Morocco’s king has invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for an official state visit. 

Tel Aviv, July 21 (RHC)-- Morocco’s king has invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for an official state visit. 

The invitation by King Mohammed VI was announced just two days after Israel recognized Morocco’s claim of sovereignty over Western Sahara, the territory it has occupied since 1975 in defiance of the United Nations and international law. 

Meanwhile, activists in Western Sahara are calling for solidarity from Palestinian rights groups, after Israel formally recognized Morocco’s claims of sovereignty over the northwest African territory.  Israel becomes the second country in the world to do so, after Donald Trump tweeted U.S. recognition in December of 2020. 

Morocco has occupied Western Sahara since 1975 in defiance of the United Nations and international law. 
Over the past four decades, thousands of Western Sahara’s Indigenous people, the Sahrawi, have been tortured, imprisoned, killed and disappeared while resisting the Moroccan occupation. 

Speaking with Middle East Eye, Western Sahara-based activist Mohammed Elbaikam said: “Morocco relies on the same tools and methods as Israel in suppressing the Palestinians, occupying them, displacing them from their land, robbing them of their wealth and controlling them.”