Spanish government minister blames Israel for Ceuta ‘surge’

Spanish Transport Minister Óscar Puente has suggested Israel is behind the ‘immigration crisis’ in Spain’s Ceuta enclave in Morocco.

The Moroccan government is widely considered a US client state and is heavily dependent on Israeli weapons supply. Israel and the US have been accused of coordinating the Ceuta crisis, in which thousands of Moroccans poured into the enclave and at least 67 people have died, to punish Spain. Spain’s resistance to Israel’s genocide in Gaza, its refusal to allow US warplanes to use Spanish bases and airspace to attack Iran and Spain’s condemnation of Israel’s racist attack on footballer Lamine Yamal have infuriated the imperialist regimes.

Spanish response

Puente was responding to Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Danon’s exploitation of the crisis to attack Spain. In an X post and a subsequent follow-up on he said:

Well, everything is starting to become quite clear.

You know what? I want Spain to be a sovereign nation in an interconnected world. I don’t want it to be a branch of Trump or Netanyahu.

As Al Jazeera has pointed out, Israel’s army of mouthpieces and bots have focused on fanning the flames around Ceuta for months.

In the months leading up to the crisis in Ceuta, pro-Israel voices conspicuously raised the issue of the enclave…[after] the Sanchez government has been increasingly critical of Israel, labelling it a “genocidal state” and cancelling major arms deals accordingly. In 2024, Spain recognised the State of Palestine.

Israel, of course, has no shame about the hypocrisy of criticising someone else’s enclaves while occupying the West Bank. And using Gaza as a concentration camp while it genocides Gaza’s indigenous population and other refugees from the Zionists’ theft of Palestinian land.

The Trump regime, meanwhile, has attacked Spain for months for not allowing the use of its airbases in the illegal war on Iran. Trump and his cronies are using Ceuta to fan anti-immigrant hate in the US, raising further suspicions that the US played a role in inciting the crisis as well:

 

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The ‘crisis’ does indeed look more like a punishment beating dished out to a country that dares to stand up against US imperialism and Israeli genocide and war crimes.

Spain has demanded an EU meeting and accused the EU of collaborating in the US-Israeli attack in its response.

Featured image via Paolo Blocco/ WireImage 

By Skwawkbox