CASABLANCA, Morocco, Jan 17, 2021 (BSS/AFP) – Fanny Mergui has no doubt:
Moroccan Jews “are already packing their suitcases” to board direct flights
to Israel after the kingdom normalised ties with the Jewish state.
Morocco, home to North Africa’s biggest Jewish community and the ancestral
homeland of some 700,000 Israelis, is also hoping for an influx of Israeli
tourists when the Covid-19 pandemic eases.
“I’m very happy” that the five-hour route will be served by direct
flights, said Mergui, a Moroccan Jew who lives in Casablanca.
“It’s a true revolution.”
The first direct commercial flight headed from Tel Aviv to Rabat in
December to mark the three-way, US-brokered accord, under which Washington
also recognised Moroccan sovereignty over disputed Western Sahara.
But tickets for regular commercial flights have yet to go on sale.
Bureaucratic delays have been compounded by the pandemic, which forced
Morocco to mostly close its borders since March and impose a nationwide
curfew in December.
Singer Suzanne Harroch, who had to wait 14 hours in transit at a Paris
airport last time she visited Israel, called the Israeli-Moroccan
rapprochement a “miracle”.
“A lot of my family live there,” said the 67-year-old. “I can’t wait to
see them more, and more often.”
– Historical ties –
Israel had established liaison offices in Morocco in the 1990s during a
short-lived diplomatic opening.
But they were closed again in the early 2000s as the second Palestinian
intifada sparked a crushing Israeli response.
Yet relations quietly continued, with some $149 million in bilateral trade
between 2014-2017, according to Moroccan news reports.
The re-opening of the liaison offices could make it much easier for
Moroccans to obtain visas to visit Israel.
Morocco is also hoping to host more Israeli visitors.
Official statistics show that prior to the coronavirus pandemic, up to
70,000 Israeli tourists used to visit the country annually.
Most were of Moroccan ancestry and had kept close ties with their country
of origin.
“The majority of Israelis of Moroccan origin are delighted,” said Avraham
Avizemer, who left Casablanca as a toddler and has lived for decades in
Israel.
The fact their children and grandchildren can return “is huge”, he said.
One Israeli already in Morocco is Elan.
The 34-year-old sat in the library of a Casablanca synagogue, where along
with other Israeli Jews, mostly of Moroccan origin, he is receiving religious
classes from a Moroccan rabbi.
“Direct flights would make travel easier,” he said.
Morocco’s Jewish community dates back to antiquity.
It was boosted in the 15th century by Jews expelled from Spain, and by the
late 1940s reached about 250,000 people — around a tenth of the population.
But that figure tumbled as many Moroccan Jews headed to the newly founded
state of Israel.
Today, about 3,000 Jews remain in Morocco.
– ‘Happy, optimistic’ –
Businessman George Sebat, 56, said he was “very happy and very optimistic”
about Morocco’s normalisation, citing positive impacts for tourism and the
economy.
Prosper Bensimon, speaking after the evening prayer at Casablanca’s Em
Habanim synagogue, agreed.
“Four of my Muslim neighbours want to accompany me on my first visit from
Morocco,” he said.
But normalisation has not been universally welcomed by Moroccans.
Sion Assidon, an academic and prominent left-wing activist who backs the
Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel’s treatment of
Palestinians, is bitterly opposed.
“The latest fad is to justify the shame of normalisation by citing
Morocco’s historical links with Moroccan colonists,” he wrote on Facebook.
Mergui, a former Zionist youth activist, said she had emigrated to Israel
in the 1960s but returned to Morocco after the 1967 Six-Day War.
“I could not accept that the Jewish state, which I believed in, should
occupy Palestinian land,” she said.
She urged Israel to support “the creation of a Palestinian state”.
But, she added, she welcomes “every step towards peace”.