Israeli firms and tourists are piling into Morocco

carriage heading towards Marrakech four Moroccan women, all strangers to each other, talk about Israel. “They’re so much more welcoming than the racist, superior French,” says a Moroccan tour guide, recounting her experiences of passport control. An events organiser shares videos of her raves for Israelis in a farm outside Marrakech. A nurse uses the French word for Jerusalem, not the Islamic al-Quds, though all the women are speaking Arabic. “Israel has always protected us,” she says, then has a dig at the Palestinians. “The king gave Yasser Arafat everything and he just betrayed us by siding with Algeria over Western Sahara,” referring to the Palestinians’ longtime leader and Morocco’s dispute over a sandy territory that it occupies. All four applaud the peace deal Israel signed with Morocco a year and a half ago. For decades Israel was Morocco’s shadowy secret. Business between the two went through networks of intermediaries, often Jewish-Moroccan exiles in Paris and intelligence agents. Syrian tanks captured by Israel ended up in Morocco. Israelis helped fortify the wall that Morocco built to keep guerrillas out of Western Sahara.