Morocco’s ‘moral commitment’ to the Two-State Solution

The settled will of the international community, as expressed through innumerable United Nations resolutions, is for a ‘two state’ solution for Israel and Palestine based upon the 1967 borders. This has been given added impetus at the Fifth Meeting of the ‘Global Alliance for the Implementation of the Two State Solution’ held this week in Morocco, and in partnership with the Netherlands. The meeting took place at the same time as France, the UK and Canada at long last changed gear and called upon the Israelis to allow aid in for tens of thousands of starving Palestinians in Gaza, called upon Netanyahu to halt his new military offensive and once again affirmed the two-state solution as the only solution. Speaking in Rabat, Morocco’s Foreign Minister, Nasser Bourita said that; ‘the Two-State solution is neither an empty slogan nor a pretext for diplomatic posturing, but a moral commitment and a realistic political option that can no longer be postponed or subject to hesitation.’

Morocco’s Foreign Minister may have been too polite to point out that over seventy years since Israel declared its self-independent, for some countries calls for the Two State Solution has become ritualistic, and that had Britain in particular not betrayed the Mandate over Palestine entrusted to it by the League of Nations, we would be a great deal close to achieving a permanent solution, a two state solution or even a one state solution based on Israel/Palestine becoming a secular democracy. For Britain was supposed to administer Palestine for all its residents, Muslims, Christians and Jews, but after years of attacks from militant settler militias, which climaxed in the King David Hotel massacre, rushed to leave Palestine and handed power to a small group of Zionists without holding any elections. When the United States under President Truman rushed to recognise Israel, but not Palestine, the wife of former President Roosevelt, Eleanor Roosevelt, was seen to put her head in her hands. She clearly had some inkling of what was to come.

The truth is that if the international community fails to stop the current Israeli leadership from its current path of mass killings and promised ethnic cleansing in Gaza while also driving Palestinians from the Occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, the chances of ever achieving a two-state solution will vanish. Which is also why Morocco’s Foreign Minister expressed his support for the Franco-Saudi co-presidency of the High-Level Conference on the peaceful resolution of the Palestinian issue that will take place in New York next month. President Macron has already intimated that France is likely to finally recognise Palestine when this takes place, and it is also beginning to look as though the country with a historic responsibility for helping to create the terrible situation that we are in today, Britain, will also recognise Palestine. 

None of this will be acceptable to the current embattled Israeli leadership which sees war, displacement and ethnic cleansing as the perquisites for a ‘Greater Israel’. Much may ultimately depend on whether the Trump administration can begin by telling Netanyahu to stop and whether the EU and other countries are prepared to initiate widespread sanctions. Morocco’s ultimate influence comes with the Abraham Accords, which it signed with Israel alongside other countries including the United Arab Emirates and Bahrein. A threat to unravel these Accords would most certainly concentrate minds in the White House, just as it would further embolden those in Israel, the 60% to 70%  of people who tell pollsters that they want an end to war and are for peace. 

*Mark Seddon is a former Speechwriter to UN Secretary-General Ban ki moon & former Adviser to the Office of the President of the UN General Assembly