of those who crossed had been returned to Morocco, whose territory surrounds Ceuta. Spain and Morocco have exchanged accusations for decades over Spanish-held territories in northern Africa.<\/p>\n

One post shared by Bardem on Instagram, where he has 1.5 million followers, was a monologue by Indian comedian Sundeep Bhardwaj saying: \u201cIf you\u2019re wondering what does the United States or Israel have to do with this: As usual, everything. Spain is the only country that has publicly declined to help the United States and Israel commit their genocide in Palestine. So, in the last year, Israel has been openly threatening Spain.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another reshared post by Bardem read: \u201cWe don\u2019t know who engineered this crisis, 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

The conspiracies didn\u2019t end with Bardem. Spanish Transportation Minister Oscar Puente retweeted<\/a> a comment on the Ceuta invasion by Israel\u2019s Ambassador to the U.N., Danny Danon, writing of Danon\u2019s comments: \u201cWell, things are starting to get pretty clear.\u201d Danon had written that \u201cmaybe before it continues lecturing us, it\u2019s time [Spain] explained to the world why it still maintains colonial enclaves in Africa.\u201d<\/p>\n

The U.S.-based Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM) found that 119 influencer accounts were responsible for 173 posts that peddled a \u201cglobal antisemitic conspiracy,\u201d as CAM called it, in connection with the Ceuta crisis. The posts generated 57.5 million views with an estimated reach of 103.1 million viewers, 1.9 million likes, and 368,400 shares in two days.<\/p>\n

Every society \u201chas its share of conspiracy theorists,\u201d Rafael Medoff, an author and director of the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies in Washington, D.C., told JNS. \u201cThe danger is when insane theories start moving from the margins to the mainstream\u2014and when those theories are aimed at inciting hatred against a minority group.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bardem\u2019s \u201cincendiary rhetoric is helping to fuel the flames of anti-Jewish hatred worldwide, at a time when such hatred is already exploding into violence in country after country,\u201d Medoff added. He said it was \u201cthe height of irresponsibility for Javier Bardem to use his stature as one of Spain\u2019s most prominent and admired actors to spread hatred of Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"People<\/p>\n

People gather on a hilltop near Bab Sebta on the Morocco-Spain border, near Spain\u2019s enclave of Ceuta and the Moroccan town of Fnideq on July 30, 2026. Photo by Abdelmajid BZIOUAT \/ AFP via Getty Images.<\/p>\n

ABDELMAJID BZIOUAT\/AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n

The Ceuta crisis is a major political problem for Spanish Prime Minister Pedro S\u00e1nchez\u2019s left-wing government, which Bardem has endorsed. Critics say it exposes a broader laxness on law and order as well as immigration\u2014one of the hottest issues on the political agenda in Spain and throughout Europe.<\/p>\n

The breach closely followed the approval by the S\u00e1nchez government of a mass regularization decree granting legal residency and work permits to hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants. S\u00e1nchez\u2019s critics argued the regularization incentivized immigrants to break in.<\/p>\n

Some of the government\u2019s advocates pointed outward, to Morocco, Israel and the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump. Trump has clashed with S\u00e1nchez over the Spanish prime minister\u2019s opposition to the joint U.S.-Israeli military operation in Iran, and his attempts to complicate the use of U.S. air bases in Spain in that operation.<\/p>\n

Transportation Minister Puente wrote on X, \u201cSome in Washington, Tel Aviv, and Rabat, and also a few who grow in their shadow in Madrid, wanted images of our security forces and armed forces machine-gunning children on the beaches.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is no public evidence connecting Israel or the U.S. to what happened in Ceuta, but some of those seeking to make the connection cited a 2019 tweet by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s son, Yair, who wrote: \u201cDear Arabs and Muslims. Want to free occupied Arab Islamic lands? Here\u2019s a good start!\u201d referring to a map showing several Spanish enclaves in Africa.<\/p>\n

One post shared by Bardem and others read, \u201cYair Netanyahu publicly called on \u2018Arabs and Muslims\u2019 to \u2018liberate\u2019 Ceuta and Melilla.\u201d Yair Netanyahu commented on this on Friday, saying he posted the tweet in 2019 to expose Spain\u2019s \u201chypocrisy\u201d in criticizing Israel\u2019s presence in Judea and Samaria. \u201cI see that antisemitic conspiracy theorists are using this tweet from 2019 as \u2018proof\u2019 for their absurd blood libels against Jews and Israel,\u201d Netanyahu wrote on Friday.<\/p>\n

Spain is one of several European Union member countries that have intervened in South Africa\u2019s 2023 lawsuit accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza, widely understood as an endorsement of the disputed suit. S\u00e1nchez last year called Israel a \u201cgenocidal state.\u201d Jerusalem has accused Madrid of fomenting the surge in antisemitic hatred.<\/p>\n

On social media, some have connected the Ceuta conspiracy theories involving Israel to the painful Jewish history in Spain, where Jews had been persecuted for centuries after the Inquisition that began in 1492.<\/p>\n

Angel Mas, the founder of the pro-Israel Action and Communication in the Middle East (ACOM), a Madrid-based non-profit, disputed a narrative in which the Ceuta crisis triggered Spanish antisemitism.<\/p>\n

\u201cModern Spain is not an antisemitic society. Medieval history is not an accurate guide to contemporary Spain, just as it would not be for England, France, Germany or Switzerland,\u201d Mas, a vocal critic of the S\u00e1nchez government, told JNS.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Aug. 3, 2026 \/ JNS) Hours after tens of thousands of people from Morocco stormed into Spain\u2019s Ceuta…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":572954,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43],"class_list":["post-572953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=572953"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572953\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/572954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=572953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=572953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=572953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}