War in Gaza brings Morocco closer to Israel

“The war in Gaza and the disastrous situation in the Middle East have led to a freeze in cooperation between Arab countries and Israel,” Youssef Amrani, Morocco‘s ambassador to the United States, told Al Hurra television on 13 February.

This situation seems to be true for some countries, such as Saudi Arabia, but certainly not for Morocco, which has deepened its ties with Israel without even hiding it.

The latest example is the purchase, announced in early February, of 36 Atmos 2000 self-propelled artillery systems from the Israeli manufacturer Elbit Systems.

Morocco is once again turning away from one of its traditional suppliers, France, from which it had purchased in 2020 the Caesar system, which is manufactured by KNDS and is similar to its Israeli competitor. These are cannons that are especially useful in the desert thanks to their mobility.

Last July, Morocco’s Royal Armed Forces had already given up replacing their Mohammed VI-A and Mohammed VI-B spy satellites, manufactured by European companies Airbus and Thales, with “made in France” models.

The Moroccan army turned instead to Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) to change them. The Israeli company will provide in four years two latest-generation Ofek-13s for $1bn. This is the largest contract signed so far with Israel.

Deals with Morocco are coming one after another for the Israeli arms industry, with the purchase of equipment such as Heron drones, the Skylock Dome to shoot down unmanned enemy aircraft, and the Barak MX anti-missile system.

“In recent months, the Moroccan authorities have made gestures that no other Arab country, nor western states such as Spain, have allowed themselves to do towards Israel.”

In 2023, Israel was already the kingdom’s third-largest supplier (11 percent of orders), behind the US and France, according to the Stockholm Peace Research Institute. At this pace, France will soon be ousted from its second place.

Business as usual:

Morocco and Israel have always had good relations in secret, especially since the 1980s. Shimon Peres, then prime minister, even went to Rabat in 1986 to meet secretly with King Hassan II, father of the current monarch Mohammed VI.

The two countries formally re-established their diplomatic relations in December 2020, when Morocco joined the Abraham Accords at the request of US President Donald Trump. In exchange of this normalisation deal, the latter recognised Rabat’s sovereignty claims over Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony that Morocco seized between 1975 and 1979.

Members of the Israeli government then kept coming to Rabat to sign agreements. Defence Minister Benny Gantz visited the kingdom for the first time in November 2021 to strike a deal on defence, industrial cooperation in the field of armaments, and military training. His trip was predated by that of then Israeli chief of staff Aviv Kochavi.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was even scheduled to visit the kingdom in the autumn of 2023, but the invasion of Gaza disrupted all plans.

Once the war began, Israeli visitors disappeared from Morocco or became more discreet, such as Amir Peretz, IAI’s chairman, who visited the kingdom in the summer of 2024 to sign the contract for the Ofek-13 satellites. But business continued strongly.

In recent months, the Moroccan authorities have made gestures that no other Arab country, nor western states such as Spain, have allowed themselves to do towards Israel.

In early June 2024, the INS Komemiyut, a large landing craft belonging to the Israeli navy, which was heading from Pensacola (United States) to Haifa, made a stopover at the port of Tangier to refuel after the Spanish government had refused the vessel permission to use its ports.

In December, Morocco agreed to repatriate Nassim Kalibat, a Palestinian citizen of Israel accused of terrorism and arrested in the kingdom, although there is no extradition treaty between the two countries.

Strong popular opposition:

However, Morocco is undoubtedly the North African country – and probably the Arab country – where pro-Palestinian marches have been the most frequent and numerous.

Organised by the Moroccan Front for the Support of Palestine and Against Normalisation (FSPCN), a coalition dominated by the Islamist party Al Adl Wal Ihsane (Justice and Charity), they have taken place throughout the kingdom, including in its most remote corners. In large cities such as Rabat and Casablanca, they brought together hundreds of thousands of people onto the streets.

The demonstrators, who are still taking to the streets, are demanding in particular the repeal of the agreements with Israel. An Arab Barometer poll revealed last June that only 13 percent of Moroccans support their country’s normalisation with Israel, while they were still 31 percent before the war.

The protests have also reached campuses, including Mohammed VI Polytechnic University, a private institution attended by the elite, where Crown Prince Moulay Hassan studies.

Last May, 1,256 students sent a letter to its president, Hicham El Habti, demanding “the severing of ties” with its eight Israeli academic partners. To no avail: these ties were maintained.

Moroccan authorities have tolerated most protests and, judging by the kingdom’s human rights standards, the repression of those who most strongly opposed normalisation was relatively mild.

The latest to be convicted was Ismail Lghazaoui, an activist with the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement. He was sentenced to a year in prison for “incitement to commit crimes and offenses by electronic means” after calling for a boycott of Carrefour stores, accused of profiting from Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands, and asking Tangier port workers to block two cargo ships of the Maersk company, suspected of transporting military equipment to Israel.

David Govrin, the former head of the Israeli liaison office in Rabat, for his part hoped that the Moroccan authorities would also prohibit demonstrations from ending with the public burning of the Israeli flag.

Netanyahu’s government has done the Moroccan royal palace, which is the real centre of power, a few favours so as to save the monarchy from being in too awkward a situation with public opinion. In particular, Israel authorised several shipments of humanitarian aid and medical supplies from Morocco to Gaza, which began in March 2024 with an air drop. These shipments were widely publicised in Morocco.

The Palestinian Authority (PA) also helped to rehabilitate the palace. Hussein al-Sheikh, PA minister of civil affairs, recently expressed his “great appreciation” to King Mohammed VI and the Moroccan government “for their continuous efforts to resolve the crisis of the Palestinian funds withheld by Israel.” Since October 2023, Israel has been withholding $1bn in Palestinian tax revenues under various pretexts.

What are the costs?:

Why has Morocco been so keen to preserve, or even strengthen, its ties with Israel, while Israel’s war on Gaza is so unpopular? During the second Palestinian Intifada (2000-2005), Rabat did the opposite by breaking off diplomatic relations with Israel established in 1994.

There is probably a double explanation for this. Morocco is a country at war, even if the one it is waging against the Polisario Front, a political-military movement that claims the independence of Western Sahara, is of very low intensity. Behind the Sahrawi guerrillas, however, is Algeria, Africa’s leading military power.

In its relationship with Israel, “the military component is very important because it goes beyond weapons,” explained Intissar Fakir, director of the North Africa programme at the Middle East Institute.

“Netanyahu’s government has done the Moroccan royal palace, which is the real centre of power, a few favours so as to save the monarchy from being in too awkward a situation with public opinion.”

“There is a desire to share experiences and a deeper commitment in terms of military cooperation,” she added. Faced with Morocco’s enemies, who are also Israel’s enemies, the latter is compromising itself more than the kingdom’s European partners have done.

The depth of ties with Israel also allows doors to be opened in Washington. Rabat needs the US to consolidate its hold on Western Sahara. Trump had already taken a big step in 2020, but Moroccan diplomacy would like him to do more.

Since 2007, Rabat has proposed a succinct autonomy plan for Western Sahara within the framework of Moroccan sovereignty. Since 2022, this solution has garnered a certain amount of support, notably from Spain and recently from France.

Rabat is now hoping for a “sort of definitive international blessing on ‘its’ Sahara” at a major conference sponsored by the United States, which should be held in the United Arab Emirates“, Hugh Lovatt, policy officer at the European Council of Foreign Relations, told Middle East Eye. “Diplomatic contacts are underway to this end,” he added.

In December 2020, Trump made a deal with King Mohammed VI: recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara in exchange for the reestablishment of relations with Israel. What would be the price to be paid by Morocco this time?

Lovatt has no doubts about it: the price for Rabat is “to play a certain role in Gaza, once the conflict is over, and with the agreement of the involved parties”. After all, former President Joe Biden’s administration had already suggested, in May 2024, the creation of an Arab peacekeeping force including Morocco, Egypt and the UAE.

The press release published by the State Department on 27 January following a phone call between Secretary of State Marco Rubio and his Moroccan counterpart, Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita, shows that the discussion mainly focused on “the implementation of the ceasefire agreement in Gaza, the release of the hostages, and Morocco’s leadership in contributing humanitarian aid for Gaza.”

Bilateral relations have been relegated to the back seat.

To preserve all its chances of success with the Trump administration, Moroccan diplomacy took four days to react to the US Republican president’s plan to empty Gaza of its inhabitants to turn it into a luxury seaside resort in the Eastern Mediterranean, and to distribute the two million Palestinians between Egypt and Jordan.

According to a report cited by Israeli TV channel N12, Morocco has been one of the countries considered for resettling the Palestinians, along with Puntland, an autonomous territory of Somalia, and Somaliland, a self-proclaimed republic in northern Somalia.

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Bourita did not dare to openly criticise the proposal, unlike other Arab or European leaders. On 9 February, he limited himself to recalling that “Morocco always supports the unity of the Palestinian people and territory as well as the creation of a Palestinian state.”

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Maghrebi.org. Ignacio Cembrero is a former journalist for the Spanish newspapers El País and El Mundo, for which he covered the Maghreb between 1999 and 2016. He continues to write about the region in El Confidencial. He is also the author of several books on the relations between Spain and Morocco and on Muslim immigration in Spain.

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