Morocco and Israel signed a security cooperation agreement on November 24, 2021, on the occasion of the historic visit to Rabat by Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz. A first since the rupture of diplomatic relations between the two countries after the first intifada in 2000. A visit placed essentially under the sign of military cooperation, in full tension between the Shereefian kingdom and Algeria.
This framework agreement “unprecedented”, according to the parties, formally launches security cooperation “in all its aspects”. On the program, Rabat’s purchase of the Israeli Skylock Dome system, from the Skylock Systemps company, designed to detect and neutralize drones, to shoot down targets at very close range as well as rockets, artillery and mortars. A possible response to the acquisition of Turkish drones by Algiers. Morocco could also be interested in the Iron dome, another anti-missile and anti-rocket device from the other Israeli company Rafael Advanced Defense Systems. Also considered by the kingdom, the construction with its new partner of a military base near Melilla, believes the news site Bladi.net.
What is clear is that the two countries are considering broad military cooperation, for example to counter cyber attacks and in order, according to the Israelis, to face the “threats and challenges in the region”.
Benny Gantz’s visit comes as Algiers severed diplomatic relations with Rabat in August due to Algeria’s claim “hostile actions” of Morocco and while the Polisario Front decided to“intensify” his armed struggle against Morocco.
For Bruce Maddy-Weitzman, specialist in Israeli-Moroccan relations at Tel Aviv University, the first visit of an Israeli Minister of Defense to Morocco in full tension between the two heavyweights of the Maghreb does not seem to be a pure coincidence. .
“It is possible that in a context of Algeria / Morocco tension, Moroccans (….) wish to show the world – their own population, their Algerian rivals and the West – that they are deepening their relations with Israel , with all that that implies. “
Bruce Maddy-Weitzman, specialist in Israeli-Moroccan relations at Tel Aviv Universityto AFP
By meeting Monday, November 22 in Washington with his Moroccan counterpart Nasser Bourita, the head of American diplomacy Antony Blinken had given strong support to the autonomy plan “serious and realistic“advocated by Morocco to settle the conflict in Western Sahara. The new Biden presidency seems to recognize the “full sovereignty” of Morocco on Western Sahara, claimed by the Saharawi separatists of the Polisario Front supported by Algeria.
According to AFP, a pro-Palestinian coalition of left-wing parties and NGOs as well as the Islamists of the Justice and Beneficence movement called for a demonstration on November 24, 2021 in Rabat, to denounce normalization with Israel and denounce the arrival in Morocco of the “war criminal Gantz”, Chief of Staff during the 2014 summer war in Gaza.