Israeli, Moroccan defence ministers ink security cooperation MoU

RABAT - Israel’s defence minister met with his Moroccan counterpart on Wednesday in Rabat as part of a landmark visit to formalize security cooperation between the two countries.

Benny Gantz and Abdellatif Loudiyi signed a memorandum of understanding that lays the foundation for security cooperation, intelligence sharing, and future arms sales. The two countries established formal relations last year as part of the US-brokered Abraham Accords.

Gantz’s trip is the first official visit by an Israeli defence minister to one of the Arab states that established open relations under the accords.

The agreement was inked in a boardroom at the Moroccan defence ministry, with military attaches and two Israeli parliament members in attendance. The Israeli defence minister also met with the Moroccan military chief of staff, and was greeted by a colour guard of soldiers clad in red tunics, blue slacks and gleaming gold epaulets.

Gantz thanked in a tweet King Mohammed VI and Loudiyi for their efforts to expand relations between the two countries.

“We took a historic step today,” he tweeted.

Ahead of his meeting with Loudiyi, Gantz paid his respects at the tomb of Mohammed V, the grandfather of the reigning monarch.

Morocco, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan signed agreements to normalize relations with Israel in 2020 as part of the diplomatic pacts brokered by the Trump administration known as the Abraham Accords.

Israel and Morocco enjoyed low-level diplomatic relations in the 1990s, but Morocco severed them after a Palestinian uprising erupted in 2000. Despite that, the two states have maintained informal relations. Nearly half a million Israelis claim Moroccan heritage — more than 200,000 immigrated to Israel after the founding of the state in 1948 — and thousands visit the country each year.

Morocco is still home to a small Jewish community, and Rabat has one remaining synagogue, where Gantz will visit at the close of his two-day trip.

The Abraham Accords broke a longstanding consensus among Arab states that normalization with Israel only takes place as part of a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.