Morocco may be the fourth Muslim country to normalize ties with Israel in the past four months, but the Dec. 10 announcement generated a special excitement in Jerusalem and elsewhere in the country. Unlike the Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan, where the Jewish communities are tiny and the history of bilateral relations rather short, Morocco and Israel share decades of contacts and centuries of common traditions and cultural ties.
Speaking at a Hannukah candle-lighting ceremony, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, "The people of Morocco and the Jewish people have had a warm relationship in the modern period. Everybody knows the tremendous friendship shown by the kings of Morocco and the people of Morocco to the Jewish community there. And hundreds of thousands of these Moroccan Jews came to Israel, and they form a human bridge between our two countries and our two peoples, of sympathy, respect, of fondness and love."
