When Benny Gantz made the
first formal visit by an Israeli defence minister to Morocco on November 24, he
landed in the midst of a political maelstrom.
The Morocco-Israel normalization
deal announced by US President Donald Trump on December 10, 2020, was not
without its cost. The price the US paid to
secure Morocco’s signature under the Abraham Accords was to recognize Morocco’s
claim to Western Sahara. In doing so America agreed to defy the UN, the African
Union and most world opinion, which holds that Western Sahara’s future should
be settled by a UN-supervised referendum of the Sahrawi people. Morocco’s neighbor, Algeria, felt
particularly aggrieved. Algeria has long
supported the Sahrawis of Western Sahara who, backed by their militant body the
Polisario Front, are seeking independence from Moroccan rule.
After the normalization
deal relations between Algeria and Morocco, uncertain for decades, deteriorated
badly. Since mid-2021 the two countries
have severed diplomatic relations, recalled their ambassadors, closed
their borders, and blocked their airspaces.
Then on November 1 Algeria ended the contract which delivers gas to
Spain by way of a pipeline that runs through Morocco and had guaranteed it 10
percent of its gas supply. That will now
be lost.
Algeria's president, Abdelmadjid Tebboune, issued a statement confirming that he had ordered the contract not to be renewed "in light of the hostile behaviour of [Morocco] which undermines national unity." Spain will continue to receive its gas from Algeria by way of a second smaller pipeline augmented by liquified natural gas imported by sea.
On the very day the gas contract ended, the difficult situation between Morocco and Algeria deteriorated still further. Three Algerian truck drivers travelling on a desert highway through the Polisario-held area of Western Sahara were killed by a drone strike.
“Several factors," ran an official Algerian statement, “indicate that the Moroccan occupation forces in Western Sahara carried out this cowardly assassination with a sophisticated weapon. The killings will not go unpunished."
Morocco denies carrying
out the attack, although it is in possession of combat drones. According to the Royal Moroccan Armed
Services website, Morocco took delivery of Turkish-made Bayraktar drones in
September 2020.
This was the chaotic situation
that greeted Gantz as he landed in Morocco.
However the furore was not permitted to disrupt the purpose of his
visit. On November 24 Israel and Morocco
signed a landmark memorandum of understanding that lays the foundation for
security cooperation, intelligence sharing and sales of military hardware.
Later Gantz said that
the agreement was “very significant and will allow us to exchange ideas, enter
joint projects and enable Israeli military exports here.”
When Salah Goudjil,
president of the Algerian senate, learned of the new security agreement, which
will make it easier for Morocco to acquire hi-tech exports from Israel and allow
future arms deals worth hundreds of millions of dollars, he claimed that Gantz’s
visit had “targeted” Algeria, and that Algeria’s enemies were intent on undermining
the nation.
The antagonism between Morocco and Algeria centres on the past, present and future of Western Sahara, a large chunk of territory appended to the south of Morocco, with a 700-mile long Atlantic coastline. It was once a Spanish colony. In 1966 the UN General Assembly asked Spain to hold a referendum of the Sahrawi population on the issue of self-determination. Instead, in 1975 Spain relinquished control of the region to a joint Moroccan-Mauritanian administration. By then, though, a flourishing Sahrawi nationalist movement called the Polisario Front had sprung into existence. Declaring the region to be a Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), the Polisario launched armed resistance to the new regime. Four years of combat were enough for Mauritania, which withdrew its claims on the territory, leaving Morocco in de facto control.
xWhat followed was a
further twelve years of fighting between Morocco and the Polisario. In 1991, a UN-brokered truce ended the
conflict. As part of the deal, Morocco
promised to hold a referendum on independence.
This has not yet taken place.
Meanwhile the UN, maintaining that the Sahrawis have a right to
self-determination, considers the Polisario Front to be the legitimate
representative of the Sahrawi people. The
African Union regards Western Sahara as an independent state. In short, until the Trump deal Morocco stood
alone in its claim on Western Sahara.
Now it is supported by both the US and Israel.
According to a statement from the White House
issued at the time, as a quid pro quo for Morocco normalizing its
relationship with Israel, Trump "reaffirmed his support for Morocco's
serious, credible, and realistic autonomy proposal as the only basis for a just
and lasting solution to the dispute over the Western Sahara territory, and as
such the president recognized Moroccan sovereignty over the entire Western
Sahara territory."
The Moroccan autonomy proposal, first mooted in 2006, suggests
that the Sahrawis could run their government under Moroccan sovereignty, with Morocco
controlling only defence and foreign affairs. When the normalization deal with
Israel was announced, a White House statement maintained that an
“independent Sahrawi state is not a realistic option for resolving the
conflict” and that “genuine autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty is the only
feasible solution.”
One experienced
commentator on North African affairs believes that Morocco and Algeria are on
the cusp of turning a cold war into armed conflict. He believes the two nations
have distinct and potentially confrontational visions for the region. Algeria views it as still in the process of casting
off its colonial shackles. Morocco,
under its benevolent monarchy, has acquired a liberal, pragmatic approach to political
affairs. He believes that relations between the two states have deteriorated to
such an extent that armed conflict is a real possibility.
In such an eventuality,
Israel would certainly not wish to be drawn into military operations, but in
light of the new agreement with Morocco it would need to consider just how far
its support could go.
Published in Eurasia Review, 12 December 2021:
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