MOROCCAN lawyers have severely censured the Rabat government over its recent agreement to normalise relations with Israel, and are demanding an immediate reversal of that decision. Massive demonstrations have already taken place in the country denouncing the ‘normalisation’ as an act of ‘betrayal’.
The lawyers filed a lawsuit at the Supreme Court and requested the annulment of all decisions that envisage the promotion of relations between the North African country and the Tel Aviv regime in political, diplomatic, economic and tourism spheres.
They added that these decisions are against the interests of the Moroccan people, as well as against the Constitution, the United Nations Convention, the principle of international legitimacy and the Vienna Conventions.
Israel and Morocco agreed on December 10 to normalise relations in a deal brokered by the outgoing administration of US President Donald Trump, making the North African country the fourth Arab state this year to strike a treacherous normalisation deal with the regime. The others were the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan.
The Moroccan deal has been made just as the regime of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has collapsed. Netanyahu now faces a new general election on March 23.
Outgoing US President Trump personally sealed the Morocco normalisation agreement in a phone call with Morocco’s King Mohammed VI. As part of the deal, the US president agreed to recognise Morocco’s sovereignty over the Western Sahara region, which has been at the centre of a dispute with neighbouring Algeria.
The Algerian Foreign Ministry has rejected Trump’s stance, saying the US decision ‘has no legal effect because it contradicts UN resolutions, especially UN Security Council resolutions on Western Sahara.’
The pro-Algerian and pro-independence Polisario Front has also rejected ‘in the strongest terms’ Trump’s stance on the disputed Western Sahara Desert region, stating that the outgoing US president attempted to give to Morocco ‘that which does not belong to it.’
However last Sunday night, a three-person Moroccan delegation landed in Israel for the first time to handle logistics ahead of reopening the country’s liaison office in Tel Aviv.
Israeli delegates have also left for Morocco to meet its king and hammer out an upgrade of the ties that were recently forged by the Trump administration.
This is despite Trump’s defeat in the US elections and Netanyahu’s growing crisis. All this has made the Moroccan masses more determined to halt and squash the ‘normalisation’ process. There is massive and growing support for the lawyers’ legal action.
However, the Moroccan news site Le360, has reported that the country’s national carrier Royal Air Maroc (RAM) will begin direct flights to the Israeli-occupied territories in January.
Only last week, after their ‘warm and friendly’ telephone conversation, Netanyahu extended an invitation for Morocco’s king to visit Israel and the two agreed to continue contacts in order to advance the normalisation agreement in the weeks ahead, a statement from the Israeli premier’s office said.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh has urged the international community to halt Israel’s illegal settlement expansion activities in the occupied Palestinian territories, as the Tel Aviv regime gets ready to hold its fourth general election in less than two years.
The Palestinian premier said: ‘The international community should oblige the Israeli occupying regime to stop its colonial projects in the Palestinian territory, and to activate United Nations Security Council resolution 2334 since it reflects the international will against settlements.’
His remarks came a day after an Israeli media report said the Tel Aviv regime is planning to build thousands of new settler units in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
UK and US workers must support the Moroccan lawyers and the Moroccan and Palestinian people. They must demand that the new Biden regime and the UK government recognise the state of Palestine with Jerusalem as its capital and oppose all illegal Israeli settlements.