Israel, Morocco and the United States have been pursuing back channel negotiations on the disputed Western Sahara for more than a year, Axios reported on Monday. The deal would reportedly involve Morocco normalizing ties with Israel in exchange for the United States formally recognizing the 1975 annexation of the Western Sahara, which the United Nations lists as a non-self-governing territory.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu started discussing the issue with Moroccan Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly summit in 2018. The meeting was a result of a back channel that originated between Netanyahu’s national security adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat and Moroccan businessman Yariv Elbaz, a close associate of White House adviser Jared Kushner.