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How Morocco's Religious Rehabilitation Model Could Help Gaza
(Washington Institute for Near East Policy) Salma Annasse - Morocco's experience with deradicalization programming suggests it could play a role in rehabilitating Gaza's institutions after years of Hamas rule. Over the past two decades, Rabat has developed a state-led religious system that combines closely regulated clerical training and community outreach. These programs merit consideration because they address both the rehabilitation of violent religious extremists and a wide array of necessary administrative and training functions. Moreover, Morocco has substantial experience coordinating with the Israeli government and engaging with local Palestinian actors. The kingdom's current religious framework grew out of the 2003 Casablanca bombings. Officials traced the bombers to extremist Salafi jihadist preachers in impoverished districts. Authorities concluded that weak government oversight had allowed extremist preachers and al-Qaeda-linked networks to spread their messages through mosques and religious schools, gain influence over local religious institutions, recruit vulnerable young people, and foment conflict. In response, Rabat moved quickly to enhance state involvement in this sector. Authorities placed all mosques under the Ministry of Islamic Affairs, which now appoints and licenses all imams and controls mosque funding and religious endowment revenue. Today, every preacher must complete a government-sponsored training program and pass an official exam. The government also rewrote school Quran classes and sermon guides to focus on Morocco's Maliki Islamic tradition of tolerance and national unity, rather than on scriptural passages that could be twisted toward violence. In 2015, the king opened the Mohammed VI Institute in Rabat to train hundreds of imams and religious guides under this unified, moderate curriculum. In addition, Rabat operates a separate but connected program focusing on state-certified male and female religious guides who work in mosques, schools, prisons, and local communities. They meet with families, counsel young people, answer religious questions, and promote interpretations of Islam that reject violence and other extremist ideas. Polls have long indicated that religion is central to Gaza's social and political life. Post-Hamas governance cannot simply remove religion from public life; Gaza remains overwhelmingly Muslim, and Palestinian Basic Law names Islam as the state religion. Yet it can constrain officials' use of religion as a political weapon - which is exactly what Morocco's model is built to do, and why its experience is potentially useful here. Of particular value is the administrative machinery behind its model: a clerical licensing system, a standardized curriculum that emphasizes tolerance and moderation, a sermon-vetting process, and a training pipeline. The kingdom's role would be to train Palestinian clerics and administrators to run the system themselves - the same approach Rabat already uses with clergy in Tunisia and Mali.