Moroccans Protest Accords by UAE, Bahrain, Israel

Several dozen demonstrators showed up on Friday outside the Moroccan parliament in the capital Rabat to protest this week’s normalization accords signed by Israel with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. “The normalization deals are an attack on the Palestinian people and their cause,” the Associated Press quoted one of the protesters, rights activist Abdelhamid Amine, as saying. “We are calling on the Moroccan government not to follow suit….” US President Donald Trump, whose administration brokered the accords, has said that “other countries” making such deals with Israel “very, very soon.” Morocco has been mentioned in much of the speculation, perhaps owing to its quiet ties with Israel, which sends groups of Moroccan-born citizens to the North African state on so-called roots trips. People at Friday’s anti-Israel rally waved Palestinian flags and chanted “Palestine is not for sale,” calling the accords “treason.” Recently, with news of Israel’s warming ties in the Gulf, Moroccan Prime Minister Saad Eddine El Othmani said his country was against any measure of normalization with the Jewish states.