'He is a war criminal': Moroccan pro-Palestine activists protest Israeli Knesset leader visit

A group of Moroccan activists who are against normalisation with the Israeli state took to the streets on Wednesday in protest of the visit of Israeli Knesset leader Amir Ohana to the North African kingdom.

In Rabat, tens of members of the Moroccan Front Against Normalisation gathered Wednesday afternoon in front of the parliament building calling on the 'honourable' elected members of the house to boycott Ohana's visit.

"We refuse the hosting of Ohana in our parliament because he is not a politician, he is a war criminal who participated in killing thousands of innocent Palestinians," Fouad, a member of the group, said to The New Arab. 

Ohana served for over six years in the Israeli military. Following his military service, he was recruited to the Israeli General Security Service and held positions related to intelligence. 

Under the slogan, "Palestine is a trust, and normalisation is betrayal," the pro-Palestine activists chanted against Rabat's "shameful" normalisation policy with Tel Aviv and called on the Moroccan government to immediately cut all ties with "the apartheid state."

A source from the Moroccan moderate Islamist party Justice and Development (PJD) said the party's members are set to boycott Ohana's visit if it took place. Other parties have yet to voice their stand on the controversial visit.

According to Israeli media, the speaker of the Moroccan parliament Rachid Talbi Al-Alami invited Ohana following connections created between their respective offices.

Reports say Ohana landed in Rabat on Wednesday as he is set to visit the Moroccan parliament later this week.

Morocco's foreign ministry has yet to confirm the news. Though, since normalising ties with Tel Aviv three years ago, Rabat has refrained from issuing press releases on Israeli officials' visits ahead of their official welcoming in the country.

Ohana, a member of Israel's ruling Likud Party, is the first Knesset speaker ever invited for a state visit to the parliament of a Muslim country. His parents were born in Morocco and immigrated to Israel in the 1950s.

In a statement on his visit, Ohana said, "History is being made before our eyes" and vowed stronger cooperation. 

Rabat's history with hosting senior Israeli officials goes back to 1986 when the kingdom welcomed for the first time an Israeli official, Shimon Perez, Israel's PM minister at the time.

In 1993, Perez revisited Rabat in a public visit that was tremendously controversial and problematic at the time.

Late Moroccan King Hassan II established public ties with Tel Aviv for the first time after the signing of the Oslo peace agreement.

Though, following the Palestinian uprising in 2000, the newly-crowned king at the time, Mohammed VI, decided to cut off ties with Israel.

However, the recent normalisation between the two states knows no limits. "The limits are the sky," stressed the Moroccan foreign minister on the first anniversary of the Israeli-Moroccan normalisation deal.

Since they normalised ties in December 2020, Morocco and Israel have been ambitiously working to boost cooperation in the military, security, trade and tourism fields despite the persistent political and social opposition to normalisation in the North African kingdom.