Israel’s national security adviser, Tzachi Hanegbi and Morocco’s foreign minister Nasser Bourita have agreed to coordinate for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Morocco visit “in the near future,” according to Netanyahu’s office.
No date has yet been set for the visit, but the King said it would pioneer “new possibilities for bilateral relations between Morocco and Israel,” – a much needed boost for Netanyahu, whose right wing policies have triggered 7 months of national protests. Abroad, he is struggling to keep face with signatories of the Abraham accords over increased settlements in the West Bank.
In a what Netanyahu’s office described as ‘warm, personal letter’ King Mohammed VI told Netanyahu that a meeting between them could be “an opportunity to promote the prospects of peace for all peoples in the region,” based on the principles that “should guide the settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”
This may ease tensions around Morocco’s obstructions for hosting a long-awaited diplomatic summit with Israel and other Arab countries.The Negev summit has been postponed several times over what Bourita called ‘lack of an appropriate political context to achieve the desired results.’
Morocco has issued nearly a dozen condemnation statements against Israeli policies in 2023. Strongly worded letters called recent Israeli attacks on al-Aqsaa mosque, Gaza and increased settlements “provocatively and repetitive.”
But despite these criticisms Morocco and Israeli ties have grown – both on an economic and military scale. Israel recently established its first military attaché to Morocco, and in June, an Israeli team of soldiers and officers participated in the Atlas Lion exercise in Morocco.
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