In the context of the criticism directed at Morocco by some social media users because of its diplomatic relations with Israel, and the intensification of these criticisms with the continuation of the war in the Gaza Strip, a video clip spread that its publishers said was from a recent visit by the Moroccan Defense Minister to Israel for the purpose of “inspecting the Moroccan forces participating in the war.” .
The video depicts a press report showing what appears to be a military reception in which the flags of Morocco and Israel were raised.
However, this claim is misleading and the video is from 2022, and it shows a Moroccan military official visiting Israel at the time.
Publishers commented, saying, “The Moroccan Minister of Defense visited the Zionist entity to inspect the Moroccan forces present in the occupied territories fighting Palestinian resistance side by side with the Zionists.”
Morocco and Israel
The spread of this video comes in the context of Morocco’s establishment of diplomatic relations with Israel, for which it is being criticized on pages and accounts on social media sites in the Arabic language.
Recently, Morocco witnessed demonstrations in support of the Palestinians and in rejection of the normalization of relations between their country and the Hebrew state.
Since the beginning of the war in Gaza on October 7, several large-scale demonstrations have taken place in Morocco to demand an end to normalization, while the movement opposing normalization was limited until that date, according to Agence France-Presse correspondents.
Morocco and Israel normalized their diplomatic relations in December 2020 in exchange for the United States’ recognition of Rabat’s sovereignty over the disputed territory of Western Sahara.
Morocco controls 80 percent of Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony, and proposes granting it autonomy under its sovereignty, but the Polisario Front, supported by Algeria, is seeking a referendum to decide its fate.
Video truth
As for the claim that the video is of a visit by the Moroccan Defense Minister to inspect Moroccan forces participating in the war against Gaza, it is incorrect.
The search for the video was guided by using keywords mentioned in the report, such as “Farouk Belkheir’s visit to Israel,” published on the Algeria International Channel’s X account on September 13, 2022, that is, two years before the outbreak of the war in Gaza.
The same scenes can also be found in reports broadcast by several media outlets, regarding the arrival of the Inspector General of the Moroccan Armed Forces to Israel to participate in the first international conference on military renewal in 2022.
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