Does Spain Understand the Irony Underlying the Crisis in Ceuta?

Tens of thousands of Moroccans rushed the border at Ceuta, an enclave Spain had occupied for centuries. Almost immediately Spanish commentators and media blamed Jews, alleging a plot dating back to a series of articles I wrote in March 2026 calling for Morocco to stage a “Green March” to reclaim Ceuta and Melilla. A July 30 tweet noting, “If Spain would return occupied Ceuta and Melilla to their rightful Moroccan sovereignty, Madrid would not be in this mess,” generated outrage in Spain, even though it is on its face true; Ceuta and Melilla are weak links in European security, secondary identity checks notwithstanding.

The Spanish reaction shows that not only the Spanish government but much of Spanish society understands neither irony nor Spain’s hypocrisy. At the same time, their default position is to embrace an antisemitic conspiracy theory that Jews somehow plotted to manipulate Moroccans, whom, they assume, have no agency. Put aside that no Spaniard can supply any evidence that Jews, Israelis, or think tanks reached out to a single Moroccan, because there is none. Spaniards just know, the way that Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan just knows Jews use telekinesis against him, and former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene just knew that Jewish space lasers are responsible for California wildfires.

Lost in the fury is the reality that Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s policies drive the crisis. His mass amnesty for migrants certainly encourages further migration on the assumption that there will be future amnesties. Likewise, his flirtation with Algeria may have led an underappreciated Morocco to simply stand down. Europe, too, could have some responsibility. After all, Turkey regularly leverages migration flows for political concession, so why should Morocco not do so?In this instance, however, there is no indication of such cynicism.

The Spanish narrative was embarrassing in its shallowness. Many Spaniards insist Morocco is a new country, which gained independence in 1956, while Spain has existed for centuries. Thus, they argue, Spain could not “occupy” Ceuta and Melilla because both enclaves predate Morocco’s existence.

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This is incorrect on two fronts. First, if Morocco only became a state after liberation from French occupation, then should Napoleonic France’s occupation of Spain erase its prior history? The current dynasty in Morocco dates its existence to 1631. The standard reference on Islamic dynasties is Charles Bosworth’s The New Islamic Dynasties. This lists several preceding dynasties, dating back to the eighth-century Idrisids, the 11^th-and 12^th-century Almoravids, and then the Almohads, who succeeded them for more than a century. Spain ultimately beat back the Wattasids who dominated Morocco and the central Maghrib into the mid-16^th century. The Spanish claim that they seized Ceuta and Melilla when they were terra nullius suggests that Spanish education is blinded by its Euro-centricity or, perhaps, even racist. To then call Ceuta and Melilla an “integral” part of Spain, meanwhile, is irrelevant. Algeria, after all, was once an integral part of France, and Ireland was part of the United Kingdom.

What, then, of the argument that, regardless of how Spain acquired them, Ceuta and Melilla are today entirely Spanish and have been for centuries? To accept this argument is to suggest ethnic cleansing is acceptable so long as it is complete. Thankfully, few countries besides Azerbaijan vis-à-vis Nagorno-Karabakh and China vis-à-vis East Turkestan and Tibet base their policies on such beliefs.

While I have not been to Israel or Morocco in close to a decade and have not had any meaningful contact with either embassy in nearly as long, I have been to Spain at least five times during that period, most often in Rota and its environs. But who am I to let such facts get in the way of a good conspiracy that Israel controls think tank analysts?

But why, then, have both think tankers and Israeli officials pointed out Spain’s hypocrisy? Perhaps only because it glares: Spain delegitimizes Israel in favor of a state that has never before existed and calls Jerusalem occupied while maintaining African outposts that exist only because Spain literally was and is a “settler-colonial” state.

The hypocrisy runs deeper: Spain complains about migrants storming Ceuta’s border, yet the Spanish Navy escorted a Flotilla whose stated goal was illegally entering Gaza. Spain, meanwhile, calls for Israel’s expulsion from Eurovision for supposedly committing genocide, seemingly unaware that the same precedent could apply to its World Cup football team given disputes over Ceuta and Melilla.

International affairs are complicated. Sánchez was not the only Spanish leader to expose Madrid to questions regarding double standards. In 2017, against the backdrop of Brexit, conservative Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy demanded Gibraltar’s return to Spain, seemingly aloof to the notion that the same precedent could apply to Ceuta and Melilla. That analysts pointed out his hypocrisy six years before the Gaza crisis raises questions about why so many analysts believe Israel or World Jewry is to blame.

While Spanish officials react with umbrage at any discussion of “freeing” Ceuta and Melilla, the Spanish Foreign Ministry might also ask: Why has Spain lost Washington? Is it just that Sánchez and President Donald Trump despise one another, or could it be that Spain’s diplomatic presence is among the laziest in Washington? If criticism of Spain and its position on Ceuta and Melilla caught Madrid by surprise, it is not because such arguments suddenly emerged; rather, it is because Spanish diplomats in Washington appear on permanent siesta, certainly never engaging with intellectual currents that European officials dislike.

If Spaniards are frustrated that the world does not see things their way, the reason is more their own blindness and hypocrisy than some grand Jewish conspiracy. That so many Spanish intellectuals cannot recognize that, however, is telling.