The first direct commercial flight between Israel and Morocco landed on Tuesday, December 22, in Rabat from Tel Aviv, the first significant act of the recent resumption of relations between the two countries under the aegis of the United States.

Jared Kushner, son-in-law and adviser to US President Donald Trump, and an adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were on board. 

Morocco became the fourth Arab country to announce this year a normalization of its relations with Israel under the impetus of the Trump administration, after the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan. 

Until then, the 50,000 to 70,000 tourists who came from Israel each year - many from Morocco - had to pass through other countries to reach the kingdom.

Morocco still has the largest Jewish community in North Africa - around 3,000 people - and recognizes in its constitution its "Hebrew tributary".

"Morocco has a historic role in bringing peoples together in the region," Jared Kushner, architect of the Trump plan for the Middle East denounced by the Palestinians, told the daily Al Ahdath Al Maghribia. 

He is accompanied by Benjamin Netanyahu's special security adviser, Meir Ben Shabbat, on board a plane from the Israeli company El Al named 555, in reference to the "hand of Fatima" associated with the number 5, which dresses the device to guard against the "evil eye". 

This Tel Aviv / Rabat flight was to be followed by the signing of bilateral agreements (connection of financial systems, diplomatic visas and water management), and ultimately the launch of direct air links, according to official Israeli sources.

Give and take

By agreeing to officially relaunch its relations with Israel, Morocco obtained in return that President Trump recognizes its "sovereignty" over Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony that has been disputed with it for decades by the separatists of the Polisario Front, supported by the 'Algeria.

The agreement also proposes the opening of an American consulate in Western Sahara and an American investment program - which the Moroccan press ensures colossal -, the reopening of diplomatic offices in Tel Aviv and Rabat, closed at the start of the 2000s after the outbreak of the second intifada, and the development of bilateral economic cooperation.

But like Western Sahara, support for the Palestinians is considered a "national cause" in Morocco. 

Shortly after the announcement of the resumption of relations on December 10, King Mohammed VI assured the President of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, the continuation of "Morocco's permanent and sustained commitment to the just Palestinian cause. ".

If the American recognition of the "Moroccanness of the Sahara" was widely welcomed in the kingdom, two pro-Palestinian demonstrations were banned last week in Rabat.

A coalition, bringing together about thirty Moroccan associations and extreme left parties, denounced the visit of the "Zionist delegation" on Tuesday, calling for demonstrations against and "resisting normalization" with the Hebrew state . 

The Palestinians oppose the normalization of relations between Israel and the Arab world, believing that it should have been done after an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement and not before.

"Cultural bridge"

Israel, which has hundreds of thousands of Jews of Moroccan origin, and Morocco had already maintained official relations in the late 1990s.

According to official Israeli sources, it is now a question of "reestablishing" relations which already existed in order to achieve "full diplomatic relations". 

Relations between the Jewish community and the Royal Palace in Morocco, and between the Moroccan community and the Israeli government have served as a "cultural bridge" to the new agreements, according to the same sources. 

Morocco claims the "Jewish tributary" of its history, enshrined in its 2011 Constitution. Under the leadership of Mohammed VI, several rehabilitation programs for cemeteries, synagogues and historic Jewish quarters have been launched. 

Present in Morocco since Antiquity, the Jewish community has grown over the centuries, especially with the arrival of Jews expelled from Spain by the Catholic kings from 1492. 

It reached about 250,000 souls in the late 1940s, or about 10% of the population, before drastically declining after the creation of Israel in 1948.

Many of them continue to return to the kingdom to find the land of their ancestors, celebrate religious festivals or make pilgrimages. 

With AFP

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