Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu found himself in the heart of a controversy after having brandished a controversial card during an interview on the French channel LCI, yesterday Thursday, May 30. On this map, Western Sahara appears in white, clearly separated from Morocco, which is nevertheless colored in green like the other Arab countries.
This awkwardness has aroused strong reactions on social networks, especially since Israel and Morocco standardized their diplomatic relations in December 2020 as part of the Abraham agreements, a process supported by the United States.
In return for this standardization, Rabat had obtained from Washington the recognition of its sovereignty over Western Sahara, a disputed territory claimed by the Sahraouis independence from the Polisario Front.
Faced with the controversy, the Hebrew state hastened to clarify its position. In a statement released in Arabic, the Netanyahu office recalled that Israel officially recognized Morocco’s sovereignty over Western Sahara since 2023.
Also the spokesman for the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the Arab Media, Hassan Kaabia, reacted by specifying on X: “Due to an involuntary error, a great media agitation was aroused concerning a card used by Mr. Benjamin Netanyahu showing the map of Morocco amputated of his Sahara.
This is why I would like to bring clarification to His Majesty King Mohammed VI, may God glorify him, to his dear people and to his honorable government saying: “Morocco is in its Sahara until God inherits the earth and what it contains”. We also apologize for this technical error. Israel and Morocco are brothers, and we will not return to our historical recognition of the Moroccanity of the Sahara. »»
This diplomatic blunder highlights the complexity of the status of Western Sahara, an old Spanish colony considered as a “non -autonomous territory” by the UN. If Morocco controls the majority of this territory and proposes a plan of autonomy under its sovereignty, the Sahrawi separatists, supported by Algeria, continue to claim their right to self -determination.
