Palestinian Official Hanan Ashrawi: Trump’s Morocco-Israel Deal Legitimizes Land Theft & Occupation
In a deal brokered by the Trump administration, Morocco and Israel have agreed to establish diplomatic relations. The United States has also agreed to recognize Morocco’s sovereignty over occupied Western Sahara, the first country in the world to do so. Morocco has occupied much of the resource-rich territory since 1975 in defiance of the United Nations and the international community. Thousands of indigenous Sahrawis have been tortured, imprisoned, killed and disappeared while resisting the Moroccan occupation. Morocco is the fourth Arab nation to establish ties with Israel since August, part of a diplomatic push by the outgoing Trump administration to shore up international support for Israel. Palestinian diplomat and scholar Hanan Ashrawi says this latest agreement is legitimizing land theft. “This is part of a whole pattern of behavior, a process whereby the Trump administration has been acting as the errand boy for Israel in order to try to get as many victories, as many benefits, as many privileges for Israel,” she says.