The Pegasus Affair: Will Le Monde and Forbidden Stories Apologize to Morocco?

European MPs will come back from vacation to deal with a bombshell: no less than 22 European countries use Pegasus to spy on their own. I hope the same MPs will hold European media accountable for accusing countries like Morocco of spying on Europe without a shred of evidence.

Haaretz reported on its August 9th edition (Omar Benjakob, “Pegasus Spyware Maker NSO Has 22 Clients in the European Union. And It’s Not Alone” that, on their recent visit to Israel, members of the European Parliament Committee of Inquiry on Pegasus members learned from the NSO, the company that manufactures the now-famous/notorious spyware, that it “has active contracts with 12 of the 27 European Union members”  and that  “the company is now working with 22 security and enforcement organizations in the EU.” The revelation came as a shock to the Committee, whose intent may have been to see if non-European countries have been using Pegasus to spy on European politicians and journalists.

Yet, what is even mid-boggling is the convenient silence of media like Le Monde, El Pais, and others who had accused Morocco (along with other non-European countries) in July 2021 of using the spyware to hack the telephones of French President Emmanuel Macron and Spanish PM, Pedro Sanchez, in addition to French and Spanish journalists, among others. Forbidden Stories and Amnesty International, the organizations behind the infamous revelations, are looking elsewhere. The silence is not only telling but revealing of the political motives behind the unfounded revelations.

The consortium of 17 media outlets and organizations that had made the revelations last year were dead sure that Morocco was one of the clients of NSO and a recipient of Pegasus spyware which it uses to spy on foreigners and nationals alike; one year later, all of these have not only failed to provide evidence for their accusations against Morocco, but what the EU Parliament found out is that the espionage is made at home in Europe and that a big number of EU countries and organizations are clients of NSO.

Some Spanish newspapers had insinuated before then, that maybe el CNI, the Spanish Intelligence Body, is the one spying on both politicians and Catalan secessionist leaders (Ignacio Esaclar “¿Quién espió al presidente del Gobierno? » El Diario, May 2, 2022). What is sure is that el CNI uses Pegasus and so do 21 other EU countries directly or through espionage and intelligence organizations.

The explosive news as reported by Haaretz got the attention of neither Le Monde nor of El Pais. Amnesty did not even mention it and Forbidden Stories has not updated its news feed on its website. The Haaretz revelation has deconstructed the story of “oppressive regimes using Pegasus to spy on politicians and journalists in European democracies.” The story has been debunked; the narrative is not as melodramatic as it was a year ago.

Morocco has not been cited by NSO as a recipient of its Pegasus spyware; but the democracies that are under attack, per le Monde and El Pais stories, are using it big time. As is said in Arabic,” the magic has backfired on the magician”; the alleged victim (European democracies) is far from being innocent and the supposed malevolent foe (Morocco) has been unfairly attacked. Afraid to lose face and credibility, these media and organizations have taken refuge in a summer silence waiting for the storm to weather down. Not only that, but if they cover the story, it may betray another proof that they do not have any evidence against Morocco’s use of the spyware. The legal ramifications are well-known especially that the Moroccan Government is adamant on bringing the case before

European national courts to seek justice for the harm done by these very media outlets and organizations.

The other reason why Le Monde, El Pais, and others do not cover the story is because it deconstructs their anti-Moroccan editorial line. Their purpose is less professionally journalistic than it is politically motivated. That is a line we, as Moroccans, have gotten used to over the years. It dates back to the time of Hassan II: the leftwing rhetoric of these media never rimed with the political choices of the Moroccan monarchy and Moroccans in general.

Their paternalistic attitude towards Morocco, wanting to dictate political choices on its people, smacks of neo-colonialist attitudes and is paralleled only by their enthusiasm and admiration for an Algerian Revolution that has, to their chagrin, failed miserably to deliver on its promises and has ended up eating its own children, as we have seen in the nineties of the last century and the more recent repression of the Hirak, the pro-democracy movement that has been protesting to demand a regime change and an end to military rule in Algeria.

I hope that European MPs, who have justly set up a committee to investigate the affair, shed more light on the issue to such a point that Le Monde, El Pais, Amnesty, Forbidden Stories, and others see the painful truth for what it is: the clients of Pegasus are European par excellence, the victims too, their number is huge and the use is extensive.

European MPs will probably find ways and pass laws to protect citizens, politicians and activists. But they will teach these above-mentioned media outlets and organization the lesson of their life: take down your paternalistic and neo-colonial gown, whereby you give yourself the right to target and attack other countries,  and talk about cleaning your own backyard before telling the others that theirs is squalid.

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