After Israel and four Arab states – the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan – agreed to join the Abraham Accords and to normalize ties, most of the world’s attention on the matter has been focused on the frenetic dealmaking between Israeli and Emirati businesses, with more than two billion dollars’ worth of trade deals made in the first year of the Accords’ existence, with predictions of as much as $10 billion in Israel-UAE trade by 2026. Bahrain, to a much lesser extent, has signed trade and security agreements with Israel. Sudan has been unable to make such agreements with the Jewish state, as there is still powerful domestic opposition to the country joining the Abraham Accords, and more recently, Sudan has had to cope with an ongoing civil war.
It is in Israel’s relations with Morocco that the Abraham Accords have had their greatest effect, even if the dollar value of Morocco-Israel trade is dwarfed by that between Israel and the UAE. Morocco has given evidence of its good faith: the Moroccans have instituted courses in their schools about the history of Moroccan Jews and their contributions to Morocco, as well as a lycée course in Jewish history. Morocco has also been signing security agreements with Israel, buying Israel Aerospace Industries’ BARAK MX Integrated Air & Missile Defense System in a deal worth more than half a billion dollars. BARAK-MX is much cheaper than the US Patriot defense system, which the US tried to sell to Sweden for $3.2 billion in 2018. Another important fact that proved decisive for Morocco was that the Barak MX had a 100% success rate in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, with the former using Russian Iskander missiles in 2020. This type of missile, the Russian Iskander, is also used by Algeria, which has been in a slow-moving conflict, during the last few years, with Morocco over the latter’s claim to the Western Sahara. Of course Morocco wants to arm itself with a weapon that has a 100% success rate in shooting down the very same type of missiles that Algeria would in any hot war be launching against it.
Morocco has also purchased 150 military drones of the WanderB and ThunderB types, manufactured by Israel’s BlueBird Aero Systems. Aside from the Heron and Bluebird drones from IAI, Morocco has bought robotic patrol vehicle systems from Elbit Systems, and Skylock drone interceptors from the Avnon Group). None of this activity should surprise outsiders; Israel has for decades, and very quietly, been selling weapons to Morocco, but now, with the Abraham Accords, those purchases have been brought to a whole other level, both in quantity and quality,with such advanced Israeli weapons as unmanned drones and drone interceptors, and the anti-missile defense system from Bluebird, which has been bought by Morocco. Israel and Morocco have also been sharing intelligence, especially on their common enemies, Iran and Algeria, and that cooperation will only increase as Iran ratchets up its nuclear threats to Israel and Algeria ratchets up its conventional military threats to Morocco. “Israel Signs Transportation Deals with Morocco as Ties Deepen,” by Andrew Bernard, Algemeiner, May 30, 2023:
Israeli Transportation Minister Miri Regev on Monday [May 29] signed a series of deals between Israel and Morocco in the latest example of deepening ties between Israel and the Arab kingdom.
“I am sure that together we will strengthen and bring the relations between the countries and in the Middle East to new heights,” Regev wrote of the visit, the first by an Israeli Transportation Minister to Morocco.
Her Moroccan counterpart Mohamed Abdeljalil is expected to reciprocate the visit in September.
The three agreements signed include a mutual recognition of drivers’ licenses and a maritime agreement designed to encourage direct trade links between the two countries. The third agreement is a memorandum of understanding to increase cooperation in road safety and sustainable mobility, with Israel and Morocco agreeing to form a joint team focused on transportation innovation, including drones and self-driving cars….
The reciprocal recognition of the validity of Israeli and Moroccan drivers’ licenses will have its largest effect on the great number of Israel tourists to Morocco. There are one million Moroccan Jews living in Israel; many of them want to visit the homes of their ancestors. At least 200,000 Israelis visited Morocco in 2022, encouraged by Morocco’s adhesion to the Abraham Accords; in the same year, however, only 2900 Moroccans visited Israel. Perhaps this agreement, making it much easier for Moroccans to drive in Israel, will encourage more Moroccans to visit the Jewish state. And it will certainly make things easier for those two hundred thousand Israelis, many of whom who will want to drive around the countryside without the hassle of obtaining a temporary Moroccan driver’s license..
The countries have also agreed on a maritime trade link, bringing goods by ship from Israel to Morocco, and vice-versa. This should make trade much easier, and cheaper, between the two countries that are otherwise limited to planes, with their much smaller, and more costly cargoes.
Beyond the access to Israel’s advanced weapons, and the assistance Israel provides Morocco in water desalination and drip irrigation, and the large sums that the ever-expanding number of Israeli tourists spend in Morocco, the most important consideration for Morocco in its dealings with Israel is to have its claim to the Western Sahara recognized by the Jewish state. As of now, 85 states recognize the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) as an independent state, less than half the number of countries in the U.N. Two-thirds of the Western Sahara’s population of 500,000 consists of Moroccans who have been moved into the area by their own government. And the SADR controls only one fifth of what the country claims as its territory. So the SADR is only notionally a country; in every important respect it has been taken over by Morocco. The Moroccans know that the reason the U.S recognized Morocco’s sovereignty over the Western Sahara was to secure Morocco’s adhesion to the Abraham Accords. The Moroccans believe that recognition by Israel of Morocco’s claim to the Western Sahara would give Rabat a diplomatic boost, and ensure that Washington will not backtrack on its own recognition of Morocco’s claim. And they may well be right.