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Number 555, carried by the first official direct flight between Israel and Morocco, which arrived in Rabat on Tuesday with an American and Israeli delegation led by Jared Kushner, an adviser to the American president.
When El Al’s plane landed in Morocco, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke with the pilots, as well as the Israeli and American delegations. He said: “I would like, through you, to send my regards to the King of Morocco who is doing something historic.”
Netanyahu said: “Welcome. Talking to you is very moving for me. This is a historic air flight and another advance towards peace, in the sense of real peace, characterized by mutual respect and derived from force. , and peace in exchange for peace “.
Transport and Road Safety Minister Miri Regev said: “As a child of the Moroccan Jewish community in Israel, I consider this day to be a particularly influential day for all the Jewish people, and for me personally.”
The US delegation included Washington’s envoy to the Middle East, Avi Berkovitch, and the head of the US’s international investment division, Adam Bowler.
The Israeli delegation consisted of the National Security Advisor, Meir Ben Shabat, of Moroccan descent, the Director General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Alon Auschbiz, and officials from various Israeli ministries.
Before the plane took off from Ben Gurion Airport, Kouchner said: “He hopes this flight will lead to a similar start to the one between Israel and the United Arab Emirates.”
He noted that the breakthrough in Arab-Israeli relations in recent months has come true, adding that “the first direct flight from Riyadh to Tel Aviv, which carried President Trump in 2017, was a huge effort to obtain the necessary permits, but the situation now is different, considering that we are. ” We are witnessing a return to what was before, which is the coexistence of Jews and Muslims side by side. “
Kouchner confirmed that joint agreements will be signed for the two countries so that peace is warm.
Regarding Ben Shabat, he said that his country’s goal is to translate political agreements into practical agreements on the ground in the fields of aviation, agriculture, economics and water, considering that history is being written before our eyes. .
Morocco is the fourth country to join the Abraham Agreement, after the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan.
A US official, who was on board the plane bound for Morocco, revealed that other countries could soon join these agreements without clarifying whether they are Arab or Islamic countries.
He added that work is being done to include these countries, and considered that each country has different demands and concerns, and that what the US administration did in the last period was listen to it and work to comply with them, which led to the Ibrahim agreements.
The source, who preferred not to be named, confirmed that if the work continues in this way later, the Middle East will change for the better and will be based on cooperation and common interests among the peoples.
And Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said during his meeting with Kouchner on the eve of his departure for Rabat that “Ibrahim’s initiative had already caused a whole series of dysfunctions in the sense of peace with the Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan, and now peace with Morocco “.
He mentioned that there are four peace agreements in four months, and more will come. “I believe that we will witness many other peace agreements if we act in accordance with this policy,” he said.
Lior Ben Dor, head of the Middle East department of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, told Al-Hurra that although relations between Israel and Morocco had existed since 1994, they came to a halt with the outbreak of the second intifada in 2000.
Even during the last twenty years, the two parties maintained contacts and cooperation in various fields, especially tourism. The equivalent of fifty thousand Israelis visited Morocco in the past year, and Ben Dor expected this number to increase with the establishment of official relations.
He stressed that Rabat’s respect for Israeli passports indicates mutual trust between the two parties, even without formal relations.
In addition, Israel received delegations from Maghreb civil society during the same period who met with official figures from the country, including ministers and members of the Knesset, and visited the Holocaust Memorial Foundation.
Ben Dor said that since the announcement of the establishment of official relations between the two countries, businessmen from Israel and Morocco began to make contact with him and others in the Foreign Ministry to study possibilities of undertaking joint projects.
Morocco had opened a liaison office in 1994 in Tel Aviv, and it still stands despite the fact that it has not functioned in the last two decades.
After this visit, the reopening of the liaison offices is expected, provided that embassies are opened and later full diplomatic relations are established.
The number of the Maghreb Jewish community in Israel is around one million, some of whom hold high-ranking positions such as the Minister of Transport, Miri Regev, the Minister of the Interior, Ariya Deri, and the Minister of the Ministry of Defense. , Mikhail Bitoun.
A spokesman for the prime minister, Ophir Gendelman, told Al-Hurra that his country is eager to build a bridge of relations between the two countries, to which the Maghreb Jews living in Israel and Morocco contribute.
This visit will last approximately 12 hours, provided that you return to Israel immediately before beginning to impose mandatory measures for all returnees from outside the country to remain in quarantine in isolated hotels to prevent the spread of the Corona virus.
Regarding the Palestinian file, a US official who was on board the flight explained that the door is still open to return to the negotiating table, and considered that repeating the first one will not give results, but that new ways must be found to change the equation of conflict.
