For Israel, Morocco Relations Could Come With a Cost

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For Israel, Morocco Relations Could Come With a Cost | #cybersecurity | #cyberattack

In late November, Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz visited Morocco to formalize military cooperation between both countries with the signing of a memorandum of understanding. Gantz’s trip came …

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For Israel, Morocco Relations Could Come With a Cost | #cybersecurity | #cyberattack​

December 9, 2021Category: All News

In late November, Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz visited Morocco to formalize military cooperation between both countries with the signing of a memorandum of understanding. Gantz’s trip came a year after Morocco normalized its diplomatic relations with Israel and follows a previous visit by Foreign Minister Yair Lapid to Rabat in August.

The existence of military ties between Israel and Morocco is not new, but their acknowledgement of them is. The very public presence of Gantz in Rabat demonstrated Morocco’s desire not only to recognize Israel but to use the rapprochement to balance Algeria in the context of heightened tensions with its North African neighbor. But that may put Israel at the mercy of the volatile security environment in the Maghreb.

Military exchanges between Israel and Morocco predate the recent wave of normalization agreements between Israel and Arab states that began in the concluding months of the Trump administration. Starting in the 1960s, then-Moroccan King Hassan II, the father of current monarch Muhammad VI, relied on Israeli support to counter security threats from Algeria and Egypt. In 1963, when war broke out between Morocco and Algeria—which was supported at the time by Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser—Israeli intelligence shared information on Egyptian military moves with their Moroccan counterparts. Since then, it is believed that every director of Israel’s Mossad spy agency visited Morocco at one point or another during their tenure. Meanwhile, Israel sold arms and provided training to Moroccan ground forces in the 1970s.

But if this military and intelligence cooperation was a poorly kept secret, it nonetheless remained a secret. This changed last year when Morocco followed in the footsteps of the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain in signing the Abraham Accords, the historic cooperation agreements between the governments of Israel and several of its Arab neighbors. Since then, the Emiratis and Bahrainis have been comfortably showcasing their military exchanges with Israel, often quite publicly. Notably, two weeks before Gantz’s visit to Rabat, Israel’s navy joined the Emirati, Bahraini and U.S. fleets for a 5-day naval exercise in the Red Sea. The drill was the first publicly disclosed naval maneuvers between Israel and Gulf states and evidenced the new momentum for Israel’s relations with the Arab world.

Decision-makers in Israel likely see the enhancement of their partnership with Morocco as part of that same momentum. It is also supported by Israel’s growing footprint in Africa, both through bilateral ties across the continent and its accession to the status of observer state to the African Union in July 2021.

Despite the similarities between the Israeli rapprochement with Morocco and the Gulf states, however, the local security contexts differ significantly. The Israeli-Gulf partnership intensified in the past year, at a time when countries across the region—including the UAE—have cautiously moved toward deescalation with Iran through the opening of diplomatic talks. By contrast, in North Africa, Israel’s footprint is now expanding amid increased regional tensions between Morocco and Algeria.

Despite the similarities between the Israeli rapprochement with Morocco and the Gulf states, the local security contexts differ significantly.​

First, the fact that Rabat’s normalization of ties with Israel was a quid pro quo for the U.S. recognition of Morocco’s sovereignty over the Western Sahara territory—or at the very least was perceived as one—put Israel squarely in the middle of Rabat’s rivalry with Algiers. In reversing long-standing U.S. policy, the recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over the territory revived tensions between Morocco and Algeria, which is the main backer of the Polisario Front, a nationalist movement fighting for the independence of Western Sahara since 1973. Algeria considers its support for Western Saharan independence consistent with its historical role in the fight for decolonization. For Rabat, Algeria merely uses the Polisario Front as a proxy to try to weaken Morocco.

In the 12 months since Washington’s recognition of Rabat’s sovereignty over Western Sahara, Algerian-Moroccan relations have steadily deteriorated, as the Polisario Front intensified its attacks against Moroccan armed forces. Algiers suspended diplomatic relations with Rabat in late October and then closed its airspace to Moroccan aircraft. It also stopped supplying gas to Morocco via the Maghreb-Europe pipeline. Adding to these tensions, on Nov. 1, Algeria accused Morocco of a drone strike killing three Algerian workers in a region controlled by the Polisario Front.

Against that backdrop, the deepening of military cooperation with Israel is explicitly driven by Morocco’s security anxieties vis-a-vis Algeria’s military superiority, with two domains of particular concern—cybersecurity and drones. The cold war between Morocco and Algeria includes numerous cases of cyberattacks from both sides, most recently in November, when the website of the General Confederation of Moroccan Companies was defaced with a bellicose message accompanied by an Algerian flag. It is no coincidence, then, that Israel and Morocco signed a cooperation agreement on cybersecurity this summer, as Rabat is eager to gain from Israel’s extensive expertise in the cyber domain. The formal agreement builds on previous covert cooperation, as even prior to the new deal, Morocco was allegedly among the customers of the spyware Pegasus developed by the Israeli NSO Group, a contract that almost certainly would have had to be approved by the Israeli government.

Morocco is also expanding its cooperation with Israel on military drones, which now play a major role in the arms race with Algiers. Algeria’s arsenal of unmanned systems includes armed drones as well as reconnaissance and surveillance unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, procured from South Africa and China. As tensions rose in the past year, Morocco also increased its drone purchases. In 2020, it bought 12 Turkish Bayraktar TB2 attack drones. Now, thanks to the cooperation framework agreement with Israel, Morocco is also eyeing Israeli systems. That, too, would formalize ties that have been developed informally to date. In November, Haaretz reported that Morocco paid Israel Aerospace Industries $22 million in 2021 amid reports of a joint venture to produce drones in Morocco. Rabat is already reportedly operating four Hermes 900 loitering munitions, also known as “kamikaze” drones, from Elbit System. Although Moroccan authorities maintain a shroud of secrecy over some of these sales, the country’s armed forces released an official statement acknowledging the acquisition of Israel’s Skylock Dome, an air defense system designed to intercept incoming drones.

None of this has been lost on Algeria, which has begun to see Israel as a direct adversary as a result. It is no surprise that the Algerian government actively opposed Israel’s application for observer status at the African Union, which it saw as going against its regional interests. Algerian media coverage of Gantz’s visit to Rabat and the signing of the security cooperation framework is also telling, with the Algerian newspaper L’Expression describing the development as bringing “Mossad to our borders.”

War between Morocco and Algeria remains unlikely, but there are reasons for concern regarding their evolving rivalry and the way Israel is getting dragged into it. Israel’s deepened ties with the Gulf states also have a balancing dimension vis-a-vis Iran, but for Israel, that dimension was the motivation behind those partnerships, not a consequence of them. The converse is true with its partnership with Morocco, despite the fact that Israel has no interest in antagonizing Algeria.

Moreover, the Israel-Gulf rapprochement benefitted from a close U.S. involvement. North Africa, by contrast, is a more peripheral concern for Washington compared to its other pressing priorities. Former President Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara was initially opposed by Democrats, but since taking office, the Biden administration has not revisited the decision and appears reluctant to intervene in the ongoing tensions.

Under these circumstances, Israel may increasingly find itself increasingly entangled in the Morocco-Algerian dispute. Although Israel has a long history of secret military cooperation with Morocco, by making that cooperation public, it communicated a certain sense of solidarity with Rabat vis-a-vis Algeria. Future developments in North Africa, perhaps more than in the Persian Gulf, could very well test the limits of the “new normal” of normalization.
Jean-Loup Samaan is senior research fellow at the Middle East Institute of the National University of Singapore as well as an associate fellow with the French Institute for International Relations. You can follow him on Twitter at @JeanLoupSamaan.