Moroccan schools to teach Jewish history and culture

This file handout photo provided by the Moroccan Royal Palace on January 15, 2020, shows Morocco's King Mohammed VI (R) during a visit to the "Bayt Dakira" (House of Memory) museum, in the Atlantic coastal city of Essaouira. (Moroccan Royal Palace photo via AFP)
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Updated 13 December 2020
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Moroccan schools to teach Jewish history and culture

  • Morocco is the fourth Arab nation since August to announce to normalize relations with Israel
  • The US-brokered deal followed those of the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan

RABAT, Morocco: Jewish history and culture in Morocco will soon be part of the school curriculum — a “first” in the region and in the North African country, where Islam is the state religion.
The decision “has the impact of a tsunami,” said Serge Berdugo, secretary-general of the Council of Jewish Communities of Morocco.
It “is a first in the Arab world,” he told AFP from Casablanca.
For years, although the kingdom had no official relationship with Israel, thousands of Jews of Moroccan origin visited the land of their ancestors, to celebrate religious holidays or make pilgrimages, including from Israel.
But Morocco this week became the fourth Arab nation since August to announce a US-brokered deal to normalize relations with Israel, following the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said liaison offices would be reopened in Tel Aviv and Rabat, which Morocco closed in 2000 at the start of the second Palestinian uprising, and full diplomatic relations would be established “as rapidly as possible.”
Morocco confirmed the deal, saying King Mohammed VI had told outgoing US President Donald Trump his country had agreed to establish diplomatic relations with Israel “with minimal delay.”

Diverse identity
The decision to add Jewish history and culture to lessons was discreetly launched before the diplomatic deal was announced.
Part of an ongoing revamp of Morocco’s school curriculum since 2014, the lessons will be included from next term for children in their final year of primary school, aged 11, the education ministry said.
The move aims to “highlight Morocco’s diverse identity,” according to Fouad Chafiqi, head of academic programs at the ministry.
Morocco’s Jewish community has been present since antiquity and grew over the centuries, particularly with the arrival of Jews expelled from Spain by the Catholic kings after 1492.
At the end of the 1940s, Jewish Moroccans numbered about 250,000 — some 10 percent of the population.
Many left after the creation of the state of Israel in 1948, and the community now numbers around 3,000, still the largest in North Africa.
Jewish presence in Moroccan culture now appears in the primary-level social education curriculum, in a section dedicated to Sultan Sidi Mohammed Ben Abdellah, known as Mohammed III.
The 18th-century Alawite ruler chose the port of Mogador and its fortress, built by Portuguese colonists, to establish the coastal city of Essaouira.
Under his leadership, the diplomatic and commercial center became the only city in the Islamic world counting a majority Jewish population, and at one point had 37 synagogues.
“While there was a Jewish presence in Morocco before the 18th century, the only reliable historical records date back to that time,” Chafiqi said.

'Inoculation against extremism'
Two US-based Jewish associations — the American Sephardi Federation (ASF) and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations (COP) — said they “worked closely with the Kingdom of Morocco and the Moroccan Jewish community” on the “groundbreaking” academic reform.
“Ensuring Moroccan students learn about the totality of their proud history of tolerance, including Morocco’s philo-Semitism, is an inoculation against extremism,” leaders of the two organizations said in a statement published on Twitter last month.
Also in November, Education Minister Said Amzazi and the heads of two Moroccan associations signed a partnership agreement “for the promotion of values of tolerance, diversity and coexistence in schools and universities.”
The accord was symbolically inked at Essaouira’s “House of Memory,” which celebrates the historic coexistence of the city’s Jewish and Muslim communities.
Among those present was Andre Azoulay, a member of the local Jewish community who is also an adviser to King Mohammed VI.
The king, Morocco’s “Commander of the Faithful,” has pushed for a tolerant Islam that ensures freedom of worship for Jews and foreign Christians.
In September 2018, at a UN roundtable, he emphasized the role of education in the fight against racism and anti-Semitism.
Morocco “has never erased its Jewish memory,” said Zhor Rehihil, curator of Casablanca’s Moroccan Jewish Museum — the only one of its kind in the region.
History teacher Mohammed Hatimi said introducing Jewish identity into Morocco’s education program would help nurture “future citizens conscious of their diverse heritage.”
The move will also be part of a revision of the secondary school curriculum set for next year, according to Chafiqi from the education ministry.


At least 51 Palestinians killed while waiting for aid trucks in Gaza, health officials say

Updated 2 sec ago
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At least 51 Palestinians killed while waiting for aid trucks in Gaza, health officials say

AP


OCHA said the people killed were waiting for food rations arriving in UN convoys
Yousef Nofal, an eyewitness, said he saw many people motionless and bleeding on the ground after Israeli forces opened fire

KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip: At least 51 Palestinians were killed and more than 200 wounded in the Gaza Strip while waiting for UN and commercial trucks to enter the territory with desperately needed food, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry and a local hospital.

Palestinian witnesses told The Associated Press that Israeli forces carried out an airstrike on a nearby home before opening fire toward the crowd in the southern city of Khan Younis.

The Israeli military said soldiers had spotted a gathering near an aid truck that was stuck in Khan Younis, near where Israeli forces were operating. It acknowledged “several casualties” as Israelis opened fire on the approaching crowd and said authorities would investigate what happened.

The shooting did not appear to be related to a new Israeli- and US-supported aid delivery network that rolled out last month and has been marred by controversy and violence.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian affairs, or OCHA, said the people killed were waiting for food rations arriving in UN convoys.

Also on Tuesday, the main Palestinian telecoms regulatory agency based in the West Bank city of Ramallah reported that Israeli strikes had cut off fixed-line phone service and Internet access in central and southern Gaza.

‘Aren’t we human beings?’

Yousef Nofal, an eyewitness, said he saw many people motionless and bleeding on the ground after Israeli forces opened fire. “It was a massacre,” he said, adding that the soldiers continued firing on people as they fled from the area.

Mohammed Abu Qeshfa reported hearing a loud explosion followed by heavy gunfire and tank shelling. “I survived by a miracle,” he said.

The dead and wounded were taken to the city’s Nasser Hospital, which confirmed 51 people had been killed. Later Tuesday, medical charity MSF raised the death toll to 59, saying that another 200 had been wounded while trying to receive flour rations in Khan Younis.

Samaher Meqdad was at the hospital looking for her two brothers and a nephew who had been in the crowd.

“We don’t want flour. We don’t want food. We don’t want anything,” she said. “Why did they fire at the young people? Why? Aren’t we human beings?”

Palestinians say Israeli forces have repeatedly opened fire on crowds trying to reach food distribution points run by a separate US and Israeli-backed aid group since the centers opened last month. Local health officials say scores have been killed and hundreds wounded.

In those instances, the Israeli military has acknowledged firing warning shots at people it said had approached its forces in a suspicious manner.

Deadly Israeli airstrikes continued elsewhere in the enclave on Tuesday. Al-Awda Hospital, a major medical center in northern Gaza, reported that it has received the bodies of eight Palestinians killed in an Israeli strike on a house in the central Bureij refugee camp.

Desperation grows as rival aid systems can’t meet needs

Israel says the new system operated by a private contractor, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, is designed to prevent Hamas from siphoning off aid to fund its militant activities.

UN agencies and major aid groups deny there is any major diversion of aid and have rejected the new system, saying it can’t meet the mounting needs in Gaza and that it violates humanitarian principles by allowing Israel to control who has access to aid.

Experts have warned of famine in the territory that is home to some 2 million Palestinians.

The UN-run network has delivered aid across Gaza throughout the 20-month Israel-Hamas war, but has faced major obstacles since Israel loosened a total blockade it had imposed from early March until mid-May.

UN officials say Israeli military restrictions, a breakdown of law and order, and widespread looting make it difficult to deliver the aid that Israel has allowed in.

Olga Cherevko, a spokesperson for OCHA, said on Tuesday that the aid Israeli authorities have allowed into Gaza since late May has been “woefully insufficient.”

Fuel has not entered Gaza for over 100 days, she said. “The only way to address it is by sufficient volumes and over sustained periods of time. A trickle of aid here, a trickle of aid there is not going to make a difference.”

Israel’s military campaign since October 2023 has killed over 55,300 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. Its count doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants.

Israel launched its campaign aiming to destroy Hamas after the group’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel, in which militants killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking another 251 hostage.

The militants still hold 53 hostages, fewer than half of them alive, after most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements or other deals.

Iran’s Khamenei rejects Trump’s call for unconditional surrender

Updated 18 June 2025
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Iran’s Khamenei rejects Trump’s call for unconditional surrender

  • ‘The Americans should know that any US military intervention will undoubtedly be accompanied by irreparable damage’

DUBAI/JERUSALEM: Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a statement read by a television presenter on Wednesday that his country will not accept US President Donald Trump’s call for an unconditional surrender.

In his first remarks since Friday, when he delivered a speech broadcast on state media after Israel began bombarding Iran, Khamenei said peace or war could not be imposed on the Islamic Republic.

“Intelligent people who know Iran, the Iranian nation, and its history will never speak to this nation in threatening language because the Iranian nation will not surrender,” he said.

“The Americans should know that any US military intervention will undoubtedly be accompanied by irreparable damage.”

Thousands of people were fleeing Tehran on Wednesday after Israeli warplanes bombed the city overnight, and a source said Trump was considering options that include joining Israel in attacking Iranian nuclear sites.

Israel’s military said 50 Israeli jets had struck around 20 targets in Tehran overnight, including sites producing raw materials, components and manufacturing systems for missiles.

A source familiar with internal discussions said Trump and his team were considering a number of options, which included joining Israel in strikes against Iranian nuclear sites.

Iran had conveyed to Washington that it would retaliate against the United States for any direct participation, its ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, Ali Bahreini, said. He said he already saw the US as “complicit in what Israel is doing.”


Israeli army drone downed over Iran

Updated 18 June 2025
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Israeli army drone downed over Iran

  • Iranian state television broadcast pictures of the wreckage of what it said was an armed Israeli Air Force Hermes drone in the central city of Isfahan

JERUSALEM: The Israeli military said Wednesday that one of its drones had been downed while operating over Iran, the first such loss it has acknowledged since the start of hostilities last week.

An army statement said the drone had gone down in Iran after being hit by a surface-to-air missile.

“No injuries were reported and there is no risk of an information breach,” it added.

Iranian state television broadcast pictures of the wreckage of what it said was an armed Israeli Air Force Hermes drone in the central city of Isfahan.

The Israeli air force has been launching daily raids on Iran since last Friday, with the country targeting missile sites in particular along with other military and nuclear-related sites.

Military spokesman Effie Defrin insisted that Israel was “operating freely” over Iran with air strikes that have involved “dozens of aircraft of various types.”

“We will continue to strike anywhere within Iran that we choose. Yes, there is resistance, but we control the skies and will continue to maintain that control,” he told a televised press briefing on Wednesday.

The Israeli military said on Monday it had achieved “total air superiority in the skies over Tehran.”

More than 50 Israeli Air Force fighter jets carried out air strikes in the Tehran area on Wednesday morning, targeting a production facility for uranium enrichment centrifuges among other locations, according to an earlier statement from the military.


Iran will respond firmly if US becomes directly involved in Israeli strikes, says UN ambassador

Updated 18 June 2025
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Iran will respond firmly if US becomes directly involved in Israeli strikes, says UN ambassador

  • Iran’s envoy to UN in Geneva Ali Bahreini sees the US as ‘complicit in what Israel is doing’
  • Tehran would set a red line, and respond if the United States crosses it

GENEVA: Iran has conveyed to Washington that it will respond firmly to the United States if it becomes directly involved in Israel’s military campaign, the Iranian ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva said on Wednesday.

Ali Bahreini told reporters that he saw the US as “complicit in what Israel is doing.” Iran would set a red line, and respond if the United States crosses it, he said, without specifying what actions would provoke a response.

Israel launched an air war on Friday after saying it had concluded Iran was on the verge of developing a nuclear weapon. Iran denies seeking nuclear weapons. US President Donald Trump called on Tuesday for Iran’s “unconditional surrender.”

Bahreini called Trump’s remarks “completely unwarranted and very hostile. We cannot ignore them. We are vigilant about what Trump is saying. We will put it in our calculations and assessments.”

The US has so far taken only indirect actions, including helping to shoot down missiles fired toward Israel. It is deploying more fighter aircraft to the Middle East and extending the deployment of other warplanes, three US officials said.

“I am confident that (Iran’s military) will react strongly, proportionally and appropriately. We are closely following the level of involvement in the US... We will react whenever it is needed,” he said.

Thousands of people were fleeing Tehran and other major cities on Wednesday, Iranian media reported, as Iran and Israel launched new missile strikes at each other.


Iran’s former economy minister calls for Iranian control over Strait of Hormuz

Updated 18 June 2025
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Iran’s former economy minister calls for Iranian control over Strait of Hormuz

  • Ehsan Khandouzi: ‘This policy is decisive if implemented on time. Any delay in carrying it out means prolonging war inside the country’

DUBAI: Former Iranian Economy Minister Ehsan Khandouzi has said that tankers and LNG cargoes should only transit the Strait of Hormuz with Iranian permission and this policy should be carried out from “tomorrow for a hundred days.”

It was not immediately clear whether Khandouzi was echoing a plan under the Iranian establishment’s consideration or sharing his personal opinion.

Tehran has long used the threat of blocking the narrow waterway as a means to ward off Western pressure, without acting on its threats. The stakes have risen since Israel launched an air war on Iran last week after concluding the latter was on the verge of developing a nuclear weapon. Iran maintains its nuclear program is purely for civilian purposes.

“This policy [of controlling maritime transit in the Strait]is decisive if implemented on time. Any delay in carrying it out means prolonging war inside the country,” Khandouzi posted on X on Tuesday.

Iran’s Oil Ministry and Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Khandouzi was economy minister until the summer of last year in the cabinet of late President Ebrahim Raisi and remains close to the Iranian establishment’s hard-liners.

The Strait of Hormuz lies between Oman and Iran and is the primary export route for Gulf producers such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Iraq, and Kuwait.

About 20 percent of the world’s daily oil consumption – around 18 million barrels – passes through the Strait of Hormuz, which is only about 33 kilometers wide at its narrowest point.