"Do you support normalisation with Israel?" asked the masked protestor riding the van and leading the crowd's chant. Thousands answered back, "No".
17 October, 2023. Posted by Balkan
Periscope - Hellas
In 2000, after over six years of normalisation, Rabat broke ties with
Israel over the second Intifada. Last week, the Moroccan people held a symbolic
referendum where they voted "NO" for normalisation. Will Rabat
listen, once again, to the street?
After the Oslo Accords, Morocco normalised ties for the first time with Israel "to maintain dialogue and understanding."But Rabat had to walk away from this controversial partnership in reaction to Israel's brutality during the second Intifada, which erupted in 2000, and the Moroccan street's rising opposition to Tel Aviv.
Many are wondering today, will history repeat itself? Will Morocco
once again walk away from the "Israeli friendship"?
On Sunday, 15 October, thousands of Moroccans stood before parliament,
turning a national march into a people's referendum.
"Do you support normalisation with Israel?" asked the masked
protestor riding the van and leading the crowd's chant. Thousands answered
"No" and then chanted for a "free Palestine" and
criminalising normalisation with the apartheid state of Israel.
The official total number of the proclaimed "million march" is
unknown. But videos from AP agency show thousands of protesters with women and
children in front rows covering the 500,000 meters square; the same square
closed three years ago for the singing of the normalisation accord.
"Now they have their answer. Those who support normalisation with the
Israeli entity are a discordant minority within Moroccan society that breathes
the Palestinian cause," Abdul Rahim Al-Sheikhi, former head of the
Islamist movement of Unification and Reform, told The New Arab.
Late in 2020, Morocco normalised ties with Israel in exchange for the US
recognising Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara.
At the time, the Moroccan government, ironically led by Islamists,
justified normalisation as a "bold diplomatic step" to gain
international support for the Sahara issue, a critical issue for most of the
Moroccan population.
Three years after the normalisation, even those who were part of it now
admit it was "a mistake".
Last November, Salah Eddin El-Othmani, head of the Moroccan government from
2016 to 2021, said he was under pressure to sign the deal deeming the moment he
sat with Jared Kushner, the former US president's adviser, and Meir
Ben-Shabbat, Israel's National Security Adviser, "painful and
difficult."
The New
Arab
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