Morocco, Israel normalize ties
Israel and Morocco have agreed to establish diplomatic relations, US President Donald Trump announced on Thursday.
Morocco became the fourth Arab country to normalize ties with Israel in four months, following the Abraham Accords with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan.
Israel and Morocco plan to reopen economic liaison offices, which were closed in 2002, and work quickly to exchange ambassadors and begin direct flights, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.
White House Senior Adviser Jared Kushner said normalization “comes on the heels of four years of very, very hard work and very intense diplomacy.”
"The team, led by Jared Kushner, has worked on this deal for over a year," Avi Berkowitz, Special Representative for International Negotiations, who took part in negotiating the normalization agreement, told The Jerusalem Post. He added that he hopes that the deal will lead to a warm peace between the two countries.
The move is the culmination of a successful year of upgrading Israel’s relations with Arab and Muslim countries, beginning with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visiting Chad and meeting Sudan’s leader in Uganda, the Abraham Accords, as well as the warming relations and cooperation with Saudi Arabia, in addition to a number of other Arab states.
Long before that, Morocco had a relationship with Israeli intelligence agencies. Moroccan King Hassan II gave Israel recordings of an Arab League meeting that helped Israel prepare for the Six Day War in 1967, according to former IDF intelligence chief Shlomo Gazit and the former intelligence officer and cabinet minister Rafi Eitan. That same year, the Mossad helped Morocco abduct a dissident from France.
[Jerusalem Post]
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Israelis of Moroccan descent celebrated Thursday's decision by Morocco to normalize relations with Israel. "We who were born in Morocco, we and the people of Morocco all over the world, have been waiting so long for this day," said Moroccan-born Aryeh Deri, Israel's interior minister.
Transportation Minister Miri Regev said: "Generations of Moroccan Jews have dreamed of peace with the country where they were born and where our culture is so deeply rooted. May the blessing of Allah come upon us and upon them."
(Times of Israel)
Behind the announcement Thursday that Israel and Morocco will establish formal diplomatic ties lies almost six decades of close, secret cooperation on intelligence and military matters. Israel has helped Morocco obtain weapons and intelligence-gathering gear and learn how to use them. One million Israelis are from Morocco or descended from those who were.
In 1965, when Arab leaders and military commanders met in Casablanca, Morocco allowed Israel's Mossad to bug their meeting rooms and private suites. The eavesdropping gave Israel unprecedented insight into Arab thinking, capabilities and plans, which was vital to Israel in preparing for the 1967 war. A decade later, Morocco became the site of secret meetings between Israel and Egypt ahead of the 1978 Camp David accords.
(New York Times)
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