Moroccan Jewry continues to enjoy the tolerance of King Hassan's regime, but antisemitic sentiment appears to have increased in the opposition media during 1997 and 1998. Although Morocco remains committed to the Middle East peace process, relations with Israel have cooled since the 1996 election of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. Other factors that may undermine the insecurity of Moroccan Jewry include the growing socio-economic difficulties of certain sectors of the Moroccan population, a concomitant rise in Islamism and a deterioration of the situation in neighbouring Algeria. The monarch's ill health has given rise to concern about the possibility of change when King Hassan's rule comes to an end.
Demographic data
Total population: 28 million
Jewish population: 6,000
Other minorities: Berbers
Political data
King Hassan II, Morocco's constitutional monarch and religious leader since 1962, belongs to the Alawi dynasty, which has ruled the country since the seventeenth century. During the last decade the king has introduced a series of political and economic reforms and has sought to improve Morocco's human rights record. In 1993 the first parliamentary elections were won by a coalition of centre-right parties. The king has sought to entice the legal opposition parties, led by the nationalist Istiqlal (Independence Party) and the Union socialiste des forces populaires (USFP, Socialist Union of Popular Forces), to form a government, in line with his aim of rotating power among major political groupings. However, his insistence on reserving key ministries for loyalists has led the opposition to reject his overtures. The September 1996 referendum on constitutional reform approved the establishment of a bicameral system with an entirely elected lower chamber, and the first elections for that chamber were held in November 1997. In January 1998, after no party had emerged from the election with an overall majority, King Hassan II appointed as prime minister veteran socialist Abderrahmane el-Yousifi, leader of the USFP, the largest single party in the lower chamber.
Economic data
Inflation: 5 per cent
Unemployment: 20 per cent
The Jewish community of Morocco, which dates back more than 2,000 years, has experienced various waves of both tolerance and discrimination. The worst outbreaks of antisemitic violence occurred during the Middle Ages, when Jews were massacred in Fez in 1033 and in Marrakesh in 1232. Following the establishment of the French protectorate in 1912, Jews began to enjoy greater equality.
Under the war-time Vichy regime Jews suffered discrimination but King Muhammad V did much to ensure that they were not deported. By 1948 there were some 270,000 Jews in Morocco but thereafter the population decreased rapidly.
Following the establishment of the state of Israel there were numerous attacks on Jewish individuals and premises. In June 1953 forty-three Jews were murdered, and violence persisted until Morocco gained independence in 1956. Jews were granted full suffrage and complete freedom of movement but emigration was restricted (although thousands of Jews continued to leave for Israel clandestinely). After the 1967 Six Day War many middle-class Jews emigrated because of worsening conditions, including a virulent antisemitic and anti-Israel press campaign.
In recent years the Jewish community has maintained good relations with King Hassan, as indicated by his appointment of a Jew, André Azoulay, as adviser on economic affairs.
Islamist groupings
Despite a ban on all Islamist political activity, the Moroccan authorities exhibit a certain level of tolerance towards Islamist organizations. In 1998, for example, Sheikh Abdelsalam Yassin, leader of the largest and most radical Islamist organization, Adl wal Ihasan, remained under house arrest but publications and recordings of his teachings were openly sold and distributed. Some Islamist groups in Morocco have expressed antisemitic sentiments by accusing the king, for example, of selling the country to the Jews.
On 21 August 1998 the Otsar Hatorah synagogue in Casablanca was desecrated and robbed.
Negative attitudes towards Jews at grassroots level were displayed during a football match between the national teams of Morocco and Egypt on 21 June 1998. Following heated exchanges of insults and rude gestures, Moroccan spectators sought to antagonize the Egyptians by shouting 'Jews, Jews!' at them.
Holocaust denial is rare, but not entirely unknown, in the official Moroccan media. On 28 February 1998, for example, the semi-official daily Le Matin cast doubt on the fact of the Holocaust by asserting that Jewish claims for compensation were 'historical and morally deceitful'.
Support for the French Holocaust-denier Roger Garaudy has been frequently expressed among the professional and intellectual elites in Morocco. (Garaudy visited Morocco in 1996 during his Middle Eastern tour to launch the Arabic version of his latest book 'The Founding Myths of Israeli Politics'. The visit received widespread attention in the local press but Garaudy was banned from appearing at academic institutions and only permitted to lecture to private audiences.) Garaudy's trial in France, which opened in January 1998 (see France), gave rise to many expressions of support in Morocco. On 16 January 1998 the official news agency MAP published an item entitled 'A Moroccan lawyer comes to the rescue of Roger Garaudy'. The article reported that Khalid Sufiyani, president of the Moroccan Association for Support of the Palestinan Struggle, together with an Egyptian lawyer, were among those defending Garaudy. On the same day MAP also announced that the Rabat-based Islamic Education, Science and Culture Organization and the National Council for Arab Culture in Morocco had declared their support for Garaudy. Al-Alam, the newspaper of the Istiqlal party, announced in February 1998 that the Chamber of Advocates in Tangiers had also joined the campaign in support of Garaudy.
In keeping with the general tolerance exhibited towards Jews in Morocco, the official Moroccan media rarely permits the expression of antisemitic statements. In September 1998 MBC television did, however, broadcast derogatory remarks by Sudanese President Umar Hassan al-Bashir concerning the power of the Jewish lobby in the United States (see Sudan).
In 1997 elements of the opposition media also reacted strongly to the publication by an Israeli settler of a leaflet depicting the Prophet Muhammad as a pig. The independent newspaper al-Mustaqil published a prayer on 16 July calling on God and his Prophet 'to inflict upon the Jews and their supporters something that would satisfy the hearts of the faithful'.
On 5 November 1997 al-Ittihad al-Istrahi, the organ of the USFP, published an article by Abd al-Hai Hassan al-Amrani that accused the Jews of a fanaticism that has led the world into disasters and atrocities. The article referred to 'Talmudic and racist legends', and to the blindness and corruption of the Judaic faith.
As in previous years King Hassan acts as patron to a number of international interfaith meetings. In November 1997 the London-based Maimonides Foundation sponsored an international symposium for Jewish and Muslim religious and lay leaders which was held at al-Akhwan University in Ifrane. The symposium, entitled 'The "other" in the literature of East and West' was organized by the School of Oriental and African Studies in London and the University of Tel Aviv.
The Sephardi chief rabbi of Israel, Eliyahu Bakshi Doron, was invited
with Christian and Muslim leaders to participate in an international conference
in Morocco in February 1998, a follow-up to a conference held in Barcelona
in 1995.
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Institute for Jewish Policy Research and American Jewish Committee
© JPR 1999
