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The Beginnings of the Israel-Morocco Peace Deal
(Ha'aretz) Yossi Verter - In early 2018, a Jewish billionaire born in Morocco who was close to the Moroccan government asked his friend Ram Ben Barak, former deputy chief of Israel's Mossad, if he could use his contacts in the U.S. to have the Trump administration recognize Moroccan sovereignty over the Western Sahara region. In return, Morocco would agree to reopen the Israeli liaison office in Rabat and establish full diplomatic relations. In April 2018, Ben Barak, accompanied by his friend from Morocco, went to Jerusalem where they met with Dore Gold, the former director general of the Foreign Ministry and someone close to Netanyahu - and today the president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs - and presented the "framework" to him. Gold checked and came back with a yes. A month later the three met in a European capital with the Moroccan prime minister, followed by another meeting with the same participants and Moroccan ministers in London. On July 26, another meeting was held at the White House with the same participants as well as Moroccan Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita and senior U.S. officials, followed by a clandestine meeting between Netanyahu and Bourita two months later on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. Yet more than two years would pass before Trump's Dec. 10 announcement of the new diplomatic relations.