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Rabat- The Algerian Minister of Communication, Ammar Belhimer, stated that all components of Algeria’s government oppose the Moroccan-Israeli alliance.
“Algeria represented by its people, constitutional institutions and developmental prospects are the subject of a real and systematic war from several parties, foremost of which is the Moroccan-Zionist alliance,” Belhimer said in an interview with the Algerian newspaper Djalia.
“Unfortunately for these people, they found in front of them an impenetrable wall of resistance and confrontation formed by an innate and solid alliance between the [Algerian] people and its various institutions, which is reflected in the Algerians’ positions on social media platforms,” he added.
For the Algerian minister, the Algerian media should be at the forefront of confronting the cyber war targeting Algeria, by “allocating the necessary space for public and private media outlets to expose the enemies’ lies and thwart their maneuvers.”
This is not the first time that Algeria has criticized Morocco’s renewed diplomatic ties with Israel. In the wake of the US-brokered Moroccan-Israeli joint declaration on establishing diplomatic ties in December 2020,
Algeria’s prime minister criticized “foreign maneuvers” supposedly aimed at destabilizing the country.
“There are foreign maneuvers which aim to destabilize Algeria,” Prime Minister Abdelaziz Djerad said, in response to the US decision’s decision to recognize Morocco’s sovereignty over Western Sahara and broker a “normalization” agreement between Israel and Morocco.
“There is now a desire by the Zionist entity to come closer to our borders,” he added, referencing the Morocco-Israel diplomatic rapprochement.
“We are seeing today at our borders… wars and instability around Algeria,” Djerad said, in a speech to mark the anniversary of demonstrations against French colonial rule.
Recent tensions
On August 24, Algeria’s Foreign Affairs Minister Ramatane Amamra announced his government’s decision to sever all ties with its western neighbor.
The Algerian FM accused Morocco of financing “terrorist organizations” to harm Algeria. Amamra also explicitly suggested that Morocco was responsible for the wildfires that erupted in the Kabylia region in early August.
In a further attempt to antagonize Morocco, Abderrazak Makri, the leader of the Algerian Movement of Society for Peace Party (MSP), released a lengthy and strong-worded statement calling Morocco, among other things, a weak state.
“The Kingdom of Morocco is, among the Arab states, the one that has lost the most of its sovereignty,” Makri stated, “as it is a subservient country that only works for the interests of France, Zionism, and the Western and American apparatus as a whole.”
He called Morocco “a weak state with several ongoing crises,” claiming that Moroccan authorities have tried to distract their population by entangling Algeria in the Western Saharan issue.
Tensions between Morocco and Algeria date back several years, with the underlying cause being Algeria’s support for the Polisario Front, the separatist movement seeking an independent state in Morocco’s southern provinces.
Before Algeria announced severing diplomatic ties between its western neighbor, Morocco was making efforts to normalize relations with Algeria.
As deadly forest fires swept through northern Algeria in early August, claiming dozens of lives and inflicting colossal material losses on populations, King Mohammed VI offered to assist Algeria by mobilizing two firefighting planes and humanitarian aid.
But the Algerian government ignored the aid offer, preferring paid rescue teams from France and Spain instead.
For many observers, this signaled that for all the repeated talks about pan-Maghrebism, the Algerian establishment’s fixation on Morocco as an existential threat and a national enemy will show no sign of abating for at least the next decade.
