In September, Belkhir el-Farouk, the commander of the Moroccan armed forces, came to Israel to take part in an international conference of senior military leaders, hosted by the IDF. Just a few months beforehand, Farouk had met with his Israeli counterpart in Morocco. These meetings are just two signs among many of increasing closeness between Jerusalem and Rabat in the wake of the renewal of diplomatic relations following the signing of the Abraham Accords. Eran Lerman explains the reasons for this alignment, and its historical backdrop:

Following the Oslo Accords (1993) and the [Israeli] peace treaty with Jordan (1994), Morocco moved to establish reciprocal diplomatic legations [with the Jewish state, although not at the level of embassies]. A steady flow of visits by Israelis—many of them of Moroccan origin—and growing trade were added to the intelligence sharing and military cooperation. Even after formal relations were severed again due to the outbreak of Palestinian violence in the autumn of 2000, tens of thousands of Israelis continued to visit every year, and military cooperation, including arms supplies, continued.

Beyond that, the new Moroccan constitution of 2011 references the Jewish component of Moroccan cultural identity. . . . The Jewish Museum in Casablanca is the only one of its kind in the Arab world. Cultural exchanges and participation in sports events were already taking place before the Abraham Accords’ breakthrough.

Still, it is the dynamic development of security cooperation, ever since the formal establishment of relations, which has set the agenda. The steps already taken, and set to expand further, are unprecedented in scope and significance and, in some respects, exceed even the parallel progress in Israeli relations with the UAE and Bahrain. Both countries are concerned about Iran’s ambitions in the region: Morocco cut off diplomatic ties with Tehran in 2018 due to the involvement of Iranian government agents in supporting the Polisario Front.

Originally backed by the USSR, and now by Algeria and Iran, the Polisario Front has been conducting a guerrilla campaign against the Moroccan government for the independence of Western Sahara, a disputed territory Rabat claims as its own. This conflict, Lerman explains, places Morocco and Israel on one side, and Iran and an increasingly anti-Israel Algeria on the other.

With the IDF engaged in ground maneuvers in both northern and southern Gaza, and a plan about to go into effect next week that would separate more than 100,000 civilians from Hamas’s control, an end to the war may at last be in sight. Yet there seems to be no agreement within Israel, or without, about what should become of the territory. Efraim Inbar assesses the various proposals, from Donald Trump’s plan to remove the population entirely, to the Israeli far-right’s desire to settle the Strip with Jews, to the internationally supported proposal to place Gaza under the control of the Palestinian Authority (PA)—and exposes the fatal flaws of each. He therefore tries to reframe the problem:

[M]any Arab states have failed to establish a monopoly on the use of force within their borders. Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, and Sudan all suffer from civil wars or armed militias that do not obey the central government.

Perhaps Israel needs to get used to the idea that in the absence of an entity willing to take Gaza under its wing, chaos will prevail there. This is less terrible than people may think. Chaos would allow Israel to establish buffer zones along the Gaza border without interference. Any entity controlling Gaza would oppose such measures and would resist necessary Israeli measures to reduce terrorism. Chaos may also encourage emigration.

Israel is doomed to live with bad neighbors for the foreseeable future. There is no way to ensure zero terrorism. Israel should avoid adopting a policy of containment and should constantly “mow the grass” to minimize the chances of a major threat emerging across the border. Periodic conflicts may be necessary. If the Jews want a state in their homeland, they need to internalize that Israel will have to live by the sword for many more years.