Israel’s
Foreign Minister Yair Lapid made his first visit to Morocco to meet with
Morocco’s Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita to plan the opening of an Israel
Embassy in Rabat and a Moroccan Embassy in Tel Aviv. As a first step, Lapid
opened a liaison office in Rabat.
To honor the growing relationship between Israel and Morocco in the spirit of the Abraham Accords, I launched Rembrandt-inspired Cyberangels of Peace on virtual flights from the Israel Museum in Jerusalem to the Mohammed VI Museum for Modern and Contemporary Art in Rabat and to the Marrakech Museum for Photography and Visual Art.
During Lapid’s meeting with Bourita, he relayed an
invitation from Israel’s President Isaac Herzog to Morocco’s King Muhammad VI.
“Allow me to express my sincere appreciation for Your
Majesty’s decision to establish full diplomatic, peaceful and friendly
relations between the Kingdom of Morocco and the State of Israel. We are committed
to deepening the strength of our relations and hope that they further expand
and flourish over time.”
Herzog expressed admiration for the king’s “ground-breaking
contribution to Arab-Israeli reconciliation in many countries across the
region.”
Bourita said that Lapid’s visit “reflects the
commitment of our two countries to strengthening our bilateral relations and
give them concrete impetus through the establishment of effective cooperation
mechanisms.” He plans to be on the first direct Royal Morocco flight to Israel
to dedicate the Moroccan Embassy there.
Mediterranean Rim Regional Opportunities
Yair Lapid proposed cooperation between countries surrounding
the Mediterranean Rim extending to the Gulf. He said, “Think of it as a circle
of Israel and Morocco and Egypt and Jordan and in some ways you can say Cyprus and
Greece, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates. All of the countries that are religiously
moderate with truly infinite economic potential.”
In response to Lapid’s visit to Morocco, Nimrod Goren penned
an article in the Jerusalem Post “Israel should introduce a regional
agenda for Israel-Morocco ties” in which he proposes ways for making Israel a
key player in a Mediterranean Rim dynamic between the 21 nations bordering the
Sea. He writes:
“Israel lies at the crossroad of the Middle East,
Europe and the Mediterranean. These regions are strongly linked, and each
provides Israel with options for integration and belonging”
As president of Mitvim – The Israel Institute for
Regional Foreign Policy, Dr. Goren emphasizes the significance of adding a
regional framing to bilateral ties that would contribute to upgrading
Israel-Morocco relations and yield substantive benefits for both Israeli and
Moroccan foreign policy.
Conceptual Art Linking the 21 Med Rim Countries
As an experimental artist who has worked on a global
canvas for decades, I am conceptualizing an artwork that radiates from Israel
across Europe on the northern tier of the Med Rim from Spain and across North
Africa on the southern tier to Morocco. It will include the 21 Mediterranean Rim countries from
Spain, France, Monaco, Malta, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro,
Albania, Greece, Turkey, Syria, Cyprus, Lebanon, Israel, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia,
Algeria, to Morocco.
Cyberangels carrying
messages of peace, friendship, and brotherhood will be launched from the Israel
Museum through art museums in all the other 20 countries.
I had
created a related artwork in 2008 that I called MERIWIP: MEditerranean RIm
WIkiart Project that can be seen at Wikiartists. MERIWIP invited
people living in the countries that surround the Mediterranean Sea to be
wikiartists by collaborating in creating a web-enabled peer-produced artwork by
exchanging wedding photographs and flowers between nations. Participants sent
photos of flowers grown in their country to a couple from another Med Rim
country though the Wikiartists blog.
This
artwork evolved from my 2004 exhibition “Cyberangels: Aesthetic Peace Plan for
the Middle East” at the Jewish Museum in Prague. It proposes peace between
Israel and the Arab countries based upon Islamic values expressed through
counter-patterns in Moroccan kilim rugs. My exhibition displayed actual rugs
woven with traditional Islamic patterns beside digital enlargements of their counter-patterns
printed out on canvas. The exhibition presented an interplay between Arab
Islamic art and the European Christian art of Rembrandt-inspired cyberangels
mediated by an Israeli Jewish vison of aesthetic peace. See Aesthetic
Peace.
Israelis
of Moroccan Origins
FM Yair Lapid discussed how Israel and Morocco are
reviving a centuries-old friendship between the Jewish people and the people of
Morocco by establishing diplomatic relations.
Jews have a
long history of living in Morocco. After the establishment of the State of
Israel, most of Morocco’s Jewish population moved to Israel where they
contribute to all walks of life. Today, about a million Israelis have family
origins in Morocco.
In 1977, my
wife Miriam and I moved from New York where I was professor at Columbia
University to Yeroham, a town isolated in the Negev desert, where I founded a
college. Most of its population had moved there from Morocco. When our new
neighbors learned that we were Americans, they said to us in Hebrew,
“Americayim Moroccayim, almost the same thing.”
Our family
became one of the families with origins in Morocco. Our New York born daughter
Iyrit is married to Dr. Yehiel Lasry who was born in Morocco. His family moved
to Ashdod when he was six years old when it was a small town on the sea. He is
now the mayor of Ashdod that has grown under his creative leadership into one
of Israel’s largest cities and its major port. He studied medicine at
Ben-Gurion University, was Surgeon-General of Israel’s navy, specialist in
internal medicine at Kaplan Hospital in Rehovot, member of Knesset (Israel’s
parliament), and a founder of the Andalusian Orchestra that creates a cultural
bridge between Israel and Arab countries. Four of our grandchildren are half
Moroccan.
My wife and
I now live in Ra’anana, the same city north of Tel Aviv where Israel’s Prime
Minister Naftali Bennett lives with his wife and children. Before partaking of
the Sabbath eve meal, our Jewish families sing, “May your coming be for peace,
Angels of Peace, angels of the Exalted One.” The song begins with
the words shalom aleikhem (may peace be with you). Shalom aleikhem is
the traditional Hebrew greeting when people meet. It is akin to the Arabic
greeting salam aleikum.
May the
Hebrew Malakh Shalom and the Arabic Malak Salam be
recognized as one and the same Angel of Peace.
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