May 13, 1984
Morocco opens the two-day Conference on the Jewish Communities of Morocco, where approximately 20,000 Jews still live. Both Israelis and Arabs are suspicious of the gathering in Rabat. Some Israelis question King Hassan II’s sincerity, while others praise the dialogue he is encouraging.
Egyptian Minister of State Boutros Boutros-Ghali, married to a Jewish woman, praises Hassan, but state-sponsored Syrian media vilify the Moroccan king for putting his own politics and policies ahead of the Arab cause. Syria viewed this conference as a betrayal of the Arab struggle. Syria fears that Morocco will become a venue for Israeli-Palestinian talks and that Syria will be excluded, just as it was left out of conversations between Jordan and the PLO.
During the conference, 38 Israelis, including eight Knesset members, meet with Moroccan officials. Few who attend the conference know that several times in 1976 and 1977, before Egyptian President Anwar Sadat’s historic trip to Jerusalem, King Hassan II convened secret meetings between Egyptian and Israeli leaders. Those meetings, along with other secret meetings in Romania, convinced Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin that they could negotiate an agreement that would at least address dominion over the Sinai desert.