Rabat, Dec 21 (AFP/APP): Jared Kushner, US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and advisor, is due to arrive Tuesday in Morocco from Israel on the first direct commercial flight between the two countries since they normalised ties.
The flight from Tel Aviv to Rabat is seen as highly symbolic after Morocco announced on December 10 a “resumption of relations” with Israel.
It also aims to showcase the achievements of the Trump administration in Middle East diplomacy, weeks before Trump is replaced at the White House by President-elect Joe Biden. Morocco became the third Arab state this year, after the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, to normalise ties with Israel under US-brokered deals, while Sudan has pledged to follow suit. In return, the US president fulfilled a decades-old goal of Morocco by backing its contested sovereignty in Western Sahara.
The move infuriated the Algerian-backed pro-independence Polisario Front, which controls about one fifth of the desert territory that was once a Spanish colony. Kushner will be heading an American delegation, and during his visit to Rabat a series of agreements will be signed between Morocco and Israel, according to officials. The Israeli delegation will be led by National Security Advisor Meir Ben-Shabbat, incidentally a son of Morroco-born Jews.
Speaking at a Jerusalem ceremony alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday, Kushner said normalisation with Morocco “will bring about a whole new set of opportunities for northern Africa and the entire Middle East.”
“Our collective efforts have led to the birth of a new Middle East, where firsts and breakthroughs are now happening almost every day,” Kushner said. Negotiations leading to Morocco’s resumption of ties with Israel included the opening of a US consulate in Western Sahara, and US investments which Moroccan media described as “colossal”. At the same time Israel and Morocco are due to reopen diplomatic offices and activate economic cooperation between them.
Speaking after Kushner, Netanyahu lauded what he dubbed a commercial “revolution” unleashed by the US-brokered normalisation agreement between Israel and the UAE, which he promised would spread to Morocco.
“Everybody is busy embracing everyone else, and they’re busy doing business together,” he said of Israelis and Emiratis. “And the same thing now is going to happen in Rabat and Casablanca; yes, Israelis have been there before, but with direct flights, it’s going to be a whole different thing.”
Morocco closed its liaison office in Tel Aviv in 2000, at the start of the second Palestinian intifada, or uprising. King Mohammed VI has said Morocco will remain an advocate for the Palestinians, but the Palestinians — like the Polisario — have cried foul and condemned the normalisation announcement between Rabat and the Jewish state.
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