3704 - Far-Right Exploits Moroccan Migrants; Israel's UN Mole w/ Stephen Zunes, Murtaza Hussain

You are listening to a free version of The Majority Report. Support this show at join the Majority Report.com and get an extra hour of content daily. The Majority Report with Sam Cedar. It is Thursday. August 6th, 2026. My name is Emma Vigland, in for Sam Cedar, and this is the five-time award-winning majority report. We are broadcasting live steps from the industrially ravaged Gowanus Canal in the heartland of America, downtown Brooklyn, USA. On the program today, Steven Zunis, professor of politics and director of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of San Francisco will be with us to discuss the real story behind the migrant surge in Suta. And later in the show, Murtaza Hussein, National Security and Foreign Affairs correspondent at DropSight News, joins us to talk about his latest piece and reporting, for Your Eyes Only, Israel's mole inside the United Nations. Also on the program, Iran and Oman make progress on agreeing to a fee structure in the Strait of Hormuz. which would amount to millions of dollars per shift. The Houthis say they've killed at least 30 Saudi-backed government soldiers in Yemen. Trump threatens jail time for anyone leaking about the munitions shortage. He says we have massive amounts, thank you very much, as he privately rails against Pete Hegseth. The CIA has secretly established a Cuba task force, the New York Times reports, enlisting spies. We're back, baby. The Senate Homeland Security Committee votes to hold Anthony Fauci in contempt of Congress, and three Republican attorneys general have subpoenaed him. Economists warn that treasury bond yields are approaching economic collapse territory due to Trump's tariffs and oil price swings. A Trump appointed federal judge is under scrutiny for running her PR firm six months after her confirmation. She's on that grind set. The Senate confirms pro-vaccine Dr. Erica Schwartz, at the very least, nominally, as CDC director. This is, they're worried about the Maha coalition not showing up for them, I think, in 2026. Or they're worried about moms and backlash to those policies, rather. Meanwhile, the FDA just approved the U.S.'s first mRNA flu vaccine. New Mexico sues the DOJ over obstructing the state's criminal investigation into Jeffrey Epstein and his ranch. A military helicopter got so close to Trump yesterday. Blue his wig off? What'd you say? Blue his wig off? We will be getting.

That should have been the first headline. Trump debuts the most obvious hairpiece of all time at Rally. That must have been where he lost all his hair. He got too spooked because the passenger jet was... So close, tantalizingly close to Trump's military helicopter. And lastly, Tennessee's elections are today on the Thursday. I know it's weird. Get out and vote. Justin Pearson in particular. All this and more on today's majority report. Welcome to the show, everybody. It is an emmajority report Thursday. We're back to our normal schedule. However, this is the last you'll hear from me until. next Thursday where I'll be back after my little vacation. So I'm leaving tomorrow. I'm going to enjoy the beach. Work on my natural tan. So I don't have to rely on the spray tan, which I don't have on right now. I don't know why I'm going down this road. I should stop obsessing about tanning now that I'm in my 30s. It's really getting a little ridiculous. It's not good for me. But I do love the beach. And it's going to make me feel better and a little bit more refreshed. Hello to Brian. Hello to Matt. Hello to the audience. We've got a great show for you today. So as soon as Abdul El-Sayed won the primary in Michigan, the Republican Party immediately is running to Islamophobia. I mean, what else do they have? It was predictable. But they're running on a, basically an Islamophobic pitch right at the outset. We have this statement from Mike Rogers as soon as basically Abdul El-Sayed won the nomination here. He says, the choice in November is simple. Common sense or complete insanity. For more than 25 years, one party has controlled Michigan's two Senate seats and they've run our state into the ground. La, la, la. Blaming Democrats for running manufacturing jobs out of Michigan, even though we see that those increased under Biden and decreased under Trump. Sorry, a Republican talking about manufacturing jobs in Michigan, the people who would have avoided any kind of bailout and just like that. Let Michigan completely died during the 2008 financial crisis? Okay. Yeah, exactly. By the way, UAW has endorsed Abdul Al-Ayad. So he calls him an extremist and says, here we go, he wants to empty prisons and put murderers and sex offenders back on our streets. He's pledged his support to the Muslim Brotherhood and campaigns with people who refuse to condemn terrorism. Oh, wow. Once again, guilt by association with Hasan Piker.

Again, this is all projection because if you support Israel, you support terrorism. And they need to point a finger at first before people started pointing a finger at them. Like this idea about authoritarianism, these people tried to steal elections. Yeah. Like, so worried about communist authoritarianism because of Joseph Stalin or something. You tried to steal the 2000 election. You tried to steal the 2020 election. You will try to steal another election in our fucking lifetime. The Zionist. fear-mongering about violent religious fundamentalism. It's just not, this is not something that is the American public right now, which according to some polls, a majority of the public believes, or at least a plurality that Israel is committing genocide. Like nobody, nobody is buying that these are the barbaric people we need to worry about here on U.S. soil. I would just love for somebody like Mike Johnson to say, I would love for him to tell me what. Mike Rogers, you mean? No, Mike Johnson. Just like guys like that who, like, what do you disagree with with Sharia law? You know, with the Christian fundamental. The wrong people in charge of it, basically. Right. So the fact that it's brown people. Abdul doesn't represent a vision for the future. He says he's basically calls him a terrorist. And here's the worst part. I spent years hunting terrorists and bringing Osama bin Laden to justice. Never in a million years did I think that I would be running against someone who believes America deserved 9-11. Again, he didn't say that. Hassan said that, has apologized for it, and was making an appropriate point about imperial blowback, just said it in artfully. My goodness. Because guess what? When people like Mike Rogers support Israel and the horrible things it's doing, guess what? It doesn't make us safer either. No. But the, why does it matter? Should we distinguish between these two Muslim men? Or are they just all the same, essentially? That's what he's relying on. He believes America deserved 9-11. As the United States Senator, I'll fight to bring jobs back home, lower costs, protect our families, defend our freedoms, and put Michigan workers ahead of radical activists every single time. Now, you know, the Republicans were primed to take up the mantle of this racist argument like they were in 2008 against Barack Obama because of a Democratic primary opponent who desperately... deployed those tactics in that context. Hillary Clinton is in many ways the reason that there were so many people who were more primed to accept arguments about birtherism with Obama, given the fact that she ran an Islamophobic campaign against him in particular. There were some anti-blackness to darkening of his skin. People forget that in some of their campaign material, or at least, you know,

upping certain photographic contrasts and colors to make him look more black. And then most notably, Hillary Clinton's campaign circulated this photo of him in traditional Somali attire during that primary. It was David Brock, I think specifically Hillary's part or a hatchet man. And it didn't work then, but it did hand a racist argument to the Republicans. And you see that that's how they're, uh, how they're already operating right now. Now, what's interesting to me, too, and just one more note on this race because of the Islamophobia here, people were surprised, of course, that Abdul El-Sayed didn't win by larger margins given the polling. And I would agree with that, but I think there's a theory here that we won't know for sure, but Michigan has open primaries, and there were some weird... irregularities and I could see Republicans who are genuinely racist and fearful of Arab Americans and Muslim Americans. Psychotically hysterical. Yes. Seeing that Mike Rogers was essentially running unopposed had that nomination locked up and you can choose which party primary to vote for on the day and you don't have to be a registered member of the party. I could see many Republicans who are genuinely concerned about Sharia law taking over and sincere in their racism and Islamophobia, dipping their toe into the Democratic primary because the Republican was already locked up. This is just to say that I think that perhaps the overstatement about Abdul El-Sayed's margins might be missing this. Controlling for 2024, the results kind of suggests. This is from Patrick Rafini of Eschelon Insights. Stevens was buoyed by crossover Republican votes, especially in Metro Detroit, where primary composition swung 30 points towards Democrats. This is just a theory we don't know. But, you know, I think that is where they're seeing actual activation for their base, which is Islamophobia. And this could carry over into the general. That's what they're going to rely on. And it would also explain. Yeah, Stevens' overperformance in poorer rural areas that wasn't necessarily anticipated. She also overperformed with wealthier Michiganders and Abdul's results were kind of in the middle. And by the way, that's where those ad buys work best in rural areas where door knocking and organizing is more difficult. So the APAC money getting there. And it's cheaper. Money goes farther too. And by the way, I'm not for open primaries for this reason. I think you should be able to same day register because of this. Because they did this in Texas too. I mean, I think that there are shenanigans. that can be involved here. But I digress. They're going to run on Islamophobia. They're already leaning into it. Speaker Mike Johnson called Abdul El-Sayed a mini-Zohran Mamdani. They're all calling him mini-Zohran Mamdani and cutting ads with Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, to drum up Islamophobia. Now, Zohran Mamdani is...

arguably the most popular Democrat in the country right now in elected office when you look at polling. Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez give him a run for his money. But I don't know if you want to be making that argument. However, Mike Johnson and the Republicans have been circulating a memo throughout the caucus that says, lean into anti-communism. as a way, that's our best midterm argument right now because we can't make an argument about the economy being better. No, no, no. We can't make an argument about getting us out of any wars. Trump just got us into the worst one. We can't, we have nothing to offer. So we'll do Red Scare tactics and they rope in Muslim people into this. effort. So, Zohran Mamdani here was asked about Mike Johnson's post, which this reporter will read out to him, talking about how dangerous people like him and Abdul El-Sayed are for America. Please. He said, there is an urgent question facing America. Are we going to maintain our status as the world's greatest superpower and beacon of liberty, opportunity, and security, or allow radical Marxist Democrats to destroy the very foundations that make us the envy of the entire world? And he has a new paragraph. Democrats now openly expressed disdain for America and erase the failed. dangerous, deadly path of communism, he must take a stand and fight to protect the greatest nation in the history of the world from being overrun by many Mondonis. It's a lot of characters. He must have the pro account. Well, I'm assuming that's in response to Abdul El-Sayed's victory yesterday evening. And I think first I'd just like to congratulate Dr. Abdul-El-El-Syad on his victory. He ran a campaign where... It was best described by his words of money out of politics, money in your pocket, Medicare for all. And if those simple commitments and beliefs are what drives Representative Johnson to these kinds of conclusions, I think it shows you how deeply out of touch the Republican Party is with the concerns of working class Americans. Because what we have seen is despite him facing more than $60 million in outside spending, he was able to prevail with a focus. on a cost of living crisis and the way in which health care is exceedingly out of reach for those who have helped to make this country what it is. Thank you.

this level of naked xenophobia Islamophobia is going to be I mean it's it's an actual emergency and it's not being treated like such by our media that wants to talk about anti-Semitism without linking it to like the actual reason it's rising which is Israel's actions but the anti-Muslim sentiment here is at such a I mean, it's rising so fast. I call it a fever pitch, but like it's still gaining. And it reminds me of reading like Eric Foner reconstruction about the rise of Jim Crow and the way like those white supremacists, like would be soon to be Klansmen would talk about. um reconstruction and black people in power and that sort of thing this is just these are just the same people just a few generations removed these are clan kids yeah yep and um they are they understand too why they should be more afraid of the of of DSA candidates than the standard liberal that will fold and will make their arguments for them before they use it basically, just in a more watered down way. A third way is, yeah, basically giving them the, I mean, kind of like running their attacks before they get a chance to. Right. So they're concerned about Abdulaziyadh, even though he is not DSA, but they're also concerned about the fact that we now have. seven DSA members that are going to be in Congress next term. You have Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, you have Claire Valdez, Daria Lisa Avila Chabalier, you have Chris Rab, Melak Kiros, and then Donovan McKinney and Rashida Tlaib, who now make up the two representatives from Detroit. which is a very democratic and very black city. And if with, with black voters being the base of the Democratic Party, that's why they were trying to bring in Jim Clyburn at the 11th hour here. Now both parts of the city are being represented by DSA members, DSA endorsed representatives. So Mike Johnson is freaked out and he should be. But let's not be, let's be aware of the racist. arguments that they're going to use to desperately attempt to keep DSA members and people like Abdul El-Sayed out of power. In a moment, we are going to be speaking to Stephen Zunez about what's happening with Spain and Morocco and this, you know, migrant issue, this horrible exploitation by the far right. But first, a word from one of our sponsors here, trust and will. You know,

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using this threat of mass migration as a way of getting some political leverage. And there's a fair amount of evidence is exactly what happened. I mean, you don't get 50 to 70,000 people into this remote corner of Morocco simultaneously without some major logistical support. Indeed, there are films of these truckloads of Moroccans being ferried in to the frontier. Spaniards have identified Moroccan intelligence agents among the crowds that went across the border, checking out security and the Spanish response. So I have a little question that this was not some kind of spontaneous event by desperate migrants. That seems to be the obvious conclusion here, especially when you read more about Morocco's government. You talk about the... them as a kind of colonial power with Western Sahara. Can you speak about the Moroccan government and their closeness with, say, the U.S. and Israel as well? Well, Morocco is an authoritarian Arab monarchy that has a great vision of La Grande Morocco, you know, Greater Morocco, which not only includes the two Presidios and some Spanish islands off the coast, but a good chunk of Western Algeria, which is actually invaded back in 1963, and Western Sahara. pretty much all of Mauritania and Northern Mali as well. The Western Sahara is recognized by the United Nations as a non-self-governing territory that deserves the right of self-determination, which would necessarily include the option of independence. Morocco has rejected that. This position is upheld by a unanimous decision of the International Criminal Court. The United States, at the very end of Trump's first term, ended up becoming the first country to formally recognize Morocco's illegal annexation of that country, which I should mention. They do have a functioning government, which governs a good third of the population, primarily in refugee camps and far western Algeria that the Algerian government has given them effective autonomy over. They are also a full member state of the African Union. They didn't recognize at one time or another by over 80 countries, but the U.S. says, no, this is Morocco. And much of many people's disappointments, Biden did not reverse it. And this has some implications. I was traveling in Africa a while ago, and I was defending the Biden administration's position on Ukraine. You know, that you can't expand your territory by military force.

ability of international boundaries. And everyone from cab drivers to cabinet officials would say, what about Western Sahara? Indeed, even Michael McFall, the former Obama's former ambassador to Moscow, who has been a big Ukraine hawk in any respects, was disappointed that Biden essentially upheld this illegal annexation because he saw how it negatively impacted the U.S. diplomacy on this question, particularly in the global south. But anyway, The recognition of Western Sahara came in return for getting Morocco to formally recognize Israel, not waiting, breaking them away from the Arab League position, which is we'll recognize Israel once in the occupation and allow for Palestinian statehood, but to recognize them beforehand and become part of the so-called Abraham Accords. So there has been this nexus of the Israel, United States, and Morocco with greater strategic cooperation. And let's be honest, Trump is more comfortable with leaders like Benjamin Netanyahu and various Arab despots than he is with the liberal democracies of Europe. It's... Really important to point out how U.S. credibility on issues of, say, sovereignty has been undercut and it trickles down from our support for the genocide in Gaza and Israel's territorial expansion into Lebanon, into the West Bank, into Gaza. And then the downstream effects it has that people don't even consider about something like Western Sahara and how really... Honestly, in terms of U.S. support for conflicts around the world, we're mostly supporting the territorial expanders with the rare exception of Ukraine. Ukraine is the exception right now with the United States. In many ways, yes. I mean, Western Sahara, along with Palestine, are the only... nations that are recognized as non-self-governing territories under foreign religion occupation. And one can argue that some countries have a moral right to self-determination, like Tibet or Kurdistan or Kashmir or whatever, but legally speaking, those are the only two entire nations that are essentially under... under occupation. And this is one reason I sort of, I don't like people to exaggerate the power of APEC and the Zionist lobby, because, you know, Morocco shows we are quite willing to support an occupation without, you know, pressure from an ethnic minority, just as we supported Indonesia's occupation of East Timor. And prior to that, Parquet of South Africa's occupation of Namibia. Yes. But the...

But they try to absolve U.S. Empire, and those people that are only making that argument tend to be fairly anti-Semitic. Yeah, exactly, exactly. But what's interesting is that you have, in the past few months, leading up to this. You had right-wing elements in the United States, including an official report supported by the Republican majority in the House of Representatives that have claimed that the Spanish enclaves, which haven't been part of Moroccan territory for 600 years, should belong to Morocco. And you have Israelis, urban officials, pushing the same line. It's a reasonable debate whether any European country should have any land on the African continent. But it's not like these folks have suddenly become anti-colonial on principle. And the... And what's interesting is that the Israelis are really mad at Sanchez because he's been one of the most outspoken European leaders regarding the Palestinians and the oppression and the genocidal war in Gaza and the like. And they've been using this to say, and for example, the Israeli ambassador to the UN, Diane Delon said this just recently that, oh, Sanchez is a total hypocrite. Spain that is the occupier. Yeah. And similarly. And meanwhile, the United States, of course, is very angry at Sanchez for not... raising military spending to the degree that Trump has ordered, and even more so because of opposition to the Iran war, not allowing U.S. bases in Spain to be used in fighting that war, and even banning airspace from U.S. Air Force. In fact, just a few weeks ago, Trump ordered the Secretary of Treasury to halt all trade with Spain. Of course, he had to be informed that... Spain being part of the EU. He couldn't do that. And now to get, you know, to go after Spain in some other ways. So anyway, this has led to some speculation that Israel and the United States may have been behind Morocco's decision. Now, personally, I have not seen proof of this. I think it's really stretching to say that Israel orchestrated this or the United States orchestrated it. But that they definitely emboldened Morocco.

to do this, which would normally be seen as kind of an aggressive act against a NATO country. And they're trying to reap the benefits from it. On the U.S. side, you had Trump's saying, you see these scenes. It's going to be many times worse on our border with Mexico if the Democrats get back in power. And in advance saying, oh, this is the responsibility. of the globalist and these liberal people who, you know, and, you know, all this talk about a Muslim invasion and the like, is very much, you know, feeding the narratives of the right wing in both Israel and the United States, and I might add, in Europe as well. It's a level of coordination from the global right that we just don't have on the left. But, you know, I mean, it's a coordination of messaging at the very least. And I am curious what you're like how. the Moroccan government motivated tens of thousands of people to migrate here. What are they, what tactics are they using? And like, can you speak to how the coordination may have come to pass? It's hard to say, and people are looking into this. New York Times and The Guardian have noted this, and I don't doubt they're looking at it more. Spain is obviously concerned with this, and they're being somewhat low-key about it, because, again, if they... upset Morocco too much, you know, they could, you know, open the floodgates again. Indeed, one thing is kind of interesting, if I may look at the European side of this for a moment, that Spain actually, after years of following the international consensus of supporting self-determination, like a referendum in Western Sahara, has now joined a number of other countries in endorsing the so-called autonomy plan that Morocco has for Western Sahara, which is a joke. It's not much autonomy, and it would essentially allow for the annexation without an act of self-determination. But in many ways, the left of center governments, in many ways, often in more hard line against Western Sahara than the more conservative governments. because basically Morocco has been extorting Europe and basically saying, unless you back us on Western Sahara, we're going to really open the floodgates. Remember, it's only 12 miles of water between Morocco and the European continent. And...

But even this incursion into Ceuta, even though the vast majority of these migrants, or whomever they were, returned, you're seeing the far right saying, oh, my God, we have this Muslim invasion. And you have conservative governments saying, we've got to kick Spain out of the Schengen zone, which allows for the passport-free movement within Europe. Ceuta is not in Europe. And Morocco has very tough internal controls. between the Presidios and Spain. I mean, the migrants are no closer to getting in the Europe from Ceuta. They are from Tangier or, you know, any other Moroccan city on the north coast. So this has been used to pump up this hysteria in Europe by the far right. And dividing Europe like this, that's very much in Trump's playbook. And in King Muhammad's, you know, a playbook, that this is, you know, there is a great political advantage around doing this. Can you, can you expand on that point? What, beyond, you know, Trump trying to break the, the EUs back, I guess, and have more say, what is your sense of the political advantage for the U.S.? Well, basically, you know, we've had Trump and Danz and Marco Rubio quite openly supporting the far-right parties, the alternative for Germany, the Pence Party, the Nigel Franz Foreign Party in Britain. I mean, and they are a big issue, and how they've gotten to be the threat that they have become, has been largely on this anti-immigrant platform. And so the more that the United States can encourage this kind of hysteria. And Morocco, for its own reasons, of course, you know, are... support this as well, the better. It also weakens Sanchez and makes him more vulnerable in the next Spanish elections. And again, both Israel, the United States definitely want to see him defeated and a more conservative government come to power. But it's amazing how this hysteria has come. When I published my article, I was getting comments from people that were saying things like, I had a friend who was a single woman who has really looking forward to hiking the Camino, but she canceled because she's afraid of this Muslim invasion, even though, again, you know, they're nowhere close to continental Spain, particularly northern Spain. So, you know, this, again, you can see how this very much, you know, helps feed the right-wing narrative.

And what are the conditions in Morocco that are leading to migration? You know, there's coordination, of course, clearly it seems to be the case. But people have to be kind of prime to accept this argument to migrate outside of the country. Well, you know, Morocco is potentially, they don't have oil or any, you know, super valuable natural resources, but they've got a fair amount of arable land. Indeed, the geography is quite similar to California in many respects, Mediterranean climate for most of the country, the deserts in the east and the south. They, you know, but it's a very corrupt government. One reason the United States is so friendly to Morocco is that almost more than any other Arab or African nation, they have embraced the neoliberal orthodoxy, you know, which, you know, while it can increase cumulative wealth, it's very, very unevenly distributed. And... And so, you know, you have, as you do, and quite a few other Arab and African countries, you have a lot of unemployed youth that are seeking, you know, better lives. And again, the close proximity to Europe makes this particular tempting. I should mention you also have a fair amount of migrants from elsewhere in Africa who have made their way up to Morocco as sort of the jumping off point. as well. And of course, you know, this raises a whole bunch of questions about development, you know, if you really can, you know, and, and, and, how U.S. and European policies, you know, contribute to, you know, these kinds of economic strains, not to mention, you know, the wars in Africa and elsewhere, where some of the additional migrants from which some of the additional migrants are fleeing. You mentioned the Islamophobia. Can you speak more about the role that Islamophobia is playing in this argument and even in just the global rights arguments against migration? Well, interesting, Nigel Farage claimed that these migrants were sweeping into Ceuta, breaking the homes, raping, and beheading, and all this kind of stuff, you know, comparing it to, you know, October 7th in Israel. That's total nonsense. I mean, that simply did not take place. But, you know, the... And clearly the kind of panic that came with the big migration from the Civil War in Syria and continued a conflict in Iraq with the rise of ISIS and others that we saw, you know, 10, 15 years ago, this is seen as a second wave of this sort of thing.

In total, Muslims make up, I think, about 3% of the European population. They're not about to take over. And at least as immigrants are assimilated into society, you know, they become European in many respects. You know, you do sometimes have problems with first and second generation who are oppressed and, you know, in prison for drugs or theft or things like that, and they get radicalized. But, you know, if you look at the profile of these... migrants or second, first and second generation immigrants to Europe that have engaged in terrorism. They're very much like gang members here in the United States. It's not the religion that has, you know, motivated them. Though they'll use that as an excuse, you know, it's the poverty, it's discrimination. And, you know, the kind of thing that you, you know, find in any, in many Western societies when it comes to, you know, racism and bigotry. towards immigrants. I recently reread James Baldwin's no name in the street, and he talks at length about the racism that Algerians face in France during the time he was there. And... how the irony of a colonizing power than having being upset once the process of decolonization begins and the people that were colonized coming and living alongside them. It's just, you know, it's both comforting and troubling how history is so long and the struggles that we face today are so similar to the ones from decades prior. And indeed, what's kind of crazy about this thing, if I may begin, Western Sahara again, is that the Sahrawis, you know, who have a distinct history and culture and dialect, and, you know, they are indeed different than Moroccans in many respects. One reason they don't want to be part of Morocco. And part of that is that while they are observant Sunni Muslims, they practice a fairly liberal interpretation. Women are unveiled. They have equal rights to inheritance and divorce. The primary leader of the nonviolent resistance movement within the occupied territories, Ammanu Haidhar, called the Saharan Gandhi. She's won the Right Livelihood Award, the Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Human Rights Award, the Sir Courage Award from the Russell Train Foundation. I mean, you know, here's a model of a country, and they also democratically elected their parliament and their president. So here we have what should be a model for what the West supposedly wants.

of an Arab Muslim country that supports women's rights, that's democratic, that's moderate, that has never engaged in terrorism at all. And yet we support the occupation. Meanwhile, in Congress is a bipartisan bill to declare the Poissario, which is the National Liberation Front, a terrorist organization. even though, again, they've never engaged in terrorism. I mean, rocket propagandists have claimed they have ties to Hezbollah and Iran, but that is total nonsense. Right. Total nonsense. And so, and I think it underscores that the Islamophobia is really an excuse to, you know, essentially promoting Western imperialism, that we have to support these autocratic regimes like Morocco, in part to supposedly suppress Islamist extremism, while in fact what they're primarily doing is suppressing a very moderate, indeed liberal, a Muslim country that is simply seeking the right of self-determination. And again, as you mentioned as we apply to the outset, Morocco is actually a colonizer. And so they're used, in fact, what's interesting, they originally seized Western Sahara in part back in 1975 by assembling 300,000 unarmed Moroccans. in what they call the Green March, and supposedly this anti-colonialist effort, when Spain had already agreed to end of the territory and was ready to hand it over to the Palisario. Morocco simultaneously had a military invasion, which is quite brutal and ended up expelling nearly half the population. But in many ways, this effort around Siota is a replay of that of trying to take and, you know, play the anti-colonialist card for a country that is itself a colonizer. Fascinating stuff and very illuminating. Steven Zunez, professor of politics, director of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of San Francisco, co-author of his latest, Western Sahara, War Nationalism and Conflict Irresolution. And you can read his piece in the nation called The Real Story Behind the Human Wave that entered Suta. Stephen, thanks so much for your time today. I really appreciate it. Thank you. All right, folks, quick break. And when we come back, we'll be joined by Drop Sites Mertaza Hussein on his latest reporting for your eyes only Israel's mole inside of the United Nations. Be right back.

We are back and we are joined once again by Murtaza Hussein, National Security and Foreign Affairs correspondent at Dropsite News. His latest reporting is called for your eyes only Israel's mole inside the United Nations. Mertaza, welcome back to the show. Hey, Emma, good to see you again. Good to see you. And some more phenomenal reporting over at DropSight with your name on it. This report that you have, it centers around one individual, this guy, Yachav Lickner. I believe maybe I'm saying that correctly. You can correct me, Murtaza. But who is this individual? And what role does he serve in the UN currently? Sure, yeah. So Mr. Lickner is currently the head of the Washington office of UNICEF. People probably know UNICEF is the arm of the UN dealing with children's welfare. And, you know, he took that role, I believe, last year. But about 10 years ago or maybe 12 years ago now, he was in a different role at the UN Population Fund. And prior to that, he was a diplomat at the Israeli mission to the UN. Working under then is really ambassador to the UN Ron Prosor. So our story is actually based on a leaked cash document or hacked cash documents, I guess, from ProSore that was posted online by a website called Distributed Denial of Secrets. It's like a successor to WikiLeaks in some ways. They posted that a little while ago, but the emails show a period from 2014-2015 when Prosor was helping Lickner get a role at the UN from his position at the Israeli mission. And then immediately after he got that role, he began leaking documents, confidential documents, confidential internal communications, and really just acting as basically you know, a font of classified information from the UN to Israeli diplomats. And that continued for the whole portion of the emails we have for about two years. And since then, in that intervening time, Lickner has risen through the ranks of the UN, such that he holds that office in UNICEF that I mentioned earlier. So the article is talking a lot about what he leaked, what was happening, what was being said. It's all based on the emails. So it's not really making any assertions or speculating. It's just documenting the people's own communications themselves. That's kind of what it is. And, you know, the story does strongly suggest that perhaps he was put there for a purpose to play sort of a intelligence role inside the UN and give the Israelis heads up about UN activities and internal details about the functioning of the organization, which are intended to be classified. And also accounts of UN official discussions with the other world leaders, which are private. So that was all happening.

And that's kind of the crux that's the story, which is detailed in the dark side report. And let's go back then to the period of 2014 and 2015, where these communications show him supplying Israeli officials with internal documents as you talk about accounts of the private meetings. In 2014, the Gaza... There was a military offensive in Gaza by the Israelis. Once again, history did not begin on October 7th. Israel killed over 2,000 Palestinians in a two-month period during that time. And this overlapped with Lickner's time at the UN. What did you find there and how, what could he possibly have leaked in relation to the Gaza offensive? Yeah, so, you know, it's a very important context that, you know, Israel is the very, probably the lowest level of popularity globally that's ever been right now. But it wasn't always the case so much. A decade ago, it was probably, reputation is probably not as bad. And a decade prior to that, it was more positive in general. But it's been on this downward decline, mostly triggered by the expanding occupation of the West Bank, and then this series of wars which took place in Gaza over the course of a decade and a half, and which have now culminated in the total destruction of Gaza and the genocide of the Palestinian population. So these communications took place in 2014, which was... timed with a previous military offensive called Operation Protective Edge, which had taken place by Israel in Gaza. And there were a number of civilian casualties, many hundreds of civilian casualties in the war. And Israel was starting to come under great scrutiny for its conduct in Gaza. And so these communications show Lickner, giving kind of a heads up to Israeli diplomats that, you know, FYI, this is what the UN is doing, there's a Gaza Commission of Inquiry, here's the meeting agenda of the human rights official senior most high commissioner for human rights when he goes to D.C. you can do what you want with that. And the Israelis seem to take the information and try to craft their own messaging and also reach out to members of Congress and so forth to defray this growing scrutiny that was coming upon the government for its actions. There's also an interesting passage in there where in one email, a guardian reporter is reaching out to the UN to about the listing of Israel as a country which is engaged in human rights abuses against children and pressure against the listing. from within the organization. And Lickner forwards the communications, the private communications between the reporter and a UN official to Israeli diplomats and even tries to help them figure out who the source of the leaks may have been inside.

the broader system. So he's really playing a double role here, it seems, from the emails. And there's another important thing I forgot to mention earlier as well, too, that Lickner took this role in 2014. The same set of emails showed that, you know, it was Israeli official, diplomatically Ron Proser, who were working really hard to place him in that role. They put a lot of emphasis on making sure he gets into the UN population fund and other roles thereafter. But it was Samantha Power, the former U.S. ambassador of the U.N., who was working with Prosor, according to the emails, talking about him being placed this role. Proser, I was asking her for pressure on U.N. officials to accept him. So it was interesting. It's not very keen that he gets in there, but also that they had assistance from the U.S. side, specifically Samantha Power, as their kind of contact and make sure that the U.N. officials are leaned upon to promote this individual to this role. And, you know, one last point. It seems the proser was kind of like a... you know, like a sponsor or a patron to Lickner's career within the UN establishment. Because Lickner was actually writing assessments or writing talking points for Proster used to promote himself for other roles after that role to be further promoted. And one of the emails, he actually describes himself as a number of things. He's like a good analytical thinker and stuff like that, more generic talking points. But he also says, I'm an intelligence agent in training. And, you know, there's no elaborate. Well, he's still in training, so he doesn't know not to put that in email form, in written form. I'm an intelligence officer in training. Right, right. It was a really interesting sort of, you know, the detail to include by yourself. And, you know, there was no elaboration or what that meant, and there was no further communications regarding mentioning that in the emails. But that is interesting that that was in there. And one can only speculate what the meaning is, but that is the way he self-described. Okay, well, I'll speculate on him saying I am an intelligence officer in training and say that perhaps he was sincere about that, given that his actions. back up those that claim but um i mean the fact that you talk about how his intelligence you know his activity here was involved in what was surrounding accusations against israel committing human rights violations against children the fact that he was is now leading, or a leading official at UNICEF for children's welfare in the Washington, D.C. office feels, you know, almost like some, like a, it would be ironic if I wasn't entirely unconvinced that, like, the Israelis were doing this on purpose. Well, yeah, it's my understanding from talking to people inside the UN is that that office was basically created for the purpose of lobbying D.C.

And, you know, acting as intermediary between the organization and the administration wasn't really a traditional activity that UNSF engaged in. And this individual, the gentleman, Lickner, he's very involved in UN operations related to UNICEF in the Gaza War. He's been quite prominent in that sense. So he's by no means of marginal figure in the current situation. Now, you know, if one were to say, like, you know, Israel is in... By the UN, Israel has been concluded to have killed 20,000 children in Gaza. So it's clearly a country which is culpable in mass abuses against children. That is not preclude and is really working effectively in the UN per se. But if you're working there and it's the case that you are collaborating with the Israeli government or any government which is committing such abuses, obviously it seems like a conflict of interest. If so during the Rwandan genocide, there was a supporter of the... the Hutu Power movement working for the UN Human Rights Commission, it would be seen as problematic for obvious reasons. And likewise, if somebody is a supporter of the current Israeli government or acting on its behalf or in some way implicated in its activities, then it would be a cross-purposis with the mission of an organization like UNICEF, which many people trust to have a you know, a philanthropic or, you know, to be an organization which sincerely adheres to the state admission for helping children and protecting human rights of young people. Well, you know, this also pairs with reporting in other outlets from the time about... like, say, UN officials being bullied by the Israeli government or pressured by the Israeli government over its reports and recommendations on children's rights violations. And so when you pair, say, potential intelligence activity with outside pressure campaigns and Israel's history of threatening, you know, the ICC prosecutors, this is outside of the UN, right? But like, in conjunction with their attempt to infiltrate some of these and pressure these international accountability organizations, you can see how robust the Israeli intelligence network really is. Totally. You know, there's a lot of countries out there that would like to destroy certain international government organizations, ICC, ICJ, many UN agencies. And they'd like to do that for different reasons, but often because they would like to enjoy a sense of impunity and they don't like that these organizations, however limited they are, they impose some sort of check or oversight on the behavior of foreign states. and thus they would like to either have them shut down or infiltrate them and subvert their mission and so forth. But, you know, not all countries have the ability to do that. And even Israel probably wouldn't have had the ability to infiltrate the UN, potentially in this case, without the support of the U.S. officials. People like Samantha Power who see it as their duty to help Israel achieve its political aims, even at the cost of the destruction of these organizations, which in theory are.

supposed to represent the global commons and international law and all these things. So, you know, I would think that probably Russia would love to destroy the ICC because the Russian president is indicted by the ICC. But it really takes the U.S. now, you know, working avowardly for the interests of Benjamin Netanyahu to destroy the international criminal court. And then even the ICC as limited as is. In the future, it won't be able to even grow to a more robust role and actually hold people committing war crimes and genocides to account because it will have been destroyed for the crime of trying to police the government of Israel in this case with the assistance of the United States. So I think that's the really unfortunate aspect. And, you know, the UN itself, I should add, it's a... organization, which almost is utopian in the idealism, at least on paper, because it says, and we wrote about this in the article, that if you were to join the UN as a UN official, you must see yourself as purely an international official and not representing the interests of any nation state, including the state that you may have citizenship, and you need to transcend that and embrace a universalist perspective. But it seems like some people able to do that, but then other people are not able to live up to that, and they continue representing, you know, primarily or even exclusively the interests of their member state. And they're not fit for the UN in that case. They can't, the two perspectives cannot gel with one another. And if everyone were to act like this in the UN, I think the UN will fall apart tomorrow. And that goes for a lot of global governance organizations, which are very flawed, but at least attempt, reflect an attempt to create some sort of shared global legal and cultural space. Lastly, Mertaza, how do you put these revelations about, say, Israeli intelligence infiltration or efforts in the United Nations in the context of the attacks on UNRWA, which was, you know, essentially the only... real infrastructure in the Gaza Strip that was able to provide health care for people and the defunding of that was really crippling and aiding abetting some of the worst death tolls and health impacts of this genocide. What is your kind of assessment via your reporting of how UNRWA fits into this? Well, you know, it's funny, after, this is a huge cache of emails. And after I wrote the report, other people started going through the cache themselves and sending me certain clips. And, you know, they're like many, many, you know, countless thousands of communications here. It's very hard to go through all of them and see everything. But it seems like there's some indications in the emails that Lickner was also used kind of game-planned ways of attacking UNRWA. That was how it was described to me, but another reporter, falling up on the same story. So I have to look at that myself, but my belief, and I think it's quite plausible, is that really they were looking at every possible avenue they could take to undermine and destroy UN institutions because they see them as a check on unconstricted Israeli power in the West Bank, Gaza, and even beyond in the broader region.

So it wouldn't surprise me that, you know, what they actually did, what the story represents is the tactic that communist groups were accused of in the 20th century of entryism. And entryism is basically taking an organization and introducing somebody within it who is actually working for different cause and is aimed at either destroying the organization itself or. subverting it to a different aim. And, you know, that took different connotations. It was not all very sinister. But, you know, in some cases, you know, if you take it out of that context and you view it in the sense of taking global governance organizations, having individuals who are either ideologically adverse to them or you're actively working for the foreign governments or intelligence agencies, you can, if you enter enough of those people in these organizations. You could really change them. You could change their character entirely. And then within a generation or less, the mission has been inverted in something totally different. So gradually that people don't notice. So I think they'd like to either destroy the UN or turn it into an institution which serves the purposes of the Israeli government and the Israeli occupation and does not serve Palestinians in the West Bank or Gaza or anywhere else. Mertaza Hussein, National Security and Foreign Affairs correspondent at DropSight News. You can read his latest, for your eyes only, Israel's mole inside the United Nations. But, of course, everybody should be following and supporting Dropsite News and Murtaz's work in particular. Thanks so much for your time today. I really appreciate it. Thanks for having me. Thank you. All right. With that, folks, we're going to wrap up the free part of this program and head into the fun half where we will read your IMs and we may take some calls. We have no Matt Binder today, so check out leftist mafia and his work as well. Matt Leck, what's happening on the Jackman showing with Left Reckoning? Yeah, Left Reckoning, we had a... Good show this week. Oh, tomorrow on Jacobin show, I should plug that. Dino's back on the show. We're talking about some, Dino Gistella, talking about some of the hot button issues in terms of labor and the left and politicking. So I ask them about data centers and that sort of thing because, and you'll never see a Republican run with this. But like. There might be some issues with data centers and labor because there are not only jobs in it, but it's actually helping to unionize certain areas that have been tougher to unionize. And how can we protect that and also? respond to what is absolute atrocious type of economic planning going on by venture capitalists by making these things everywhere and becoming more and more hated. So, yeah, check that out tomorrow on Jacobin Show. And check out our about Mode Khalil interview from last week, too. Oh, yes. Yes. Great stuff.

Join the majority report. If you can, join the majority report.com. Become a member. We'll read your IMs. You can IAM into the show. You can help us stay resilient in these troubling times. Join the majority report.com. Just coffee.coop, fair trade coffee, and something else. You can check it out on the website. I'll never remember what it is. Justcoffee.coop. Um, all right. Check out the discourse with Brandon Sutton as well. Go subscribe if you haven't already. Brandon will be joining us in the fun half. I believe see you in the fun half. Okay, Emma, please. Well, I just, I feel that my voice is sorely lacking on the majority report. Wait, whoa. Look, Sam is unpopular. I do deserve a vacation at Disney World. So, ladies and gentlemen, it is my pleasure to welcome Emma to the show. It is Thursday. Yeah, I think you need to do it for Sam. Yes, please, sir, I'm gonna, I'm gonna pause you right there. Wait, what? You can't encourage Emma to live like this. And I'll tell you why. So it's offered a twerk, sushi, and pop. Boys. Twere? Sushi and poker with the boys. Who was offered a tour? Yeah. Sushi and poker with the boys. What? Toad? Twer. Sushi and poker. Uh, Tim's upset? Twirl. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sushi and poker with the boys. He was offered a twer. Sushi and poker with the boys. Right. Twirl. Sushi and poker with the boys. Right. Twirl. Sushi and poker. I just think that what you did to Tim Poole was mean. Free speech. That's not what we're about here. Look at how sad he's become now. You shouldn't even talk about it because I think you're responsible. I probably am in a certain way, but let's get to the meltdown here. Twerk? Ugh. Sushi and poker with the boys. Oh my God. Twirl? Wow. Sushi. I'm sorry. I'm losing my fucking mind. So what's offered a twerk? Yeah. Sushi and poker with the boys. Logic. Twerp. Sushi and poker with the voice. Boy, boy, boy. I think I'm like a little kid. I think I'm like a little kid. I think I'm like a little kid. Add this debate seven thousand times. A little kid. I think I'm like a little kid. I think I'm like a little kid. I think I'm like a fucking weird. I mean, some people just don't understand. So I'm not trying to be a dick right now, but like I absolutely think the U.S. should be providing me with a wife and kids. That's not what we're talking about here. It's not a fun job. It's not a real thing. That's a real thing. That's a real thing. That's a real thing. That's that real thing. That's that real thing. That's a real thing. That's a real thing. That's a real thing. That's a real thing. That's a real thing.

We've really gotten out of hand. Sushi and poker with the boys. It's illusion. You don't have a clue as to what's going on. Live YouTube. Sam has like the weight of the world on the shoulders. Sam doesn't want to do this show anymore. It was so much easier. One of the majority report was just you. You were happy. Let's change the subject. Right. Rangers and Nick's going right. Now, shut up. I don't want people saying reckless things on your program. That's one of the most difficult parts about this show. This is a pro-killing podcast. I'm thinking maybe it's kind of bury the hatchet. Left is best. Trump. Violet twerk? Don't be foolish. And don't fucking tweet at me and don't get changed. The way that this cucked all of these people love it. That's where my heart is. So I wrote my honor's thesis. of the unformed policy. We already fund Israel, dude. Are you against us? That's a tougher question. I don't have an answer to you. Incredible theme song. I bumbler. Emma Viglin, absolutely one of my favorite people. Actually, not just in the game, like, period.