I moved to Morocco in July 2023. One reason I’m glad to be here, rather than in the United States of Epstein, is that Moroccans strongly support the Palestinian Resistance. In America, being pro-Hamas is practically illegal: Americans are forced to kiss the Jewish boot and keep their mouths shut. Not so in Morocco, where anyone who didn’t love the Resistance, revere its martyrs, and pray for its victory would be in the minority.

And now, as Operation Epstein Fury turns into the mother of all quagmires, Americans are cowed by their Epstein-class Jewish masters into mumbling obligatory disclaimers like: “I don’t support Iran, but…” Or, “This war may be stupid, but I really hate those mullahs who don’t let Iranian women go nude in public and work for OnlyFans.”

Not so Moroccans. Here, people you run into in the shops, streets, and cafés make no bones about cheering for Iran.

But I have to admit I was a bit surprised (not to mention pleased) to discover the ubiquity and intensity of pro-Iran sentiment in the streets of Morocco. Why? Because the Moroccan government has mounted a decades-long anti-Iran propaganda campaign, and to a certain extent, the low-information segment of the population has bought into it.

Why does the Moroccan government have a problem with Iran? It’s the geopolitics, stupid. Morocco’s biggest, existential issue is its territorial integrity, meaning its control over its threatened Saharan territories, which Algeria has been trying to pry loose since the 1960s, deceptively framing the issue as a “national liberation struggle of the Sahraoui people.” In reality, there were originally only around 80,000 Sahraouis in those territories—far too few to constitute a genuinely independent nation. So the “Sahraoui liberation struggle” was always only a cover story for Algeria’s attempt to capture those territories from Morocco, and thereby gain immense resources and access to the Atlantic ocean.

Unfortunately, Iran has aligned itself with Algeria, for some good reasons as well as bad ones, and embraced the Algerian perspective on the bogus “liberation struggle of the Sahrouis.” Morocco has accused Iran and/or its allies of training the Polisario guerrillas who serve as Algeria’s shock troops in its war of aggression against Morocco. There is probably some truth to those claims.

So the Moroccan government, and indeed the Moroccan people, don’t like Iran’s support of forces that Moroccans view as an existential threat to their country. For that reason, the Moroccan government has, unwisely but understandably, mounted a mendacious propaganda campaign against Iran focusing on Iran’s alleged “Shia radicalism.” That propaganda campaign grossly exaggerates the Shia aspect of Iran’s Islamic revolution, demonizes Shia Islam, implicitly embraces the Wahhabi Islam of the Gulf despots, and contributes to the sectarianism that prevents the Islamic Ummah from unifying in support of its own interests.

Even before moving to Morocco, I had enough conversations with Moroccans to be shocked by some of their common misconceptions about the Islamic Republic of Iran. Some Moroccans seem to think that every Iranian is a Shia extremist who flagellates himself on Ashura, spits on the graves of three of the four Rightly-Guided Caliphs, engages in promiscuity under the cover of “temporary marriage,” and tirelessly devotes himself to converting Sunni Muslims in general, and Moroccans in particular, to these and other deviant beliefs and practices.

As a former university lecturer in Islamic Studies who has been to Iran nine time since 2013, I find myself in the uncomfortable position of a convert forced to lecture to natural-born Muslims, who often seem to think that they are the ones who should be lecturing me. When I tell them that only a minuscule minority of Iranians flagellate themselves on Ashura, despise the three caliphs, and practice temporary marriage, they evince shock and bafflement, because their government propagandists have been promoting the lies for decades. “But…but…I saw some YouTube video where an extremist Shia guy was defending those practices! And I’ve seen videos of the flagellators flagellating themselves!” Indeed you have, because the minuscule minority of “radical Shia” Iranians who do such things get massively boosted by the Zionist-owned algorithms. The Zionists WANT you to think that all Iranians are that crazy, in the same way they want Westerners to think that all Sunni Muslims are as crazy as Anjem Choudary, the London-based MI6 nutjob who used to get massive and completely undeserved coverage in the [[[Western mainstream media.]]]

All of the Supreme Leaders of Iran, as well as leaders of allied movements like Hezbollah, have strongly advised their Shia followers NOT to flagellate themselves and NOT to insult caliphs. Though they claim that temporary marriage is better than promiscuity, and not haram, they do not encourage it, and fewer than 10% of Iranians practice it. I am sorry to say that the percentage of Moroccans who have engaged in worse things than temporary marriage is probably higher than that.

Moroccans also have been brainwashed into thinking that Iran is monolithically Shia, rather in the same way that Morocco is monolithically Maliki. That’s not true. While it is true that about 90% of Iranians are Shia, the other 10% includes Sunni Muslims, various denominations of Christians, Jews, and even Zoroastrians. The only “religion” that isn’t tolerated in Iran is Bahai, because it is viewed as a Zionist cult, not a religion. The Iranian government supports and to some extent sponsors all of these non-Shia groups. In short, there is considerably more religious freedom and diversity in Iran than there is here in Morocco.

That surprises Moroccans, because they have been browbeaten into believing that Iran is 100% Shia fanatics who are maniacally trying to convert everyone, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, to Shiism. A handful of very minor, lightly-funded Shia proselytizing efforts in Morocco have been grossly exaggerated by the propagandists, who cast these laughably insignificant campaigns as threats to Morocco’s Sunni identity. In reality, over the past 50 years, Saudi Arabia has probably spent more money per month pushing Wahhabi Islam in Morocco than Iran has spent on comparable pro-Shia efforts over those entire 50 years!

And globally, the discrepancy even greater. Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf oil tyrannies have probably spent thousands of times more money pushing Wahhabism than Iran has spent pushing Shiism.

Yes, Iran does sometimes “meddle” in other countries. But its main focus is not on promoting Shiism. It’s on supporting oppressed people against their oppressors. The Iranians don’t care whether you’re Sunni or Shia, whether you’re Christian or Muslim or agnostic or atheist. If they see you as a member of an oppressed group, they will help you push back against your oppressor. That’s why Iran is the main sponsor of the Sunni Palestinian resistance group Hamas. That’s why Iran supports the AnsarUllah movement in Yemen, whose religious interpretations are closer to Sunni Islam than to Twelver Shia Islam. That’s why Iran supports the Baathists and leftists and Alawites and Sunnis who make up the anti-Zionist coalition in Syria. That’s why Iran supports the Christians of Armenia against their Azerbaijani Shia oppressors. And that’s why Iran has supported the left-wing Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela, as well as aligning itself with “liberation theology” Catholicism in Latin America.

It’s really too bad that the Moroccan government echoes Zionist propaganda lies about Iran and its majority religion, Shia Islam. Morocco’s predominant school of thought, Maliki Sufism, is a robust and attractive interpretation. It can stand on its own two feet, defend itself truthfully, and argue persuasively against other approaches. It doesn’t need to rely on Zionist-fueled mendacity.

By falsely portraying Morocco’s geopolitical conflict with Iran as a sectarian religious issue, the Moroccan authorities are shooting themselves in the foot. While their lies about Shia Islam have gotten some traction among low-information (i.e. stupid and/or uninformed) Moroccans, the smarter people here see through the lies and ask themselves:

“If this is really a Shia vs. Sunni issue, as the propagandists insist, then why is it that the ‘Shia’ are the ones defending the Muslim Ummah in Palestine and Lebanon and pretty much everywhere else, while the ‘Sunnis’ are betraying the Ummah in the most cowardly and disgusting fashion imaginable—in some cases even making common cause with the genocidal Zionist Dajjal? Maybe the Shia are the real Muslims! Maybe the Sunni interpretation of Islam is mistaken!”

But the problem isn’t with Sunni Islam per se. As Hamas has shown, Sunni Muslims can be just as courageous and heroic and righteous as Shia Muslims.

The problem is that the political leaders of Sunni-majority countries are almost all some combination of pragmatic and cowardly…not to mention corrupt and un-Islamic. When a good one arises, like Imran Khan in Pakistan, the [[[Epstein class]]] quickly makes him a martyr.

But that isn’t due to some inherent defect in Sunni Islam. It’s really just an accident of history. There have been plenty of quiescent apolitical, and/or corrupt Shias throughout history, just as there have been plenty of noble, courageous, and spotless Sunnis. It just so happens that due to a long list of historical factors, the Shia leadership today is, by and large, better than its Sunni counterpart.

Personally, I think the best approach today is to follow Sheikh Imran Hosein’s advice to just be a Muslim, and forget all the other labels. That helps us overcome the divide-and-conquer strategy that [[[the Epstein class]]] is foisting on us.

Meanwhile, I wish the Moroccan authorities would stop lying to their people, and instead mount a more truthful defense of their own views and interests. If you don’t like the fact that Algeria (a Sunni country, by the way) is trying to steal the Moroccan Sahara, and Iran is supporting Algeria, why not drop the lies about Shiism and instead argue (truthfully) that the Polisario is not a bona fide movement of oppressed people fighting for a righteous cause, but rather a pawn in a geopolitical game aimed at keeping Morocco and Algeria fighting each other for the benefit of the [[[global Epstein class]]]? That way, you might have a chance of convincing Iran, and maybe even Algeria someday, to change their policies.

I can easily imagine Iran, after it emerges victorious from its current heroic war against the Great and Little Satans, rethinking its misguided support for the Polisario, and instead helping broker peace and restored relations between Morocco and Algeria. That would require Morocco tilting a bit further away from the [[[Epstein-class-owned]]] West and towards the Global South and BRICS axis, which of course is the wave of the future. China is already a bigger Moroccan trading partner than the US, and the trend is accelerating, so this is not an unrealistic possibility.

In closing, I must admit that one of the things I love about Morocco, alongside the food, hospitality, family values, café culture, and Sufi-tinged approach to Islam, is its relatively laid-back attitude towards diversity of opinion. If I were living in any other Arab country, I would hesitate to publish an essay accusing my host government of propaganda lies about such a sensitive subject as religious identity. But Morocco, though it may not be a free speech paradise—anybody who poses a genuine threat to social peace or government authority runs a risk here, as everywhere else—is a pretty tolerant place in which people arguing thoughtfully for whatever perspective or cause are generally left alone unless there is a very strong reason not to. Indeed, Moroccans welcome lively intellectual debates, and (unlike certain other Arabs, not to mention Jews) are not at all eager to incarcerate or persecute people with whom they disagree.

That’s one reason that ordinary Moroccans feel free to uninhibitedly express their fervent support for Iran’s heroic struggle against the [[[global Epstein class]]]. Even decades of propaganda, and ubiquitous Zionist-owned algorithms, couldn’t convince them not to.