Judah Ari Gross on Why Israel and Morocco Came to a New Defense Agreement
The Tikvah Podcast
Tikvah
4.6 • 620 Ratings
🗓️ 3 December 2021
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Last week, the Israeli defense minister Benny Gantz visited Morocco, where for the first time he was accompanied by uniformed Israeli military personnel. Gantz’s visit comes on the heels of visits in the last year by Israeli national-security advisor Meir Ben-Shabbat and Israeli foreign minister Yair Lapid, both of whom prepared the way for full diplomatic relations between the two countries.
Building on Israel and Morocco’s burgeoning diplomatic relations, the purpose of Gantz’s recent visit was to negotiate a memorandum of understanding focused on their security cooperation. Judah Ari Gross, the military correspondent for the Times of Israel and this week’s podcast guest, accompanied Gantz on his trip. In conversation with Mosaic editor Jonathan Silver, he explains here how this historic agreement happened, what it means, and how it serves each nation’s interests.
Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | In December of 2020, Israel's national security advisor Meir Ben Shabbat visited Morocco for the first official visit, since the two countries normalized relations earlier that year. |
| 0:19.5 | Then, in August of this year, Israel's foreign minister |
| 0:23.0 | Yai'ir Lapid visited Morocco to prepare the grounds for full diplomatic relations. |
| 0:28.3 | Last week, Benny Gantz, Israel's defense minister, visited the country for the first time |
| 0:33.7 | with Israeli military personnel in uniform. He was there to negotiate a memorandum of understanding |
| 0:39.5 | that would further strengthen Israel's relationship with the Muslim North African monarchy. In the |
| 0:45.5 | aftermath of the memorandum negotiated during Gans' visit, the military institutions of the two nations |
| 0:51.4 | will be able to share more information, cooperate in joint training exercises, |
| 0:56.2 | and share military technology on a large scale. Welcome to the Tikva podcast. I'm your host, Jonathan |
| 1:01.9 | Silver. This week we are joined by Judah Ari Gross, the military correspondent of the Times of Israel. |
| 1:07.2 | Judah accompanied the defense minister on his recent visit to Morocco, and today he |
| 1:11.1 | analyzes what interests of each nation were served by this historic agreement. If you enjoy this |
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| 1:41.1 | Here now is my discussion with Judah Ari Gross. |
| 1:44.7 | Judah Gross, welcome to the Tikva podcast. Thanks for having me. |
| 1:48.0 | So I thought we could begin with you telling our listeners about the trip that you took |
| 1:52.5 | with Defense Minister Benny Gans to Morocco. I think it was just last week. |
| 1:56.3 | Yeah, so on Tuesday night, a delegation led by Defense minister Benny Gantz took off from Israel's |
... |
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