Morocco exports Algerian « golden dates » to Israel

According to the Algerian customs services in the province of Tlemcen in western Algeria, its elements on duty have succeeded in foiling the attempted smuggling near the locality of Ouled Riyah on the border of Morocco of 7 tonnes of high-grade Algerian dates commonly known as “golden dates”.

A roving local customs’ patrol also thwarted the attempted smuggling into Morocco through the border town of Maghnia of 4 tonnes of these costly and much-sought after dates.

The latest figures show that the regional customs services in the west of Algeria have managed in conjunction with the National Gendarmerie squads to seize 15 tonnes of golden dates meant for smuggling into Morocco over the past few months.

Sources suggest that these smuggled quantities of Algerian dates are bartered on the Morocco side for large quantities of drugs which covertly inundate the Algerian market.

The same sources also indicated that the smuggled Algerian dates are first stored and then they are given a new packaging in boxes with the inscription: “Made in Morocco” before exported to Israel via Turkish ports.

These illegitimate exports bring Morocco large revenues in hard currency from Israel as evidence of the close links at all levels between the two sides. These Moroccan-Israeli relations are long-standing.

More than 20 years after Israel’s first dealings with Morocco, the connection between the Jewish state and the kingdom revealed its enormous potential.  AND TODAY ?  In the fields of intelligence, but also in culture and economics (trade between the two countries is worth $100 million a year), Morocco and Israel have common interests.

“The Mahgreb has much to gain by not siding in a blind partisan fashion with the regimes of the greater Middle East,” says Canadian-born Michael Ross, a former Mossad agent and author of The Volunteer.

This shared past also keeps Morocco and Israel close. In March 2009, a Casablanca-based newspaper, Le Soir Echos asked for an interview and published the story of Operation Mural and the secret aliya of Jewish children. It was the first time since 1961 that Moroccans learned about David Littman and this particular episode of the Israel-Morocco secret relationship.

Zionist Littman, who was honored by the Israel Intelligence and Commemoration Center in a ceremony last summer, took the opportunity of the interview to address Moroccans with a call for action.

“Morocco lies in this very unique position. King Muhammad VI should come to Jerusalem, address the Knesset and fulfill the dream of peace of his father, the late Hassan II.” In the columns of the Casablanca daily, Littman also expressed his hope that this enduring relationship between Morocco and the Zionist entity serve as an “encouragement to negotiators, as well as a reminder to all that despite difficulties, reconciliation can be achieved”.