The Majority Report, August 6, 2026 (Zunes begins at 20:40):
w/ Stephen Zunes, Murtaza Hussain | MR Live
Category: Africa
Africa
Interview: Who benefitted from the Ceuta border crisis – and what happens now?
Middle East Eye podcast, August 6, 2026 (Zunes begins at 30-mins.)
Interview: Ceuta-What really happened
BYLINE TIMES PODCAST, UK, August 4, 2026 (20 mins.)
The Real Story Behind the Human Wave That Entered Ceuta
The Nation, August 3, 2026: What was behind the border crisis in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta. Did the Israeli and US hostility toward Spain embolden Morocco to think it could get away with creating a border control crisis?
Interview: Dispute over Spain’s North Africa Enclaves and long-standing tension with Morocco
Al Jazeera English, August 4, 2026: On the Ceuta border crisis and EU
BBC Interview: 22 EU countries call for ‘urgent’ talks over Ceuta
Interview: The Hidden Truth About Western Sahara; Why the Conflict Never Ends
Global Continuity (GCF) July 25 2026, 45-mins. A good primer on Western Sahara.
Quoted: Why There’s a Call for Boycotting “The Odyssey”
Institute for Public Accuracy News Release, July 20, 2026, quotes Zunes:
“In accepting generous subsidies from the Moroccan regime, the film’s producers have provided legitimacy to the illegal occupation. It would be the equivalent of filming in Israeli or Russian-occupied territories in collaboration with those governments. Freedom House, Human Rights Watch, and other human rights groups have ranked Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara as among the most politically repressed nations in the world. Since any protest within the occupied territory is not tolerated, it is imperative that global civil society mobilize against this injustice.”
Interview: Washington funds worsening repression and political prisoners in Egypt
Arab Organisation for Human Rights in UK, May 23, 2026
8 min. clip of Zunes and full seminar, 55 min.
Repression in Egypt is not happening in isolation, but is sustained through Washington’s continuous political and military support. Successive U.S. administrations have shielded the Egyptian government from accountability despite mass arrests, torture allegations, deaths in custody, and the imprisonment of tens of thousands of political prisoners… every waiver, arms deal, and public embrace of Sisi sends a message that repression will carry no consequences.
Has Senator Cruz been Misinformed About Western Sahara or What?
Counterpunch, April 27, 2026: by Bill Fletcher Jr. – Stephen Zunes.
Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), along with Senators Tom Cotton (R-AR) and Rick Scott R-FL), have introduced a bill targeting what they call the “Iranian Regime’s Polisario Front,” designating that popular North African nationalist movement as a “terrorist organization”… Since the early 1970s, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Saguia el-Hamra and Rio de Oro (Frente Polisario) has led a fight initially for independence from Spain and subsequently for freedom from Morocco’s efforts to forcibly annex the territory. The Polisario is a moderate secular movement whose leadership is democratically elected by refugees…
Western Sahara: The Autonomy Proposal vs. International Legal Obligations
Global Monitoring Center, March 5, 2026:
Zunes is first of three panelists at this forum critically examining Morocco’s so-called “autonomy” proposal for the nation of Western Sahara, which it invaded, occupied, and illegally annexed in 1975. The US and several European governments are supporting this dubious proposal despite its contravention of international law.
Has Trump Finally Ended Western Sahara’s Dream of Freedom?
The Nation, November 13, 2025: The international community must decide which principle will prevail: the right of self-determination or the right of conquest [ audio podcast 6 mins.]
The Only Remaining Colony in Africa Continues its Struggle for Independence
Inter Press Service, October 30, 2025, By Thalif Deen
[quoting Stephen Zunes; source link]
Described as a non-self-governing territory in northwestern Africa fighting for decolonization, Western Sahara is the last African colonial state yet to achieve independence… A former Spanish colony, it was annexed by Morocco in 1975… On October 30, the UN Security Council is scheduled to vote on a draft resolution on the future of the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO).
Interview: Repressive U.S.-backed Moroccan occupation of Western Sahara
Interview: Africa’s Last Colony, Western Sahara
Pacifica Radio/WPFW, Washington DC, August 15, 2025 (56 mins.)
Zunes and Professor Jacob Mundy (Colgate University, NY), his co-author of “Western Sahara: War, Nationalism and Conflict Irresolution,” critique the bogus attempted designation of Western Sahara as a “terrorist” entity.
Bipartisan US Push Tries to Label Democratic African Government as “Terrorist”
Truthout, August 2, 2025, By Stephen Zunes [podcast & source]
The UN treats the Polisario as the legitimate representative of the Western Sahara people. Washington’s designation of armed groups as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO) has always been politicized, but it may now reach a new level of absurdity thanks to a bipartisan resolution in the U.S. House of Representatives introduced by Joe Wilson (R-South Carolina) and Jimmy Panetta (D-California), targeting the Frente Polisario, the government of Western Sahara, officially known as the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic. Morocco, an important U.S. ally, invaded Western Sahara in 1975 on the eve of its independence from Spain and currently occupies nearly 80 percent of the territory…
Panetta’s false charges of terrorism make no sense
First published in the Santa Cruz Sentinel July 11, 2025, by Stephen Zunes:
“My guest editorial from the Santa Cruz Sentinel takes on Rep. Jimmy Panetta for his bill that would designate the government of Western Sahara as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, even though they have never engaged in terrorism nor ever collaborated with a terrorist group.”
Did Washington Post amplify Moroccan propaganda?
African Digital Democracy Observatory
Disinfo.Africa quoted Zunes June 27, 2025:
Washington Post echoes disputed claims that Saharan mercenaries were captured in Aleppo:
On April 12, 2025, the Washington Post published a story describing the new Syrian government’s alleged efforts to dismantle illicit Iranian supply lines running through southern Syria… largely to aid Hezbollah in their war against Israel [and] implicated soldiers from an Algerian-based nationalist movement in the Iran-Hezbollah conspiracy. [But] this TruthAfrica investigation shows, the central pieces of evidence for these allegations appear to be a distortion of an Algerian ambassador’s statements and an inauthentic document… Steven Zunes told Truth Africa, “The Hezbollah/Iran connection is utter nonsense… The idea that [The Polisario Front] would be lying with this autocratic, reactionary Shia group,” he told us, “just seems quite absurd….”
Pro-Palestinian Student Protests Are Nothing New
The Progressive March 3, 2025 by Nyki Duda quoting Zunes:
“Stephen Zunes, a veteran of the anti-apartheid movement in solidarity with Black South Africans in the 1980s and a regular contributor to The Progressive, sees parallels between that movement and the student movement in support of Palestine. Much like the Gaza solidarity encampments, Zunes told me, the boycott, divestment, and sanctions campaign against South Africa “included encampments, what we called shantytowns, modeled after the poor living conditions of South African Blacks” living under white rule. But while students in the 1980s were punished—Zunes was arrested for his activism—they were not targeted with bans from their campuses or harsh legal charges, as pro-Palestinian student protesters are now facing. “Where shantytowns were allowed to stay up for months during the anti-apartheid struggle, encampments [for Gaza] were torn down within hours at the same universities,” Zunes says. Vincent Boudreau, the City College of New York President who called police in against protesters, was Zunes’s classmate at Cornell, and was also arrested multiple times for his anti-apartheid activism. “And here he is,” Zunes says, “calling the cops to come in and attack people.” [source]
Parallels Between Today’s Student Activism and Anti-Apartheid Protests
In this Recent 8-min. video Dr. Zunes contrasts response to today’s growing student protests urging divestment from Israel with the successful student protests in the 1980s demanding boycotts and divestment from South Africa, which helped end apartheid there.