Liaison office: a Moroccan delegation in Israel

 

The normalization of relations between Morocco and Israel is following its path. Less than a week after an Israeli delegation visited Rabat to sign a series of agreements, Moroccan officials arrived in Israel on Sunday for a preliminary “technical” visit to prepare for the opening of a liaison office. According to a source close to the matter who confided in AFP, this trip of several days must be followed by the visit of a larger delegation.

An old relationship reactivated at the highest level

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a telephone interview invited King Mohammed VI of Morocco to come to Israel, the office of the head of the government said on Friday. The Moroccan king “welcomed the reactivation of cooperation mechanisms (…) and the resumption of regular contacts”, according to a statement from the royal cabinet, which however did not mention the Israeli invitation. Two diplomatic offices ensured the liaison between Morocco and Israel after the Israeli-Palestinian peace accords in Oslo of 1993, until their closure after the outbreak of the second intifada (Palestinian uprising) in 2000.

As a reminder, Morocco is home to the largest Jewish community in North Africa, with some 3,000 people. About 700,000 Jews of Moroccan origin live in Israel. Morocco is the fourth Arab country to have announced a normalization of its relations with the Hebrew state this year, after the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan, under the leadership of the administration of outgoing US President Donald Trump. The Palestinians oppose the normalization of relations between Israel and the Arab world, believing that it should only happen after an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement.

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