September 22, 1994
To anyone interested in a 1994 Cadillac,
The Tel Aviv-Rabat
Diplomatic Ties
INA FRIEDMAN ISRAEL CORRESPONDENT
I have less than 30 1994 Cadillacs, including many low
mileage demos that must be sold or leased by Wednesday,
September 28. After that, there will be no factory to dealer or
lease incentives on any 1994 Cadillacs.
Come in and make me an offer! These cars will be gone by
Wednesday, September 28, NO MAHER WHAT THE
SACRIFICE!
Sincerely,
0 CADILLAC. CREATING A HIGHER STANDARD.
' Invoice may not necessarily reflect ultimate dealer cost.
7100 ORCHARD LAKE RD.
at the end of Northwestern Highway
WEST BLOOMFIELD
851-7200
OPEN MON. - THURS. 8 am - 9 pm • FRI. 8 am - 6 pm -
you are invited
to meet
Joan Vass &
Hal Ludacer
at a
trunk show
joan vass usa
holiday collection
Joan vass, n.y.
couture
VASS • LUDACER
jewelry
informal modeling
Friday, September 23
Saturday, September 24
11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
light refreshments
joan vass •
somerset collection
• near concierge desk • troy • (810) 816-9732
T
iming is everything.
A year ago the announce-
ment that Israel and Mo-
rocco had decided to open
liaison offices in Rabat and Tel
Aviv would have qualified as
prime top-of-the-hour news.
Today it is only the latest in a
series of dramatic breakthroughs
that have occurred since the sign-
ing of the Declaration of Princi-
ples between Israel and the
Palestinians last Sept. 13. Right
after that ceremony, Prime Min-
ister Yitzhak Rabin and Foreign
Minister Shimon Peres stopped
in Morocco on their way back to
Israel, hoping to persuade King
Hassan II to ride on the wave of
euphoria that followed the Sept.
13 signing by instituting diplo-
matic relations with Israel.
It didn't happen, not then.
What's interesting is how close it
came. The groundwork, after all,
had been in place for years. In-
formal, and often secret, relations
had existed between the two
countries for almost 20 years.
Both Mr. Rabin and Mr. Peres
visited Morocco in their capaci-
ties as prime minister: Mr. Ra-
bin, secretly, in 1976; Mr. Peres,
openly, 10 years later (prompt-
ing Syria to sever diplomatic re-
lations with Morocco). King
Hassan also was instrumental in
setting up the secret meeting in
Morocco between then-Foreign
Minister Moshe Dayan and
Egyptian emissary Hassan Toua-
mi, which led to President Anwar
Sadat's historic visit to Israel in
November 1977.
Thus in a very real sense, the
Moroccan monarch has been in
on the Middle East peace process
since the very start. Neverthe-
less, it took King Hassan until
last May to decide to turn the on-
going contacts with Israel into
diplomatic relations. Liaison of-
fices, the most rudimentary of
diplomatic representations, fall
one step above interest sections
(which are not considered diplo-
matic ties) and one below con-
sulates (which are official
legations). The Israeli and Mo-
roccan offices will be staffed by
professional diplomats with diplo-
matic immunity, and the two
countries can decide on the mat-
ters they will handle.
Although they are ranked be-
low the consular level, they prob-
ably will be authorized to issue
visas, especially as tourism is cur-
rently one of the more prominent
features of Israeli-Moroccan re-
lations. (More than 2,000 Israeli
tourists visited Morocco last year,
and countless other Moroccan-
born Israelis returned to visit
their families, many on Moroc-
can passports).
King Hassan's decision to "come
out of the closet," as the Israeli
press characterizes the informal re-
lations between Israel and various
Arab and Muslim countries, was
prompted by what one analyst calls
the "inverted domino effect."
Just as King Hussein felt pres-
sured to play catch-up after
Yassir Arafat concluded first the
Declaration of Principles and then
the Gaza-Jericho Agreement with
Israel, so King Hassan felt con-
strained to upgrade Morocco's re-
lationship with Israel after the
Israelis had promised "high pri-
ority to the Jordanian historic role"
in the Muslim holy shrines in
Jerusalem.
King Hassan, who is chairman
of the Jerusalem Committee of the
Islamic Conference, reportedly
was furious when he learned of
the Jerusalem clause of the Wash-
ington Declaration. Like King
Hussein and King Fahed of Sau-
di Arabia, King Hassan regards
himself as having a proprietary
role regarding the Muslim holy
places in Jerusalem. Evidently he
took the Washington Declaration
as a hint that he would lose
ground on this sphere if he con-
tinued to demur on Israel's re-
quest for formal recognition.
As the host of the Casablanca
Economic Conference, scheduled
to open Oct. 30 and include rep-
resentatives from the countries
participating in the multi-later-
al talks, together with business
leaders from all over the world,
King Hassan also had an inter-
est in formalizing his relations
with Israel before the conclave
began. Early in June, in fact, he
told Mr. Peres, who was in Ra-
bat) that he would approve the
establishment of relations before
the end of October.
Morocco is the second Arab
state — the only one after Egypt
— to formally recognize Israel.
Various other "non-confrontation
states" are now expected to fol-
low, especially as many have al-
ready begun to develop economic
ties with Israel.
Beginning with Tunisia, these
include Oman, Qatar, Kuwait and
Bahrein from the Persian Gulf
states, and Indonesia, Malaysia
and Mauritania from the list of
Muslim countries that have re-
frained from establishing ties with
Israel. In this sense, King Hassan's
decision represents not only a gift
for the new year but perhaps the
birth of a new erain Israeli-Arab
and Israeli-Muslim relations. 11