Can Israel-Morocco Peace Survive Washington?
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
That Israel and Morocco are going to recognize one another is the fourth stunning sign of peace after America’s move of its Israel embassy to Jerusalem. It’s a triumph for President Trump’s brand of transactional diplomacy. It brings into the Abraham Accords one of the most influential monarchies in the Arab League. We’d like to think it will be welcomed by both Republicans and Democrats in Washington.
We understand that the deal is likely to infuriate the Sahrawi rebels warring against Moroccan rule in the Western Sahara. The White House insists, though, that Morocco’s autonomy plan for the Western Sahara is “serious, credible, and realistic” and “the only basis for a just and lasting solution.” As such, the White House said, Mr. Trump “recognized Moroccan sovereignty over the entire Western Sahara territory.”
We may be hearing comparisons between, on the one hand, the Sahrawi and their Polisario National Liberation Front, and, on the other hand, the Palestinian Arabs and the Palestine Liberation Organization. The Palestinian Arabs leaders are furious over the peace agreements struck with Israel by the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Sudan. Yet, as with the Palestinian Arabs, the events today could bring a note of realism.
Mr. Trump himself noted that Morocco was the first country to recognize our own independence but a year after 1776. So he called our recognition of Moroccan sovereignty in the Western Sahara “fitting.” He was quoted by the AP as saying that Israel and Morocco, headed by King Mohammed VI, would restore diplomatic relations, with the reopening of liaison offices in Tel Aviv and Rabat and the “eventual opening of embassies.”
The Moroccan deal anticipates “joint overflight rights for airlines” and “expanded economic and cultural cooperation.” It may have less other impact. “If America can recognize morrocan sovereignty over the Western Sahara, which the United Nations calls ‘occupied,’” famed legal scholar Eugene Kontorovich tells us, “it’s a clear precedent for a subsequent recognition of Israeli sovereignty in the West Bank.”
It would be a mistake for anyone to get too far ahead of his or her skis. The Middle East has made fools of lots of well-meaning people over the years. Yet it’s hard to avoid one point — that two real estate tycoons, meaning President Trump and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, have managed to deliver something that has eluded the professional diplomats operating in the Arab world all these years.
Let’s hope it all survives the politics in Washington. A Biden administration would probably find it awkward to take on the Abraham Accords frontally. It might, though, try whinging — about, say, the dangers of equipping the UAE or of cutting a deal with Sudan’s fragile government. Would a President Biden recognize Morocco’s claim against the leftist Polisario? The art of this deal may begin after it’s signed and sealed.
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Image: The Moroccan-American Treaty of Peace and Friendship, sealed by King Mohammed III, was signed by our Minister to France, Thomas Jefferson, and soon-to-be envoy to France John Adams, and ratified by U.S. Congress on July 18, 1787. It was the first formal recognition of the American republic. Image via Wikipedia.