Key Takeaways:
- On 16 September 2026 in New York, Gideon Sa’ar, Nasser Bourita, and U.S. UN Ambassador Mike Waltz agreed Morocco and Israel would open full embassies and name ambassadors. They also pledged more direct flights (including Moroccan carriers), high-level visits, and investment-protection and double-tax deals by year-end. Liaison offices since the December 2020 restoration of ties already covered politics, defence, trade, tourism, tech, and culture; embassies lock that into a standing frame.
- Chtatou’s thread: this is formalizing an older human link, not inventing one—centuries of Moroccan Jewry, then a large Moroccan-origin community in Israel, plus Rabat’s school curricula, synagogues, mellahs, and Al-Quds Committee role. Strategy is complementary: Israeli tech, water, ag, and defence; Morocco as Mediterranean–Atlantic–Africa hinge. 2021 defence MoU and U.S./Israeli recognition of Moroccan Sahara sovereignty sit beside an unchanged Moroccan line on Palestine and Jerusalem (2020 joint declaration). Gaza strained public opinion; channels stayed open.
- Next test: fill the embassies with investment, joint water and farm projects, universities, heritage travel, and African triangular work—not only security. The article does not call the upgrade a formal alliance. Durability depends on managing Palestine without collapsing the rest, and on ties that outlast any one U.S. administration.
From Normalization to Institutional Consolidation
The agreement reached by Morocco and Israel on 16 September 2026 to elevate their diplomatic missions to full embassies and appoint ambassadors represents a significant institutional turning point in a relationship that has developed rapidly since the restoration of official ties in December 2020. The decision was reached in New York during a trilateral meeting involving Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, Moroccan Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita, and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz. The agreement goes beyond the symbolic upgrading of diplomatic representation: the two countries also committed themselves to expanding direct air links, arranging reciprocal high-level visits, and concluding agreements on investment protection and the prevention of double taxation by the end of 2026.
The significance of this development lies precisely in its institutional character. Since the 2020 normalization, Morocco and Israel have already developed political consultations, defense cooperation, economic exchanges, tourism, technological partnerships, and cultural contacts. The liaison offices established after normalization consequently became instruments for a relationship that was already considerably broader than ordinary diplomatic representation. Their transformation into full embassies marks the movement from a transitional architecture of normalization toward a more permanent bilateral framework. The September 2026 agreement can therefore be interpreted as an attempt to consolidate accumulated cooperation and provide it with institutions capable of surviving political fluctuations.
This development also confirms the central argument of my earlier study of Moroccan-Israeli relations: normalization should not be understood as the creation of an entirely new relationship but as the formalization and expansion of connections that had existed, in different forms, for decades. The contemporary partnership combines strategic interests with a much older human and cultural history. As I argued in my Orbis article, the Moroccan-Israeli relationship possesses an exceptional historical dimension rooted in the long presence of Jews in Morocco and the continuing cultural attachment of Israeli Jews of Moroccan origin to their ancestral homeland (Chtatou, 2023).
The Historical Foundations of a Distinctive Relationship
The historical foundations of Moroccan-Israeli relations distinguish this relationship from many other Arab-Israeli partnerships. Jewish communities have lived in Morocco for centuries, developing religious, commercial, linguistic, and cultural institutions within Moroccan society. The mass migration of Moroccan Jews to Israel subsequently created a human bridge between the two countries. Moroccan Jewish identity did not disappear through migration; rather, many Moroccan Jewish families maintained traditions, cuisine, music, religious customs, memories, and familial connections associated with Morocco. The historical relationship thus survived the absence of formal diplomatic relations and eventually became one of the cultural foundations of normalization (Chtatou, 2023).
This history should nevertheless be treated with scholarly precision rather than romanticized. Jewish-Muslim relations in Morocco were neither an uninterrupted story of harmony nor an uninterrupted story of conflict. They involved different political, social, and economic conditions across centuries and regions. What is historically significant is that Jewish communities constituted an integral component of Moroccan society and that forms of coexistence, interaction, protection, exchange, and cultural borrowing developed alongside periods of discrimination and insecurity. The contemporary diplomatic relationship can draw upon this complex history without reducing it to an idealized narrative.
Morocco has increasingly incorporated Jewish heritage into its national historical narrative. The teaching of Jewish Moroccan history in schools, the restoration of synagogues and cemeteries, the preservation of mellahs, and the public recognition of Jewish contributions to Moroccan civilization have created an important cultural framework for the relationship. These developments provide a foundation upon which diplomacy can construct a more substantial societal relationship. In this respect, Jewish Moroccan heritage is not merely a historical subject but a potential instrument of contemporary cultural diplomacy.
My 2023 analysis emphasized precisely this dimension. The Moroccan-Israeli relationship possesses an unusual potential because historical memory and contemporary strategic interests reinforce one another rather than existing as entirely separate spheres (Chtatou, 2023). The September 2026 diplomatic upgrade provides an opportunity to institutionalize this historical connection through universities, museums, cultural institutions, tourism, archives, religious communities, and educational exchanges.
The Strategic Logic of the Partnership
The strategic logic of Moroccan-Israeli cooperation is equally important. Morocco has pursued a diversified foreign policy combining strong relations with the United States and Europe with increasingly extensive engagement in Africa, the Arab world, the Gulf, and the Mediterranean. Israel, meanwhile, has sought to develop a network of partnerships with Arab and Muslim-majority states through the Abraham Accords. The convergence between these two strategies has created substantial room for cooperation.
For Morocco, Israel offers access to technological capabilities, defense systems, innovation networks, agricultural expertise, water technologies, and investment. For Israel, Morocco offers a strategically located partner linking the Mediterranean, Atlantic Africa, Europe, and the Arab world. Morocco’s geographical position gives its relationship with Israel a significance that extends beyond bilateral trade. The two countries can potentially function as bridges between different regional systems.
This strategic convergence was already evident before the 2026 diplomatic upgrade. The 2020 joint declaration explicitly envisaged direct flights, economic cooperation, and the establishment of full diplomatic relations, while simultaneously recognizing Morocco’s longstanding position on the Palestinian question and Jerusalem (Kingdom of Morocco, United States, & State of Israel, 2020). The 2026 agreement can therefore be viewed as the institutional maturation of a process whose foundations were established six years earlier.
Security Cooperation and Strategic Diversification
Security cooperation has been one of the most rapidly expanding dimensions of Moroccan-Israeli relations. The November 2021 defense memorandum created a framework for cooperation, followed by visits of senior military officials and discussions concerning defense industries and advanced military technologies. My analysis in Orbis documented this acceleration and identified military cooperation as one of the principal strategic pillars of the post-2020 relationship (Chtatou, 2023).
The security relationship reflects Morocco’s broader strategy of diversifying its defense partnerships rather than depending upon a single supplier or strategic relationship. Israel’s technological capabilities are therefore attractive within a wider Moroccan effort to strengthen national defense and technological sovereignty. At the same time, Israel benefits from cooperation with a strategically located North African state whose geographical position provides access to the western Mediterranean and Atlantic dimensions of the broader regional security environment.
Yet a viable long-term partnership cannot depend exclusively upon security cooperation. Defense relations can generate strategic interdependence, but they do not necessarily produce societal legitimacy. For the Moroccan-Israeli relationship to become durable, military cooperation must therefore be complemented by economic, technological, educational, cultural, and human exchanges.
Economic Complementarity and Investment
The economic dimension may provide the most practical foundation for institutionalizing the relationship. The September 2026 agreement commits Morocco and Israel to concluding investment-protection and double-taxation agreements by the end of the year. These instruments are designed to facilitate reciprocal investment and create more predictable conditions for businesses operating across the two economies.
Such agreements are significant because they can transform diplomatic normalization into economic interdependence. A relationship supported by investment, employment, commercial partnerships, tourism, research, and technological exchange possesses a broader constituency than one restricted to governments and security establishments. Economic actors can consequently become important stakeholders in maintaining bilateral communication during periods of political tension.
There is also considerable complementarity between the two economies. Morocco offers industrial and logistical capacities, proximity to European markets, access to African networks, and an expanding renewable-energy and manufacturing sector. Israel possesses considerable expertise in high technology, agricultural innovation, water management, cybersecurity, and specialized industries. The relationship can therefore move beyond the exchange of finished goods toward joint investment, research, technological transfer, and production.
Water, Agriculture, and Technological Innovation
Agriculture represents one of the clearest areas of potential complementarity. Morocco’s agricultural sector is central to employment, food security, rural development, and exports, while recurrent drought and water scarcity have intensified pressure to increase efficiency. Israel’s experience in irrigation, desalination, wastewater recycling, precision agriculture, and water-saving technologies creates obvious areas for cooperation. My 2023 study identified agriculture as a particularly promising field for Moroccan-Israeli economic cooperation (Chtatou, 2023).
The inclusion of water and agriculture among the areas of cooperation in the 2026 diplomatic agreement is therefore strategically important. The relationship could generate practical projects involving irrigation, drought-resistant agriculture, water recycling, desalination, food processing, and agricultural technology. Such cooperation would also possess a wider African dimension because Morocco has developed extensive economic and diplomatic networks across the continent.
Technology more generally could become the principal engine of the next stage of the relationship. Cooperation in artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, telecommunications, medical technology, renewable energy, fintech, and digital education could create professional networks extending well beyond traditional diplomatic channels. These fields also provide opportunities for university-to-university and research-institution cooperation, making technological diplomacy a potential bridge between governmental and societal relations.
Moroccan Jews as a Human Bridge
Perhaps the most distinctive element of Moroccan-Israeli relations remains the Moroccan Jewish community in Israel. The descendants of Moroccan Jews constitute a significant component of Israeli society and maintain cultural memories associated with Morocco. Their continued attachment to Moroccan cuisine, music, religious traditions, family networks, and places of origin gives the bilateral relationship a human dimension that cannot be created simply through diplomatic agreements.
As I argued in my Orbis study, Moroccan Jewish identity has survived within Israeli society while maintaining important links with Moroccan culture (Chtatou, 2023). This provides a potential bridge between the two societies. The expansion of direct flights announced in September 2026 is therefore important not merely for tourism but also for family visits, heritage travel, cultural exchanges, religious pilgrimage, and personal mobility. The two governments agreed to expand direct air services, including flights operated by Moroccan airlines, during 2026.
A genuinely mature relationship should therefore encourage the development of heritage tourism, academic research, oral-history projects, museum partnerships, and cultural exchanges concerning Moroccan Jewish history. The objective should not be to instrumentalize Jewish heritage for political purposes but to recognize it as a genuine component of Morocco’s historical pluralism and as a living connection between Moroccan and Israeli societies.
Convivencia and Cultural Diplomacy
The concept of convivencia can contribute to this cultural dimension, provided it is employed historically rather than mythologically. Morocco’s Jewish heritage illustrates a long history of interaction between Muslim and Jewish communities. Jewish and Muslim populations shared commercial spaces, languages, artistic traditions, neighborhoods, culinary practices, and elements of everyday social life. This history was neither uniformly harmonious nor uniformly conflictual, but it provides evidence of the possibility of sustained coexistence within a plural society.
Cultural diplomacy could transform this historical inheritance into contemporary cooperation. Moroccan and Israeli universities could collaborate on research into Jewish history in North Africa, Judeo-Arabic culture, Judeo-Amazigh relations, migration, Mediterranean commerce, religious coexistence, and Moroccan Jewish communities in Israel. Museums and cultural institutions could jointly preserve archives and oral histories. Municipal partnerships could connect Moroccan cities historically associated with Jewish communities to Israeli cities with substantial Moroccan-origin populations.
Such initiatives would give the relationship a social foundation that strategic agreements alone cannot provide. They would also reinforce the argument that Moroccan-Israeli relations are not simply the product of contemporary geopolitical calculations but are partly rooted in a much older history of human interaction (Chtatou, 2023).
The Palestinian Question and Strategic Limits
The Palestinian question remains the most important political constraint on the relationship. Morocco’s normalization with Israel did not constitute an abandonment of its longstanding position regarding Palestinian statehood or Jerusalem. The 2020 joint declaration explicitly recorded King Mohammed VI’s “coherent, constant and unchanged position” concerning the Palestinian question and emphasized the importance of Jerusalem and the King’s role as Chairman of the Al-Quds Committee (Kingdom of Morocco, United States, & State of Israel, 2020).
The Gaza war subsequently placed considerable pressure on Morocco-Israel relations. The political environment surrounding normalization changed substantially after October 2023, and the Palestinian issue remained highly salient within Moroccan public discourse. Yet the continuation of bilateral relations also demonstrated that Morocco was able to maintain diplomatic channels while preserving its stated position on Palestine.
This duality is fundamental to understanding the future of the relationship. A viable partnership does not require Morocco and Israel to agree on every regional question. Rather, it requires institutional mechanisms through which disagreements can be managed without automatically destroying cooperation in unrelated fields. Diplomacy is particularly important when strategic partners possess different political priorities.
Western Sahara and Mutual Strategic Interests
Western Sahara constitutes another major component of the strategic relationship. The 2020 normalization framework was accompanied by U.S. recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara. Israel subsequently recognized Moroccan sovereignty over the territory in 2023. The Israeli government has treated this recognition as an important component of the bilateral relationship.
The connection between normalization and Western Sahara demonstrates that Moroccan-Israeli relations cannot be understood independently of Morocco’s broader national-security and foreign-policy priorities. For Rabat, diplomatic recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over the Sahara is a central strategic objective. For Israel, closer relations with Morocco provide a partnership with an influential North African state whose international networks extend into Africa and Europe.
The relationship therefore rests upon overlapping interests rather than a single issue. This multidimensionality may contribute to its resilience because cooperation is distributed across several strategic domains.
The African, Mediterranean, and Atlantic Dimensions
Morocco’s African engagement creates an additional field for Moroccan-Israeli cooperation. Since its return to the African Union, Morocco has strengthened political, economic, religious, and commercial relationships throughout the continent. Israeli technological expertise in agriculture, water, healthcare, renewable energy, and digital innovation could complement Moroccan networks and investment strategies.
Joint Moroccan-Israeli initiatives in Africa could therefore transform bilateral normalization into triangular development cooperation. Such projects could focus on water efficiency, agricultural productivity, renewable energy, digital infrastructure, health technologies, and education. The result would be a relationship extending beyond the traditional Arab-Israeli framework.
The Mediterranean dimension is equally important. Morocco’s Atlantic and Mediterranean geography gives it a distinctive position linking Europe, Africa, and the Arab world, while Israel occupies a strategic position in the eastern Mediterranean. Cooperation between the two countries could consequently encompass maritime research, tourism, logistics, renewable energy, environmental protection, scientific cooperation, and the blue economy.
The partnership could thus become part of a broader Mediterranean architecture rather than being confined to Middle Eastern security politics.
The United States and the Abraham Accords
The United States remains a central actor in the architecture surrounding Moroccan-Israeli normalization. Washington facilitated the 2020 agreement, while the September 2026 upgrade was again announced following a trilateral meeting involving the American ambassador to the United Nations. The diplomatic relationship is consequently embedded within the wider Abraham Accords framework.
Yet the Moroccan-Israeli relationship possesses distinctive characteristics. Morocco’s Jewish history, its role in the Al-Quds Committee, its African identity, its Mediterranean position, and the Western Sahara question differentiate it from other relationships created through the Abraham Accords. Morocco’s relationship with Israel therefore has its own bilateral logic, even while participating in the wider regional framework.
The future challenge will be to ensure that bilateral relations acquire sufficient institutional depth to function independently of any particular American administration or regional political configuration.
From Transactional Normalization to Societal Connectivity
The fundamental challenge is now to move from transactional normalization toward societal connectivity. Diplomatic agreements are necessary, but they cannot alone create a durable relationship between societies. Full embassies can facilitate political dialogue and consular services, but universities, businesses, families, cultural institutions, religious organizations, tourists, researchers, and students must also become participants in the relationship.
The September 2026 agreement provides several mechanisms for this process: expanded direct flights, investment agreements, high-level visits, and broader economic cooperation. These mechanisms can create social and economic networks capable of sustaining relations even when political circumstances become difficult.
The historical dimension is particularly important here. The Moroccan Jewish community in Israel provides a pre-existing human network that can support cultural exchange. The challenge is to transform this network into broader institutional cooperation involving younger generations who may not possess direct memories of Morocco.
The Conditions for a Viable Alliance
The term “alliance” should therefore be used carefully. Morocco and Israel have not created a formal alliance treaty through the September 2026 agreement. What they have created is a significantly stronger institutional basis for strategic partnership. Whether that partnership develops alliance-like characteristics will depend upon several conditions.
First, diplomatic institutionalization must become permanent. Second, economic cooperation must expand beyond symbolic agreements toward sustained investment and commercial interdependence. Third, security cooperation must remain embedded within broader diplomatic relations. Fourth, cultural and educational exchanges must create societal connectivity. Fifth, the two governments must develop mechanisms for managing disagreements concerning Palestine and other regional questions.
Finally, the relationship must retain sufficient flexibility to accommodate the independent foreign-policy priorities of both states. Morocco will continue to maintain relationships with Europe, the United States, Africa, the Gulf, and the wider Arab world; Israel will likewise continue to cultivate multiple strategic relationships. A viable Moroccan-Israeli partnership should therefore complement, rather than replace, these broader diplomatic networks.
Conclusion: From Diplomatic Representation to Strategic Partnership
The Moroccan-Israeli decision of September 2026 to upgrade diplomatic representation to full embassies and appoint ambassadors constitutes an important institutional milestone. It formalizes a relationship that has developed substantially since the restoration of ties in 2020 and creates mechanisms for expanding political, economic, technological, security, and human cooperation.
The significance of this development, however, extends beyond diplomatic protocol. Morocco and Israel possess an unusual combination of contemporary strategic interests and historical connections. Security cooperation, investment, technology, agriculture, water management, tourism, and trade provide the material foundations of the relationship, while Moroccan Jewish heritage provides a distinctive human and cultural bridge. As my 2023 analysis demonstrated, this combination of historical memory and strategic interest gives the Moroccan-Israeli relationship a character that cannot be reduced to the Abraham Accords alone (Chtatou, 2023).
At the same time, the relationship operates within political constraints, particularly the Palestinian question and Jerusalem. Morocco’s continued commitment to its established position on Palestine means that the relationship cannot be understood as a simple strategic alignment with Israel. Its durability will instead depend upon the capacity of both sides to maintain cooperation while managing areas of disagreement.
The upgrading of diplomatic missions should consequently be regarded as the institutional beginning of a new phase rather than the completion of an alliance. The embassies are instruments through which political communication, economic diplomacy, cultural exchange, consular cooperation, and crisis management can become more systematic. Their real importance will ultimately depend on what is built around them.
If Morocco and Israel succeed in transforming diplomatic normalization into dense networks of investment, technological cooperation, tourism, academic exchange, cultural dialogue, and human mobility, the relationship could acquire considerably greater resilience. Moroccan Jewish heritage could function as a bridge between societies; Morocco’s African and Mediterranean networks could broaden the geographical reach of cooperation; Israeli technological capabilities could contribute to Moroccan development priorities; and the two states could maintain strategic dialogue even when they disagree on major regional questions.
The transition from liaison offices to embassies therefore represents a movement from provisional normalization toward institutional maturity. It does not automatically establish a formal alliance, but it creates many of the conditions under which a durable strategic partnership could develop. The decisive question for the coming years will be whether this institutional architecture can be filled with substantive human, economic, technological, cultural, and political content.
In that sense, the September 2026 agreement represents a test of whether the Moroccan-Israeli relationship can move beyond the transactional logic of normalization toward a more comprehensive model of partnership. The relationship’s distinctive historical foundations, combined with its contemporary strategic interests, provide a particularly important basis for such a transformation. The future of the partnership will ultimately depend not simply on the number of agreements signed or embassies opened, but on whether Moroccan and Israeli societies increasingly perceive their relationship as a durable channel of cooperation, dialogue, exchange, and shared human development.
Bibliography
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