Israel’s Increased Presence in North Africa is Widening Gap Between Algeria and Morocco
MUSTAFA FETOURI
Algerian players are pictured during a football match with Guinea on Sept. 23, 2022 in Oran, Algeria. Morocco has asked German sportswear giant Adidas to cancel newly designed football tops for arch‐rival Algeria, accusing it of appropriating “Moroccan cultural heritage.” The geometrical design pattern known as zellige is common in Morocco’s ceramic mosaics. (PHOTO BY AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES).
Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, November/December 2022, p. 30-32
Special Report
By Mustafa Fetouri
TROUBLE IN ALGERIAN-MOROCCAN relations is always lurking just beneath the surface, waiting for a trigger to flare up into a sprawling diplomatic and political crisis that usually takes longer than expected to resolve. The two North African countries’ bilateral ties have been testy, a major bone of contention being the support given by each country to the separatist movements in the other country. The Western Sahara desert strip on the Atlantic coast is claimed by Morocco but the Polisario Front, supported by Algeria, claim it as an independent country for the Sahrawi people. In July 2021, Morocco’s United Nations ambassador openly supported self-determination of the Kabylie region in Northern Algeria in response to its support of the Polisario Front.
Because of these (and other) tensions, the borders between the two countries have been closed since 1994. Moroccan farmers who have been farming land across the border in Algeria have been expelled, further splitting families that have already been separated by the closed borders. Rabat’s pleas for resolving the situation have fallen on deaf ears.
The negative impact of these tensions affect regionwide issues, making cooperation the more difficult. The Arab Maghreb Union was created in 1989 to promote free trade, free movement of capital and people, and more regional economic cooperation among five North African countries: Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia. But as a result of the Algerian-Moroccan political bickering, the union, which had represented huge hope for millions of people, never really achieved much in 33 years.
Even during the COVID-19 pandemic, when cooperation was critically needed, politics made it impossible for countries in the region to come together for the common good.
ISRAEL A DESTABILIZING FORCE
Moroccan demonstrators lift banners against the normalization of ties with Israel at a protest in Rabat on Sept. 9, 2022, following allegations of sexual misconduct and corruption by David Govrin, Israel’s top envoy to the country. (PHOTO BY FADEL SENNA/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES)
The latest deterioration of relations came about in the summer of 2021 with the trigger, this time, being external rather than bilateral or regional. There was a new player in the mix: Israel.
In July 2021, media outlets reported that Morocco used the Israeli spyware Pegasus to hack Algerian officials’ phones. In February 2022, Rabat and Tel Aviv signed a $500 million military deal: Israeli would supply Morocco with Barak MX air and missile defense systems. Rabat had already acquired the Israeli Skylock Anti-Drone System in 2020.
In July 2022, the Israel Defense Forces’ chief of staff, Aviv Kochavi, visited Morocco to meet his Moroccan counterpart after his boss, Defense Minister Benny Gantz, signed a security deal with Morocco in November 2021. Israel now supplies Morocco with various military technology, including drones. In late September 2022, Rabat was receiving air systems including drone-mounted systems for Morocco’s Turkish- and Israeli-supplied drones. The 30-month contract is said to be worth around $70 million.
Regional observers question why Morocco is acquiring so much weaponry at a time of high tensions with Algeria. While no one is expecting any military confrontation between the two countries, the potential exists
The Algerian government is infuriated to see Morocco buying so much Israeli weaponry and welcoming Israelis with open arms. Many believe that Algeria is being punished for its anti-Israeli diplomacy in Africa and its support for Palestinians. In August 2021, Algiers led the latest political and diplomatic campaign inside the African Union to keep Israel out of the continental organization. Algeria’s classic position of supporting the Palestinians has not changed for decades; it rejects any normalization with Israel, a position that puts it at odds with a quarter of the countries in the Arab League, which have established relations with Israel. In fact in May, Algerian lawmakers submitted a bill to parliament criminalizing normalization with Israel, including articles prohibiting travel or any direct or indirect contact with Tel Aviv.
DIVIDE AND NORMALIZE
Just as the British developed the policy doctrine of “divide and conquer” in India, Israel is developing what could be called “divide and normalize.” The idea is to divide its Arab neighbors over their central cause—Palestine—despite the overwhelming public support Palestinians enjoy across the Arab world. Israel wants the Palestinian issue to be viewed as an internal matter settled within its domestic policies, not a case of colonization.
Algeria has every right to worry about the increased Israeli presence on its 1,400-km-long porous border, given the apartheid state’s history of destabilizing its enemies. Last year Algeria accused Israel and Morocco of having links to Algeria’s own separatist groups, particularly in its northern regions. It even claimed such groups started the devastating 2021 forest fires that claimed the lives of more than 90 people and burned hundreds of acres. (However, it did not produce any evidence to support its claims.)
The increased Israeli presence in North Africa is adding more poison to the already troubled relations between Rabat and Algiers. On Aug. 24, 2021, Algeria cut all ties with Morocco. Announcing the decision, Algerian Foreign Minister Ramtane Lamamra cited normalization between Israel and Morocco as a factor. During his visit to Rabat a few days earlier, Israel’s then-Foreign Minister Yair Lapid admitted that he discussed Algeria with his Moroccan host. He went on to criticize Algeria for getting closer to Iran. Lamamra’s response: “Since 1948 [the creation of Israel], we did not hear any member of an Israeli government issuing judgments or sending aggressive messages from the territory of an Arab country against another Arab country.”
Algeria, which finds itself isolated, will naturally look for allies, including Iran—Israel’s sworn enemy. Again the widening political and military exchanges between Rabat and Tel Aviv have dragged the region into the established animosities between Iran and Israel, further making any Algerian-Moroccan reconciliation more difficult. It also drags Israel into the Western Sahara problem.
THE ABRAHAM ACCORDS
Another factor contributing to the recent deterioration of relations between Algeria and Morocco is the Trump administration’s foreign policy initiative known as the Abraham Accords. The accords made it possible for Rabat to normalize relations with Israel as did other Arab countries including Bahrain and United Arab Emirates. In return, Rabat got what it never expected: an official U.S. recognition of its sovereignty over the Western Sahara. Rabat signed the accords in September 2020, and three months later Washington recognized Morocco’s sovereignty over the Western Sahara—a major shift in U.S. foreign policy. Obviously that did not please Algeria, nor did it help the United Nations, which had been trying for decades to find a negotiated solution to the Western Sahara dispute.
Trump was clearly intent on helping Tel Aviv and had no concern for the long-term consequences in the region and arguably no concern for U.S. interests. The Abraham Accords did not help peace between Israel and the Palestinians; it alienated the weaker party, the Palestinians, and made the two-state solution, which was nominally the official U.S. policy, even less likely.
Thanks to the Abraham Accords, Tel Aviv has managed to normalize ties with four Arab countries, marginalizing the Palestinians but also making a mockery of long-held U.S. positions in the region. The U.S., now in contravention of international law, recognizes Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights and East Jerusalem as part of Israel. The accords have made it even more difficult to improve ties between Rabat and Algiers.
HOPE FOR RAPPROCHEMENT?
Is there any hope of Algerian-Moroccan rapprochement in the near future?
Algeria is hosting the Arab League summit (Nov. 1-2), but the Algerian-Moroccan disputes are not even on the agenda. Also it is unlikely that the summit will produce any strong condemnation, as is usually the case, of Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians. Nearly a quarter of the Arab League members now have relations with Israel and they are likely to object to any strongly worded statements against Tel Aviv.
While all that is happening another trigger is looming to further complicate the situation between Algeria and Morocco. On Oct. 1 the Moroccan Ministry of Culture sent a letter to the German sportswear maker Adidas after the company unveiled its new Algerian football jersey design, accusing it of “appropriating” Moroccan culture in the new design. This episode has not, yet, triggered any further troubles between Algeria and Morocco but it certainly has the potential to do just that.
Mustafa Fetouri is a Libyan academic and freelance journalist. He is a recipient of the EU’s Freedom of the Press prize. He has written extensively for various media outlets on Libyan and MENA issues. He has published three books in Arabic. His email is mustafafetouri@hotmail.com and Twitter: @MFetouri.