World News – US – Trump announces Israel-Morocco to normalize relations

WASHINGTON – Israel and Morocco have agreed to normalize relations, President Donald Trump announced on Thursday, marking the fourth Arab-Israeli deal in four months. As part of the deal, U. . S.. . will recognize Morocco’s claim to the controversial Western Sahara.

As his term expires, Trump said Israel and Morocco would re-establish diplomatic and other ties, including the immediate reopening of liaison offices in Rabat and Tel Aviv and the eventual opening of embassies. U. . S.. . Officials said it would also include joint overflight rights for airlines.

The White House said Trump and Morocco’s King Mohammed VI. had agreed in a meeting that Morocco would “resume diplomatic relations between Morocco and Israel and expand economic and cultural cooperation in order to promote regional stability. ”

The U. . S.. . will also recognize the country’s claim about Western Sahara, the former Spanish North African territory that has been a dispute for decades that has puzzled international negotiators, the White House said in a statement.

Morocco is the fourth Arab nation to recognize Israel as the government seeks to broaden its framework for the “Abrahamic Agreement” that began this summer with an agreement between the Jewish state and the United Arab Emirates.

Bahrain and Sudan have followed suit, and government officials have tried to include Saudi Arabia in the grouping.

« The President reiterated his support for Morocco’s serious, credible and realistic proposal for autonomy as the sole basis for a just and lasting solution to the dispute over the Western Sahara area, and as such recognized Moroccan sovereignty over the entire Western Sahara territory, » the said White House.

During the conversation, the King agreed to resume diplomatic relations between Morocco and Israel and to develop economic and cultural cooperation in order to promote regional stability.

All of these countries are geographically distant from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which makes it easier to do business with Israel and the US. S.. . for their own special interests. Morocco also has close ties with Saudi Arabia, which tacitly supports the normalization process with Israel, even at a time when peacebuilding with the Palestinians is stalling.

Morocco, a country with centuries of Jewish history, is said to have long been ready to develop relations with Israel.

Before Israel was founded in 1948, Morocco had a large Jewish population, many of whom immigrated to North Africa from Spain and Portugal during the Spanish Inquisition. Today hundreds of thousands of Israeli Jews trace their ancestry as far as Morocco, making it one of the largest sectors of Israeli society in the country. A small community of Jews estimated at several thousand people continues to live in Morocco.

Israel and Morocco established low-level diplomatic relations with the Palestinians in the 1990s following the interim peace accords between Israel and the Palestinians. However, these ties were severed after the outbreak of the second Palestinian uprising in 2000. Since then, however, informal relationships have continued, and an estimated 50. Every year, 000 Israelis travel to Morocco to learn more about the Jewish community and understand their family history.

Morocco, Israel, Donald Trump, Western Sahara