Less than a year after the normalization agreement between Morocco and Israel in December 2020, Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid visited Morocco and made a statement that was tantamount to the straw that broke the back of Moroccan-Algerian relations. He said during a press conference in Casablanca on August 12, 2021, that “Israel and Morocco share concerns about Algeria’s role in the region, especially as it has become increasingly linked to Iran. Algeria is also waging a campaign against Israel’s acceptance as an observer member of the African Union.”
Algeria’s response came 12 days later, sharply and radically, announcing the severance of relations with Morocco. In his statement dated August 24, 2021, Algerian Foreign Minister Ramtane Lamamra retraced history to justify the announcement of the severance of relations with Morocco, saying: “It is worth recalling that the joint Algerian-Moroccan statement issued on May 16, 1988, which represents the basis and the foundation for the resumption of diplomatic relations between the two countries, was drafted within an ambitious and responsible horizon, as it included four important criteria that made the normalization of relations between the two countries possible. These four commitments emanating from the joint Algerian-Moroccan statement can be summarized as follows: (…) contributing to strengthening the Arab ranks around the sacred Palestinian cause in a way that enshrines the national rights of the Palestinian people, foremost among them their right to establish their state and liberate all occupied Arab territories, including the Holy City of Jerusalem.”
Normalization of diplomatic ties sparks division between Algeria and Morocco
The Algerian Foreign Minister then went back to address the Israeli Foreign Minister’s statement from Morocco and said: “It is clear today that the Kingdom of Morocco has seriously and systematically abandoned, in whole or in part, the basic commitments that constitute the fundamental basis and the referential foundation upon which the process of normalizing relations between the two countries is based. The Kingdom of Morocco turned its national territory into a rear base and spearhead for planning, organizing, and supporting a series of dangerous and systematic attacks against Algeria.
The latest of these hostile acts was visible in the false accusations and implicit threats that the Israeli Foreign Minister made during his official visit to Morocco in the presence of his Moroccan counterpart, who was clearly the main instigator of such unjustified statements. He added: “Here it must be noted that since 1948 no member of an Israeli government has been heard issuing rulings or personally sending messages from the territory of one Arab state against another neighboring Arab state. This contradicts all Algerian-Moroccan norms and agreements. This phenomenon demonstrates extreme hostility and reckless impulsiveness without the slightest restraint or limit.”
The Algerian Foreign Minister continued, saying: “On the level of regional security, the Moroccan authorities’ granting of a foothold to a foreign military force in the Maghreb region and inciting its representative to make false and malicious statements against a neighboring state constitutes a dangerous and irresponsible act that violates the provisions of Article 5 of the Treaty of Brotherhood, Good Neighborliness and Cooperation concluded between Algeria and Morocco, in addition to being completely inconsistent with the commitments undertaken in accordance with the aforementioned joint statement.
The Algerian Minister continued, saying: “The scandal concerning the Pegasus program, no less serious than its predecessor, has revealed, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the intensive espionage operations to which Algerian citizens and officials have been exposed by the Moroccan intelligence services using this Israeli technology to do so.” Thus, normalization between Morocco and Israel led to a severing of relations between the two neighboring countries, followed by campaigns of mutual accusations and threats and a cold war that, according to observers, could ignite and turn into a real war at any moment, especially since the pace of the arms race between the two countries has increased in recent years, just as the defense budget of the two rival neighbors is the highest in the region at the expense of development, whose indicators are declining and creating a fragile social situation in the two countries.
Algeria is the biggest spender on arms purchases on the African continent, with the Spanish website specializing in military and strategic affairs, “DESCIFRANDO LA GUERRA,” predicting that its defense budget for the year 2025 will reach approximately €24.27 billion, a ten percent increase over the previous year. Morocco, which has allocated approximately €12.3 billion to armament spending, a 7.25 percent increase compared to the year 2024, follows closely behind it.
Palestine unites the Greater Maghreb
What many people do not know is that the attachment of the countries of the Greater Maghreb to the Palestinian cause preceded that of many Middle Eastern countries. It suffices to say that Muhammad Izz ad-Din al-Qassam, leader of the Palestinian Revolution (1883-1935), drew inspiration in guerrilla warfare tactics from the leader of the Rif Revolution in Morocco, Prince Muhammad Abd al-Krim al-Khattabi (1882-1963). The Palestinian poet Ibrahim Tuqan also wrote the revolutionary anthem that al-Khattabi adopted as the official anthem of the “Republic of the Rif” in northern Morocco. After France exiled Muhammad Abd al-Krim al-Khattabi to the island of Réunion and he then settled in Egypt, he declared jihad in Palestine in November 1947. Indeed, al-Khattabi would dispatch battalions of volunteers to resist the British in occupied Palestine under the leadership of Moroccan Colonel al-Hashemi al-Toud, including five thousand volunteers from the Greater Maghreb. This was the volunteer group that al-Khattabi would later work to establish as the basis for the Arab Maghreb Liberation Army, the military arm of the “Committee for the Liberation of the Arab Maghreb” that he proclaimed on January 5, 1948. Prince Mohammed Abdelkrim al-Khattabi made the group of volunteers for jihad in Palestine the nucleus for the establishment of the Arab Maghreb Liberation Army, after establishing the Arab Maghreb Bureau and then the Arab Maghreb Liberation Committee that he himself chaired in December 1947. Tunisian leader Habib Bourguiba assumed the position of its Secretary-General in January 1948.
If in 1947 the Palestinian cause contributed to building the first nucleus of Greater Maghreb unity, two Maghreb leaders, Habib Bourguiba and Hassan II, quickly severed the links that Prince Mohammed Abdelkrim al-Khattabi had established between the liberation of Palestine and the liberation of the countries of the Greater Maghreb when they tried to seek the assistance of the Israelis in liberating their two countries. Tunisian Israeli contacts began on January 25, 1952, during a meeting of Bahi Ladgham, a leader in the New Constitutional Liberal Party, in New York, where he met with the representative of Israel at the United Nations. The Tunisian envoy requested Israeli support for the Tunisian demand for independence. In the same month and year, in a dialogue with the French newspaper Le Monde, Bourguiba called it a necessity for the Arab parties to reach a political settlement with Israel.
In Morocco, Crown Prince Hassan (later King Hassan II) engaged early on in secret relations with the Israelis, crowned with his meeting with an Israeli delegation in Rabat in 1960 to discuss the issue of the relocation of Moroccan Jews to Israel. This was something that Israel had been aiming for since 1956 but had been stymied by the refusal of Moroccan governments – particularly the government of Abdullah Ibrahim (December 1958-May 1960) – which opposed the relocation of Jews on the basis of two considerations. First, was to maintain harmony with the Arab position rejecting the immigration of Arab Jews to Israel. Second, was a desire to preserve Jewish capital within the Moroccan economic cycle, especially during this early phase of independence. This was before the palace overthrew this government in May 1960 and King Mohammed V and his Crown Prince, Prince Hassan, led the government. The latter would establish secret and overt relations with Israel that would not be limited just to the relocation of the Jews to Israel.
Unlike Morocco and Tunisia, the National Liberation Front in Algeria rejected Israel’s mediation to obtain the country’s independence or a dialogue with Israel. Although Ferhat Abbas (a leader in the National Liberation Front and the first Prime Minister of the Algerian Provisional Government) declared during his speech at the United Nations in 1957 that the Algerian Revolution did not object to the emigration of the Algerian Jews to Israel, the Algerian Revolution did not go along with him in this and in 1958 did not hesitate to execute Israelis caught preparing for an operation to relocate Jews to Israel. Weeks before Algeria’s independence in July 1962, the Algerian Revolution again did not hesitate to execute other Israelis whose involvement in the large-scale relocation of the Jews of the city of Ghardaïa was discovered.
As for Libya and Mauritania, their roles in the phase of the struggle for independence took paths different from those of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia. Furthermore, the relocation of the Jews of Libya to Israel was overseen by the British administration, which ruled Tripoli from 1942 until Libya’s independence in 1951, after the Allies expelled the Italian and German armies. As for Mauritania, its representative, Ahmed Ould Bebbane, opposed the partition resolution and voted against it in the French Parliament in the summer of 1948, i.e., two years before Mauritania’s independence. Mokhtar Ould Daddah, the first Mauritanian president, also took positions aligned in favor of the Palestinian cause.
Palestine divides the Greater Maghreb
In February 1961, the King of Morocco, Mohammed V, who enjoyed the respect of the liberation movements in Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, died. Hassan II, who, as Crown Prince, had deepened his relations with Israel, succeeded him. In July 1962, Algeria gained its independence. In October 1963, the Sand War broke out between Morocco and Algeria because of the borders. According to the book “Israel and the Maghreb” by the author Michael Laskier, an American Jew of with Moroccan roots, Hassan II allowed Mossad to open an office in Morocco, and the Israeli army, in coordination with Moroccan General Mohammed Oufkir, took over the training of Moroccan soldiers and officers. The Israeli army also provided support to its Moroccan counterpart during the Sand War that Morocco waged against Algeria. Moroccan-Israeli security coordination would be revealed to all after Mossad’s involvement in kidnapping and assassinating the Moroccan opposition figure Mehdi Ben Barka, who had expressed his rejection of the war against Algeria. Since 1963, Moroccan-Algerian relations have entered a state of cold war punctuated by wars and military skirmishes. This continues to this day, with diplomatic relations severed since August 2021 and the borders closed since August 1994.
In September 1969, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi led a coup against King Idris al-Sanusi in Libya. From the outset, he sided with the nationalist socialist axis led by Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, which made him an ally of Algeria and an opponent of Tunisia and Morocco, which had strengthened their relations with the Western powers, particularly France and the United States of America. In June 1977, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat announced his rejection of continuing to entertain the idea of unification with Libya, about which Gaddafi was enthusiastic. At the time, President Sadat was preparing for his visit to Israel and the signing of the Camp David Agreement for peace with it. Faced with that, Gaddafi ordered approximately a quarter of a million Egyptians working in Libya to leave the country. In return, he called on Libyans to march in what he dubbed the “March to Cairo” to bring down borders, which he viewed as impediments to the renaissance of the Arab peoples and a primary cause of their fragmentation. On July 21, 1977, armed skirmishes broke out between the Libyan and Egyptian armies on the borders between the two countries. Egyptian airstrikes on the Libyan Gamal Abdel Nasser airbase quickly followed, costing both sides losses in lives and equipment. After four days of military confrontations, the situation was calmed through Arab and American mediation.
In January 1974, Gaddafi again sought another union with Tunisia under the name “The Arab Islamic Republic.” This too failed in turn, transforming Gaddafi from the most prominent Arab leader aspiring to unity into the region’s biggest destabilizer, funding and arming leftist and Islamist opponents of President Bourguiba. Indeed, Gaddafi reached the point of trying to ignite a revolution in Tunisia and attempted to assassinate Tunisian President Habib Bourguiba in January 1980.
Beginning in May 1973, Gaddafi contributed to founding, training, and arming the Polisario Front that demands the independence of Western Sahara from Morocco. He also sought to overthrow the regime of Hassan II on more than one occasion. However, beginning in 1983, he found himself in regional isolation due to his involvement in regional conflicts, most notably his intervention in Chad and Tunisia, and the cooling of his relationship with Algeria due to attempts to involve it in destabilizing Tunisia. This led him to abruptly shift course to Morocco. This rapprochement, which began in 1983, would culminate in August 1984 with the signing of the Oujda Treaty between Gaddafi and Hassan II and the establishment of the “Arab-African Union,” on which many hopes were placed to calm and develop relations between the Moroccan and Libyan regimes and serve as a launching pad for the establishment of a Maghreb Union. However, the Palestinian issue intervened once again to kill this union two years after its founding.
After the international press revealed that a secret summit had taken place between King Hassan II and Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres in August 1986 in the Moroccan city of Ifrane, Muammar Gaddafi dissolved the Arab-African Union, which Morocco had counted on for Libya to withdraw its recognition of and support for the Polisario. Conversely, in that same year, warmth returned to Libyan Algerian relations, which had been traversing a period of frigidity. Gaddafi met with Chadli Benjedid in In Amenas, and they issued a statement affirming “the necessity of fulfilling the Sahrawi people’s right to self-determination and independence, a necessary step for building the Arab Maghreb.” Gaddafi and Syrian President Hafez al-Assad also issued another statement describing Hassan II as a traitor. Indeed, Gaddafi would later return to planning the assassination of Hassan II in coordination with Sabri Khalil al-Banna, known as Abu Nidal, founder of the Fatah Revolutionary Council, on the grounds of the King of Morocco’s treason toward Palestine and his alliance with Israel.
The exposure of the secret meeting between the King of Morocco and the Prime Minister of Israel would also negatively affect Morocco’s relationship with the Palestine Liberation Organization and its leader Yasser Arafat, who viewed the meeting between Hassan II and Shimon Peres as an attempt by the King of Morocco to find a solution to the Western Sahara issue by sacrificing the Palestinian cause. Because of this, eight months after this meeting, Yasser Arafat tried to strike Hassan II on an arm that hurt by receiving Mohamed Abdelaziz, the leader of the Polisario Front that calls for the separation of Western Sahara from Morocco, and embracing him at the April 1987 session of the Palestinian National Council in Algiers. This made Hassan II lose control to the point that in his anger he threatened any Moroccan who defended the Palestinians with defilement of his home.
The Palestinian issue and the nature of the positions of the states of the Greater Maghreb on Israel continued to define and guide the alliances of these states throughout the phase of the Cold War. When everyone believed that the collapse of the Eastern bloc led by the Soviet Union, the rise of the new world order, and the subsequent peace agreements between the Palestinians and the Israelis, mainly the Oslo Accords, as well as the fleeting meeting between former Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak on the margins of the funeral of King Hassan II in July 1999, and the interpretations given to this fleeting meeting as favoring normalizing relations between Algiers and Tel Aviv might bring Algeria to change its position toward Israel, nothing has changed. Indeed, it would later change its position toward Morocco and announce a diplomatic rupture with it because of its normalization with Israel. This rupture remains in effect to this day.
In conclusion, the Palestinian issue and the Arab Israeli conflict have been defining and influential in the development and deterioration of diplomatic relations between the Maghreb states since before the independence of the Maghreb countries and to this day. No one disputes that their fragmentation and their inability to build a political and economic union have a negative effect on the developmental status of their people. The ruling regimes in the five Maghreb countries have proven their failure to create a successful dialogue unencumbered by the shadows of the past and its conflicts and the feeders of ideology. Will the intellectuals of these countries and their civil elites, independent from the authorities, with the intellectuals among them, be able to achieve a meaningful dialogue?
Soulaiman Raissouni is a Moroccan journalist and writer. He was the editor in chief of Akhbar al Yaoum, one of the last independent newspapers in Morocco. The newspaper was closed after his arrest in 2020. This article was translated from Arabic.
