Rabat – Israeli media have recently sharply criticized the extravagant budget for an Israeli minister’s visit to Morocco.
Israeli news outlet i24 News reported on Wednesday that Israeli Minister of Transportation Miri Regev will travel to Morocco to participate in a road safety conference that will take place in Marrakech.
It also cited reports that the Ministry of Transformation requested approval for state funding to cover the stay of the minister and members of her delegation at the Four Seasons hotel.
“The price of the suite at the hotel ranges between 1,200 and 3,700 euros,” the news outlet wrote, adding that the minister’s trip along with her aides could cost over “half a million shekels.”
In response, the minister’s office claimed that Regev’s invitation is at the expense of the Moroccan government, with a “hosting package that includes a hotel like the other participating ministers.”
But the Israeli delegation is choosing to stay at another hotel with her aides for security reasons, the ministry claimed.
While Israeli media are now raising concerns about the exorbitant cost of the ministry’s stay in Marrakech, the visit is certain to create another wave of criticism and backlash from Moroccans supporting the Palestinian cause.
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This is because the planned visit comes at a time when, despite the ongoing ceasefire in Gaza, the crushing majority of Moroccans are strongly opposed to Israel’s genocidal war on Palestinians and have repeatedly denounced the perceived Israeli plan of cleansing Gaza of Palestinians.
In recent months, many Moroccans have unrelentingly called on the government to sever diplomatic ties with Israel.
The demand for Morocco to disavow its US-brokered normalization of Israel particularly intensified as the Israeli Occupation Forces’ genocidal Gaza war created indescribable devastation and horror in Gaza in more than a year of indiscriminately targeting children, women, and non-combatant Palestinian men in Gaza.
Morocco’s government has to date responded to the sharp criticism of its relationship with Tel Aviv by strongly reaffirming its steadfast support for the Palestinian cause.
Throughout the genocidal war, Morocco repeatedly condemned Israeli aggressions targeting civilians and sent humanitarian aid in support of the Palestinian population.
With US President Trump’s latest controversial plan calling for Palestinians to be “resettled in far safer and more beautiful communities with new and modern homes,” many expect anti-normalization sentiment to further deepen in Morocco.
After the American president announced his wide-ranging plan earlier this week, Arab leaders unanimously condemned it and dismissed Trump’s suggestion that they were onboard with such an initiative.
For many observers, it now remains to be seen how far regional countries, including Morocco, are willing to oppose what many critics have deemed as the political phase of Israel’s long-standing dream of re-occupying Gaza.
