The visit comes eight months after the normalization of relations between Israel and Morocco. The head of Israeli diplomacy, Yair Lapid, arrived in Morocco on Wednesday August 11 for a first visit to the kingdom by a senior official of the Hebrew state. Mr. Lapid is expected to meet his Moroccan counterpart, Nasser Bourita, during the day, before opening a diplomatic representation in Rabat on Thursday.
“We landed in Morocco. Proud to represent Israel during this historic visit ”, he wrote on Twitter on the landing of the plane of the Israeli national company El Al. Morocco’s Jewish community is the largest in North Africa (around 3,000 people) and some 700,000 Israelis of Moroccan descent have often kept very strong ties with their country of origin.
The kingdom was the fourth Arab country – after the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan – to normalize its relations with Israel in 2020, under the leadership of Donald Trump’s administration. A standardization that took place in return for an American recognition of its “Sovereignty” in the disputed territory of Western Sahara.
Facilitated travel between the two countries
The Israeli delegation is expected at the royal mausoleum where Kings Hassan II and Mohammed V are buried, before the bilateral meeting between MM. Lapid and Bourita. Three cooperation agreements are expected to be signed on Wednesday, the Moroccan foreign ministry reported, without giving further details.
On Thursday, Israeli officials will visit the Beth-El synagogue in Casablanca (west) after the inauguration of the Israel liaison office in Rabat. This first official visit comes a little over two weeks after the launch of direct commercial airlines between the two countries.
Since then, the first Israeli tourists have flocked to the country’s tourist capital, Marrakech, and the megalopolis of Casablanca. Before the pandemic, between 50,000 and 70,000 Israeli tourists, mostly of Moroccan origin, visited the kingdom each year but had to transit through other countries.
A first direct flight of a plane carrying Israeli officials was operated in December 2020 between Tel Aviv and Rabat and bilateral agreements were signed in the wake, including in particular economic cooperation.
In July, Morocco and Israel also signed a cyber defense cooperation agreement in Rabat, covering “Operational cooperation, research, development and information sharing”, the Israeli national cybersecurity directorate said on Facebook.
Recently, the kingdom was accused of using spyware Pegasus, designed by Israeli company NSO, according to an investigation by an international media consortium. Rabat categorically denied what he called“False and unfounded allegations” and initiated legal proceedings.
A “betrayal”, according to the Palestinians
The Palestinians denounced the normalization agreements between Israel and Arab countries, described as ” treason “, the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict having been until then considered as a sine qua non for any normalization.
In the wake of the announcement of normalization with Israel, the King of Morocco, Mohammed VI, assured the Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, the continuation of “Morocco’s permanent and sustained commitment to the just Palestinian cause”.
The Palestinian cause continues to mobilize civil society, some extreme left parties and Islamists, who remain opposed to any normalization of relations with the Hebrew state. This visit is “Considered an insult to Moroccans and a betrayal of Palestine and its people”, criticized the National Action Group for Palestine in Morocco in a statement released Monday.
The two countries maintained official relations from 1993 to 2000, when the second Intifada broke out in the Palestinian territories against the Israeli occupation. Present since Antiquity, the Jewish community of Morocco was strengthened in the XVe century by the expulsion of the Jews from Spain. It reached about 250,000 souls in the late 1940s, or about 10% of the population. Many left after the creation of Israel in 1948.
