Map of Morocco > Ian Macky, PAT Atlas, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
The Moroccan military announced this week that it had agreed to strengthen military cooperation with Israel, including in intelligence and cybersecurity, following defence meetings in Rabat.
The two countries “agreed to further strengthen cooperation and expand it to other areas, including in intelligence, air defence and electronic warfare”, a Royal Moroccan Armed Forces statement said.
The announcement followed the first meeting of the monitoring committee for Moroccan-Israeli defence cooperation, which examined military cooperation in the fields of “logistics, training, and the acquisition and modernisation of equipment”.
Israel and Morocco established diplomatic ties in 2020, following similar agreements between Israel and the UAE, Bahrain and Sudan, known collectively as the Abraham Accords.
This week’s meetings follow a November 2021 memorandum of understanding between Israel and Morocco, which outlined security relations between the Jewish state and the North African kingdom.
Although formal ties were only established in 2020, Morocco has had a longstanding informal relationship with Israel since 1948.
King Hassan II attempted to recognise Israel as early as 1986, but was met with a backlash from the Arab League.
Some 50,000 Israelis travel to Morocco each year, often on trips to learn about the country’s Jewish history and to retrace family histories.
