Scores of antisemitic social media posts claimed a Jewish plot was behind 70,000 migrants pouring into the Spanish North African enclave of Ceuta from Morocco, according to data released by a US body.
The Combat Antisemitism Movement’s (CAM) Antisemitism Research Center (ARC) found 173 ‘high-impact’ social media posts published by 119 influencer accounts in the three days after the crisis erupted.
The posts received a combined 57.5 million views, 1.9 million likes, and 368,400 shares, in addition to a total estimated reach of 103.1 million.
The primary focus of the posts on X were antisemitic tropes which blamed the State of Israel and Jews as the masterminds behind a supposed plot to subvert Europe, CAM found.
CAM CEO Sacha Roytman said “A humanitarian emergency at Europe's border was turned into a global antisemitic campaign in under 72 hours, and X did nothing to slow it down”.
He added “This is not a story about a few bad actors. 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.”
CAM’s report stated: “Far-right ‘Great Replacement’ accounts, far-left anti-imperialist accounts, and radical Islamist accounts posted materially identical claims within the same news cycle. All of them concluded that Zionists caused the crisis.
"Antisemitism was the connective tissue between audiences that share no other political ground.”
One X account claimed that the illegal border crossings proved that “The Kalergi Plan is real.”
The Kalergi Plan is an antisemitic conspiracy theory which claims that Jewish elites are in the process of replacing white Europeans with non-European migrants.
One post by a meme account, which reached 1.1 million views, linked Spain’s “Pro Palestine stance” and its refusal “to help with the Iran war”, to the Ceuta crossing, with “a bunch of Israelis” to “promote it”, adding: “There is no such thing as a coincidence.”
CAM’s stated: “The report also traces the revival of the medieval ‘fifth column’ myth, casting Muslim migration as a tool Jewish people are using to erase European civilization.
"Moroccan sovereignty disappeared inside the same narratives. Posts repeatedly described the kingdom not as a state making its own decisions, but as a ‘Zionist stooge’ or an ‘Israeli puppet’.”
CAM called on X to better regulate accounts spreading misinformation, including stopping them making money from advertising on social media.
It also wants X to ensure that specialist organisations add live clarifications to posts which contain misinformation.
CAM's ARC also recently published its Global Antisemitism Report for the week July 30—August 6, which discovered 137 new antisemitic incidents worldwide for the week.
Of the 137, 79 were ascribable to an ideological rationale.
Of those 79, 57 (60%) were perpetrated due to far-left ideological motives, 23 (24.2%) were Islamist-inspired, and 15 (15.8%) were far-right.
These findings by CAM come amidst a continuous wave of global antisemitism which largely began following the October 7 massacre, back in 2023.
X has been contacted for comment.
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