Moroccan palace asks Islamist party to stop criticizing ties with Israel

Morocco's royal palace on Monday asked the largest Islamist party, the PJD, to stop taking aim at the country's ties with Israel after the party rebuked the foreign minister for defending Israel at the expense of Palestinians.

Morocco's royal palace on Monday asked the largest Islamist party, the PJD, to stop taking aim at the country's ties with Israel after the party rebuked the foreign minister for defending Israel at the expense of Palestinians. Renewed violence between Israelis and Palestinians poses a challenge to Arab countries that have normalised ties with Israel.

Morocco resumed diplomatic ties with Israel in late 2020 after a deal brokered by the Trump administration that also included Washington's recognition of Rabat's sovereignty over Western Sahara, a disputed territory where the Algeria-backed Polisario Front seeks to establish its own state. "The general secretariat condemns the recent stand by the foreign minister in which he appears to be defending the zionist entity... at a time the Israeli occupation continues its criminal aggression against our Palestinian brothers," the PJD said in a statement last week.

The palace said that foreign policy was a prerogative of the King and it would not be "subject to blackmail". Since the resumption of ties, Morocco and Israel have signed cooperation agreements, including a defence pact.

Morocco's official position regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been to support of the two-state solution, with East Jerusalem as capital of a Palestinian state.

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