{"id":1901,"date":"2020-12-11T17:30:05","date_gmt":"2020-12-11T17:30:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=138108"},"modified":"2020-12-11T17:30:05","modified_gmt":"2020-12-11T17:30:05","slug":"trump-deal-to-trade-occupied-western-sahara-for-morocco-normalizing-ties-with-israel-denounced-worldwide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2020\/12\/11\/trump-deal-to-trade-occupied-western-sahara-for-morocco-normalizing-ties-with-israel-denounced-worldwide\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump Deal to Trade Occupied Western Sahara for Morocco Normalizing Ties With Israel Denounced Worldwide"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Sahrawi people of Western Sahara, Palestinians, and human rights defenders around the world expressed outrage Thursday after President Donald Trump announced<\/a> an agreement in which the U.S. will recognize as legitimate the illegal occupation of that territory by Morocco in exchange for the North African kingdom’s establishing full diplomatic ties with Israel.<\/p>\n

“The U.S. administration can ‘recognize’ occupiers’ sovereignty all they want. Doesn’t change the facts. The Golan is Syrian. The West Bank is Palestinian. And Western Sahara is Sahrawi.”
\u2014Dr. Yara Hawari, Palestinian academic <\/span><\/p>\n

Trump’s announcement\u2014which came on Human Rights Day\u2014means the United States now officially recognizes as legitimate the occupations of both Palestine and Western Sahara. Such acts are illegal<\/a> under the Hague Regulations, the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, and Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which states<\/a> that an “occupying power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.”<\/p>\n

The agreement did not come as a surprise to many observers. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had reportedly<\/a> been lobbying the U.S. for months to recognize Morocco’s claim to Western Sahara in exchange for the regime of King Mohammed VI establishing official diplomatic relations with Israel. Morocco and Israel have for decades closely\u2014but secretly\u2014cooperated<\/a> on issues ranging from intelligence sharing, antiterrorism operations, and the emigration of Moroccan Jews to Israel. <\/p>\n

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Today, I signed a proclamation recognizing Moroccan sovereignty over the Western Sahara. Morocco’s serious, credible, and realistic autonomy proposal is the ONLY basis for a just and lasting solution for enduring peace and prosperity!<\/p>\n

\u2014 Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 10, 2020<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

Morocco now joins Bahrain, Sudan, and the United Arab Emirates in normalizing relations with Israel via U.S.-brokered deals in recent months. Numerous international relations experts, however, say the agreements between Israel and the dynastic dictatorships in Bahrain and the UAE look less like peace pacts and more like unofficial military alliances<\/a> targeting Iran. <\/p>\n

In late 1975, Moroccan troops entered Western Sahara after Spanish forces withdrew from their former colony in what were literally the dying days<\/a> of Generalissimo Francisco Franco and his fascist regime. Moroccan warplanes bombed the indigenous Sahrawi people with weapons including napalm and white phosphorus<\/a> (pdf), fueling a mass exodus of about half the population into neighboring Algeria as the government under King Hassan II orchestrated a “Green March”<\/a> of hundreds of thousands of Moroccan civilians into the phosphate- and fishery-rich territory in order to gain control over it. <\/p>\n

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Morocco and Trump chose Human Rights Day to simultaneously sacrifice the people of Western Sahara and the people of Palestine (the two colonized nations in the Arab world under military occupations), perhaps to remind us that our human rights will never begin to matter.<\/p>\n

\u2014 SAHARAWI VOICE (@SAHARAWIVOICE) December 10, 2020<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

Morocco has occupied the vast desert territory ever since, annexing what it calls Moroccan Sahara in 1976, with additional land annexed after forces from neighboring Mauritania withdrew<\/a> in 1979. Moroccan occupation forces built<\/a> a 1,700-mile mostly sand wall to keep Algerian-backed Sahrawi militants out of the territory, while denying Sahrawis inside their occupied homeland the U.N.-backed referendum they’ve been awaiting for decades. <\/p>\n

Western Sahara is today known among locals and human rights advocates as “Africa’s last colony.”<\/a> <\/p>\n

Sahrawi militants\u2014known as the Polisario Front\u2014have resisted Morrocan occupation for 45 years, and today control some 20-25% of Western Sahara. They call the territory under their control the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), which scores of United Nations member states have recognized<\/a> since it was proclaimed in 1976. However, more than half of these countries have since either withdrawn or suspended their recognition. <\/p>\n

Until Trump’s announcement virtually no country had officially accepted Morocco’s claim to Western Sahara.<\/p>\n

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