Israeli Minister of Transport Miri Regev holds the Israeli flag in front of Damascus Gate in east Jerusalem on 18 May 2023 ahead of the annual far-right flag-waving Israeli rally. [Getty]
Several diplomats staged a walkout Tuesday at a global conference in Morocco, protesting the presence of Israel’s transportation minister, Miri Regev, whose visit has reignited tensions over the North African Kingdom’s ties with Israel.
Regev arrived in Marrakesh on 18 February for the Global Ministerial Conference on Road Safety, after a Moroccan court rejected an appeal by lawyers seeking to bar her from entering the country.
The lawsuit cited her alleged involvement in war crimes against Palestinians.
As she spoke at the Palais des Congrès on Tuesday evening, representatives from Turkey, Jordan, Ireland, and the Palestinian Authority walked out in protest.
Diplomats from Gulf states, including Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar, remained in the hall, reported Israeli media Channel 12.
The minister will also be taking part in most activities in the conference on 19 and 20 February, according to the same source.
Outside the venue, a few kilometres away, pro-Palestinian activists and civil society groups rallied Wednesday against Regev’s visit, denouncing Morocco’s continued ties with Israel.
A coordinated social media campaign has also called for her arrest.
“We refuse the visit of this war criminal. She has the blood of Palestinians on her hands”, Abou El-Hassan Youssef, a member of the Moroccan Front Against Normalisation, told The New Arab.
During a media appearance on the sidelines of the conference, the Israeli delegation introduced Regev as Moroccan.
“My father is from Casablanca”, she told local reporters, thanking Moroccan authorities for the invitation. She did not comment on the controversy surrounding her visit.
Morocco normalised diplomatic relations with Israel in 2020 under the US brokered Abraham Accords.
Rabat has since leaned heavily on the country’s Jewish heritage—Morocco was once home to a quarter of a million Jews—to justify its relationship with Tel Aviv.
Before Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, Moroccan and Israeli officials had signed dozens of agreements in education, trade, and defence.
Opposition to normalisation existed but remained relatively contained. That changed on 7 October 2023, when Israel launched its military campaign in Gaza.
In the months that followed, Morocco saw some of the largest anti-normalisation protests in the region, with activists calling on the government to sever ties with Tel Aviv.
While Rabat tolerated the protests and scaled back official visits from Israeli officials, it did not suspend diplomatic relations.
Moroccan officials have instead argued that engagement with Israel does not come at the expense of the Palestinian cause.
According to BDS Morocco, Rabat “rushed to publicise normalisation again” the moment a ceasefire was announced, finalising an arms deal with Israel’s Elbit Systems, resuming construction of the Israeli embassy in Rabat, and now, hosting an Israeli minister for the first time since the war began.
BDS Morocco and other local pro-Palestine groups are vowing to continue pressuring Rabat until it cuts all ties with Israel and closes the Tel Aviv liaison office in Rabat.
