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Marrakech – A Moroccan journalist and pro-Israel advocate, Amine Ayoub, claims he was detained for 32 hours in Cuba due to his pro-Israel activism. According to Israeli news outlet Ynetnews, what began as a family trip turned into an ordeal when Cuban authorities questioned him about Israeli stamps in his passport.
Ayoub, who is a Middle East Forum fellow, told Ynetnews he planned to meet his brother, who lives in Houston, in the Bahamas. He decided to travel through Cuba as it was “the closest place” instead of going through Brazil or Panama.
“I thought with all their speeches about peace and all the good things they say about themselves, it would be fine,” Ayoub told the Israeli outlet. “I didn’t know Cuba was going to hate me and treat me like this.”
‘They treated me like a terrorist’
Upon arrival in Havana, Ayoub says authorities immediately targeted him. “When I landed, they treated me like a terrorist,” he said. He was held for four to five hours, questioned intensively about his Israeli visa stamps and his connections to Israel.
“They held me there like a criminal,” he testified. “They did it in a trick. They said, ‘Oh, let us see your reservations,’ so they took my phone – and then held it for a couple of hours. I don’t know what they did with it. I probably need to change my phone. I do a lot of my work on that phone.”
Cuban officials eventually allowed him to enter the country for his planned three-day stay. However, when he attempted to depart for the Bahamas, authorities prevented him from leaving.
“Some civilian just showed up and took my passport. ‘No, you cannot go to the Bahamas,’ they told me,” Ayoub recounted. He claims he received no formal explanation despite having a valid Bahamian visa.
The Cubans claimed that “the Bahamians don’t want you” – yet his Bahamian visa was still valid. Instead, he was ordered to return to Morocco immediately and placed in a holding room with metal chairs for over 30 hours. “No food, no water,” he said. “If I had to go to the bathroom, a police officer followed me. It was a crazy experience, those 32 hours.”
‘A dangerous time for pro-Israel work’
Ayoub believes his detention was directly related to his pro-Israel activism. “That’s what actually explains it, with all those questions they asked and the way they treated me,” he said.
He notes that the Cubans seemed careful to avoid leaving any record – no forms, no documentation of the detention. “They have these techniques to not have any record of what they did to me.”
The ordeal ended when he was escorted onto a plane by the chief of police at Havana airport. “I still have physical pain from sleeping on that place for 32 hours,” he said. “There are psychological effects, too. I’m still disturbed because I don’t know what those guys wanted. They could’ve probably hurt me.”
“This is a dangerous time for pro-Israel work, for pro-Israel activists,” Ayoub warned. “It’s a dangerous time to travel. A lot of my work, I might be banned in many countries, including Turkey.”
“Imagine if I were transferred to Turkey from Cuba and not to France – imagine what would have happened to me. I write a lot about Islamism in Turkey. This is a dangerous time, but we have to do it. We have to talk about the truth and against evil,” he concluded.
Cuba has maintained a strong anti-Israel stance for decades. The country broke diplomatic relations with the Hebrew state in 1973 and recognizes the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) as the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.
During a UN debate in January 2024, the Cuban government demanded “the end of the genocide” against Palestinians and proposed an international protection mission for Gaza.
More recently, in July, Cuba joined the Hague Group’s ministerial summit, which decided to support arrest warrants against Israeli leaders and ban military vessels from Israel.
Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel has been explicit in his position. “The violence in Palestine is the consequence of decades of Israeli practices of illegal occupation and colonization,” he stated in 2023. This June, he condemned “in the strongest terms” an Israeli airstrike against Iran.
Loving Israel as a currency for American favor
While Ayoub connects his detention to his pro-Israel activism, the Cuban government has not made any public comments about the incident.
Yet in Morocco, public opinion remains overwhelmingly pro-Palestinian – reflected in steadfast activism, journalism, and weekly demonstrations held nationwide since October 7, 2023.
This backdrop casts a harsh light on self-appointed “missionaries” who defend Israel with fanatical zeal, sometimes at the expense of their own country’s interests.
The recent vicious assault on Ambassador Youssef El Amrani, Morocco’s representative to the United States since October 2023, and his wife Asma Lamrabet, by Mustapha Ezzarghani – president of the Moroccan-Israeli Friendship Association, an American organization “working to strengthen relations between the Kingdom of Morocco and the State of Israel” – is a case in point.
It was a grotesque attempt to force Morocco into submission under the guise of “friendship” with Israel. Such attacks on the kingdom’s diplomatic independence are nothing short of neo-colonial aggression, exposing a colonial mindset that still festers beneath the rhetoric of partnership.
In this climate, some support for Israel appears less about principle than about chasing personal gain, knowing full well that only a handful will compete in this race to ingratiate themselves, convinced that “loving Israel” is a shortcut to American favor.
