FRANCE 24 spoke to Hicham El Alaoui, King of Morocco Mohammed VI’s cousin and lecturer at the University of Berkeley in California. He is the author of “Pacted Democracy in the Middle East: Tunisia and Egypt in Comparative Perspective”, a comparative study of two countries during the Arab Spring. Turning to the war led by the IDF in Gaza for over a year, Alaoui believes the Arab normalisation with Israel poses a “problem”. Morocco, as well as the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain normalised relations with Israel in 2020, followed by Sudan in 2021.
None of those countries, including Morocco, have cut ties with Israel since the war that killed tens of thousands in Gaza.
“It is a problem because I think there’s a differentiation between embracing our Jewish citizens of Moroccan heritage because of their belonging to our country and having a general posture of tolerance towards Judaism. It’s another thing of supporting, or giving legitimacy to a specific government that is on the far right and that is mistreating Palestinians in every sense of the word”, Alaoui said.
“This is my voice, among many others. I’m just one Moroccan among 40 million”, he added.
Speaking on the subject of democracy in the Arab world, Alaoui claimed “many orientalists see Islam as an ideology. Then there is no way to democracy”. But “if Islam is a faith”, it becomes an “entirely different system of religiosity”, he said.
“The problem is not with Islam, but with the interpretation of Islam”, Alaoui concluded.
Leave a Comment