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Morocco and Israel signed cooperation agreements yesterday on the sidelines of a visit by an American-Israeli delegation that had arrived on the first commercial flight from Tel Aviv to Rabat, which culminated in an agreement to normalize relations mediated by the United States.
The plane, which took off from Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv, evacuated an American-Israeli delegation led by President Donald Trump’s adviser, son-in-law Jared Kushner, and Israeli Prime Minister Meir Ben Shabat’s special adviser.
The delegation was received at the Rabat-Salé airport, two local officials in the capital and the United States ambassador to Morocco, away from the festive atmosphere that accompanied their takeoff from Ben Gurion airport. The visiting program includes a closed-door meeting with King Mohammed VI.
This visit comes after Morocco announced on December 10 the resumption of its relations with Israel, in parallel to the announcement of the outgoing US president to recognize Moroccan sovereignty over the disputed Western Sahara with the Front for the Liberation of Sakia El Hamra and the Valley of Gold (Polisario).
Upon their arrival in Rabat, members of the delegation took pity on the soul of the late King Hassan II, father of Mohammed VI and grandfather, Mohammed V, on a visit to the mausoleum named after the latter in the historic Hassan Mosque of the capital.
At the end of the visit, the two parties signed four agreements last night, including the opening of a direct air route between the two countries, the schedule of which has not yet been determined, linking their banking systems, creating travel visas for diplomats from the two countries, in addition to water management, according to official Israeli sources.
The resumption of Moroccan-Israeli relations is also expected to allow the implementation of “investments worth billions of dollars,” a US official within the delegation said in a press release during the trip, considering that “Morocco it is a gateway to Africa and has huge investments in the climate field. “
“We are here to give a strong boost to relations between our two countries … and to establish relations with other Arab and Islamic countries,” said Ophir Gendelman, member of the Israeli delegation, in charge of the prime minister’s office. Israeli Benjamin Netanyahu.
The Israeli side aspires to establish “full diplomatic relations” with Morocco, according to Israeli sources, knowing that the Kingdom had previously established relations with Israel, where some 700,000 people of Moroccan origin live, through two liaison offices in the two countries after the signing of the 1993 Oslo peace agreement.
However, Morocco officially broke these relations after the Palestinian uprising in 2000. It is planned to reopen the two liaison offices in the two countries in accordance with the current agreement.
The visit also aims to showcase the Trump administration’s accomplishments in Middle East diplomacy weeks before President-elect Joe Biden arrives at the White House to succeed Trump.
“This is a historic trip and an important advance in the direction of peace,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a message to members of the delegation when the plane landed in Morocco.
If the US recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara resulted in widespread satisfaction and welcome in Morocco, then the resumption of relations with Israel provoked mixed reactions between welcome and denunciation in a country where the Palestinian question is considered a “national question” together with the question of Western Sahara.
Some thirty parties and associations against normalization with Israel, from the left and Islamic currents, expressed yesterday in a statement their rejection of any visit by the protector of Zionism in its crimes against humanity in Palestine, Jared Kushner, to our country, and to desecrate the purified land of our homeland.
Last week, the Moroccan authorities banned two demonstrations to protest against the resumption of relations with Israel in Rabat.
(AFP)
