Could the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza be Palestine’s ‘black swan’ moment?

Analysis Could the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza be Palestine’s ‘black swan’ moment?
A child carrying a tray of food walks among the ruins of the West Bank city of Kalkilya in the aftermath of the 1967 Six-Day War. (Getty Images)
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Updated 15 November 2023
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Could the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza be Palestine’s ‘black swan’ moment?

Could the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza be Palestine’s ‘black swan’ moment?
  • Buried in the rubble of the world’s longest-running conflict may be clues as to how the Gaza war might end
  • Israeli scholar Ahron Bregman believes the war may yet reset the dial, ushering in a two-state solution

LONDON: As the missiles and bombs continue to rain down on Gaza, reducing entire neighborhoods to wastelands and pushing the death toll to ever more obscene heights, buried in the rubble of the bloody history of the world’s longest-running war may be found clues as to how the current conflict might end and the impact it might have on the political landscape of the Middle East.

That, at least, is the view of UK-based Israeli historian and political scientist Dr. Ahron Bregman.

The author of half a dozen books about Israel’s seemingly never-ending wars, he believes there is a chance that in this latest round of the Israeli-Palestinian saga something significant might be stirring — a “black swan” moment, a metaphor used by political theorists and financial analysts alike to describe a rare, unexpected and unpredictable event that has dramatic, unforeseen consequences.




Smoke billows during the Israeli military bombardment of the northern Gaza Strip on November 14, 2023. (AFP)

Israel has been at war for 75 years, ever since David Ben-Gurion, the Polish-born head of the World Zionist Organization, declared the foundation of the state on May 14, 1948, the day the British mandate for Palestine came to an end.

For its own political reasons, Britain had championed the foundation of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine since 1917, when its government issued the Balfour Declaration, pledging its support for “a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine.”

But the first voices warning of the inevitable consequences of “dumping down an alien population upon an Arab country,” as one member of the British House of Lords put it in 1920, were raised in Britain.

The harm this would do, said Lord Sydenham in a debate on the Palestine Mandate in the House of Lords on June 21, 1922, “may never be remedied … what we have done is, by concessions, not to the Jewish people but to a Zionist extreme section, to start a running sore in the East, and no one can tell how far that sore will extend.”

To date, it has extended for three-quarters of a century.

The list of conflicts that have flowed from what Lord Sydenham described as “a gross injustice … opposed to the sentiments and wishes of the great majority of the people of Palestine,” is a long one.




Israelis in Nitzan take shelter in a large concrete pipe after a rocket launch from the Gaza Strip on November 15, 2012. (Getty Images)

The opening act in the long-running tragedy still being played out today was the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, preceded by a civil war between the Arab and Jewish communities and triggered by the outrage in the Arab world at the UN Partition Plan for Palestine.

Adopted by the UN General Assembly on Nov. 29, 1947, this allocated 56 percent of the land to the Jews, even though at that stage there were still twice as many Arabs in Palestine.

Despite attempts by commentators, governments and even some of the players to frame the Palestinian conflagration as a battle between competing religious ideologies, the central theme of all the subsequent conflicts has remained consistent: land.




Egyptian tanks and artillery advancing on the front during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. (AFP)

As Bregman wrote in his 2010 book “Israel’s Wars — A History Since 1947,” “when viewed from a historical perspective, these separate, short wars can be seen as one continuous conflict where territory ­— first the land of Palestine and then lands seized by Israel in subsequent wars — is the main, though not exclusive, trigger to repeating conflagrations.

“The balance sheet, after more than 60 years of Israeli-Arab conflict, indicates that on the battlefield there has been no clear victor — neither Arab nor Israeli.”

And yet, he believes, despite the untrammeled horror of the Hamas attack on Oct. 7, and Israel’s uncompromising and increasingly widely condemned military response, the current conflict may yet prove to have reset the dial, paving the way, finally, to a two-state solution.

At first glance, this seems counterintuitive. Although Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has denied that Israel is planning to reoccupy Gaza, vacated by his predecessor Ariel Sharon almost 20 years ago, this is precisely what hawks in his government have called for.

“There are extreme people in the government who wish for a return to rebuilding the Jewish settlements in Gaza that Ariel Sharon evacuated in 2005,” said Bregman.

But this, he believes, will not be how this current conflict ends.




Rescuers search victims among the rubble of the destroyed buildings Ben Yehuda Street in Jerusalem, on March 1948 at the beginning of the first Jewish-Arab conflict. (AFP)

“Sharon understood that you can’t have 8,000 settlers living among 1.8 million, at the time, hostile people and you can’t now have settlers living among 2.2 million Palestinians, who will be even more hostile after the destruction we are now seeing.

“Besides, any return to the Gaza Strip by Israel would be opposed by the entire international community, mainly the United States, on which Israel is now very dependent.”

For many, the scenes of Palestinians fleeing their homes in Gaza have awoken painful memories of the Nakba, the forceful displacement of more than half the Palestinian population before and during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.

The fury of the Israeli response to the events of Oct. 7 has also conjured up memories of the 1967 Six-Day War, by the end of which Israel had seized the Golan Heights, the Gaza Strip, the Sinai Peninsula and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, vastly expanding its territory at the expense of hundreds of thousands of displaced Arabs.

But Bregman, a senior teaching fellow in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London who has written extensively about the Arab-Israeli conflict, looks to another episode in that long saga for a clue to how events might now play out.




Israeli tanks advancing through difficult hilly terrain on June 10, 1967 in the Golan heights. (AFP)

Fifty years ago, in October 1973, a surprise attack was unleashed on Israel by a coalition of Arab states led by Egypt, motivated by a desire to recover the land seized by Israel in 1967.

The Ramadan War, or Yom Kippur War, ended in victory for an Israel heavily backed by American arms, but it set in motion a chain of events that changed the political and territorial landscape.

“Before the 1973 war, Egypt’s President Anwar Sadat offered the Israelis a peace proposal: Withdraw in the Sinai, not completely, but by 35 km, and we will embark on a peace process,” said Bregman.

The proposal was rejected by Golda Meir, the Israeli prime minister, and Sadat went to war.

“And then something very interesting happened. After the war, the withdrawal sought by Sadat was exactly what happened. In 1974, the Israelis withdrew in the Sinai, exactly 35 kilometers.”




A building destroyed by an Israeli bombing in Damascus on October 10, 1973 during the 1973 Arab–Israeli War. (AFP)

This in turn led to the Camp David Accords in 1978 and the signing the following year of the historic peace treaty between Israel and Egypt, which became the first Arab state to officially recognize Israel and won back the entire Sinai Peninsula.

The treaty, which earned Sadat and Menachem Begin, then Israel’s prime minister, the Nobel Peace Prize, was widely condemned in the Arab world at the time as a betrayal of the Palestinians and led to Sadat’s assassination in 1981.

“But after the 1973 war, the Israelis were willing to do things they weren’t prepared to do before, because of the war,” said Bregman.

“This was a black swan ­— and maybe what we are seeing now will be a black swan as well, which could change everything.”




Egyptian President Anwar Al-Sadat (L) and Israeli Premier Menachem Begin (R), seated between US President Jimmy Carter, sign the historic peace treaty between Israel and Egypt on March 26, 1979. (AFP)

Bregman, who has lived in the UK since 1989, returns regularly to Israel to visit family and is intimately familiar with the country’s military, political and intelligence landscape.

He served in the Israel Defense Forces for six years, taking part as a major in the 1982 Lebanon War, later worked as a parliamentary aide in the Knesset and wrote “The Spy Who Fell to Earth,” the 2016 bestselling book about espionage between Egypt and Israel, later made into a Netflix documentary.

“Do not misunderstand me,” he said. “What happened on Oct. 7 was barbaric, on par with Daesh at the highest point on the scale of evil.

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“But if you look at it from a purely military point of view, it was a very successful operation for Hamas. They surprised the Israelis big time. Now, I imagine many Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are angry with them because of the destruction. But in the long term, this will be regarded as a major event in the mythology and history of the Palestinian people — a major event after years of humiliation and Israeli victories.”

The current phase of the conflict, he believes, will end soon, “in a few days, or weeks, because the Americans will stop the Israelis” — Biden will fear losing his election if they continue. But it is in what could happen next that the beating of the wings of the black swan can be heard.




Israeli troops take position in the southern city of Beersheba following an unprecedented attack by Hamas fighters on October 7, 2023. (AFP)

There are several possible outcomes, of which Netanyahu’s declared intention to destroy Hamas completely is one — and, in Bregman’s view, impossible: “Hamas is as much of an idea as it is a group of people.”

But, he says, “if you want to kill an idea, you must put forward a better one, and a better idea for the Palestinians would be — ‘Here, you are going to have your state.’”

Under current circumstances, that seems an extraordinary prospect. But that, said Bregman, is precisely the nature of a “black swan” scenario.

“It’s not nice to say, but the Israelis got a bloody nose and that brings me back to 1973. It was the bloody nose of 1973 that shook up the Israelis and made the Sinai 1 and Sinai 2 agreements happen.”

He speculates that, under US pressure, Israel could facilitate the return of the Palestinian National Authority to Gaza, where it lost control to Hamas in 2006. In this scenario, the aging Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestine president, would be replaced.

“Israel could, for example, do something brave and release from prison Marwan Barghouti,” Bregman said, referring to the Palestinian leader sentenced to life imprisonment in 2002, but who is seen as a potential unifying candidate.




A Palestinian man sits on the debris of collapsed structures destroyed in the Israeli bombardment of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on November 10, 2023. (AFP)

Under Barghouti, or someone like him, said Bregman, “you could have the Palestinian Authority ruling the two areas again. Of course, the right in Israel would be very reluctant, because Netanyahu’s entire policy has been ‘divide and rule’ — it was he who wanted to keep Hamas in power and made them powerful.”

But one effect of the Oct. 7 attack, he believes, is going to be a seismic shock that could shake Israel’s political landscape to its foundations.

“After this phase is over, after the return to civilian life of the Israeli army reservists, there are going to be massive demonstrations in Israel, far bigger than anything we’ve seen before,” he said.

“There is so much suppressed anger in Israel right now. I can feel it. The Israelis keep it inside them for now because there’s a war going on, but it will be released.”

That anger has been generated by the failure of the military response to the Hamas attack, the perceived mishandling of the hostage crisis by the government, and the increasing long-term unease over the provocations of the settler movement and repeated incursions into the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound by Jewish religious extremists, supported by right-wing ministers including Itamar Ben-Givr, the national security minister.

It was these provocations that were cited by Hamas leader Mohammed Deif as the trigger for the current conflict. On Oct. 11 a Hamas source told Reuters that planning for the attack had begun in May 2021, provoked “by scenes and footage of Israel storming Al-Aqsa Mosque during Ramadan, beating worshippers, attacking them, dragging elderly and young men out of the mosque.”

The demonstrations in Israel, said Bregman, “will be massive, and it will be interesting to see whether Netanyahu will survive, but the current cabinet doesn’t represent the real Israel and the extremists who were allowed into government will probably have to go,” in turn paving the way for a more pragmatic Israeli government and, ultimately, the possibility of a single Palestinian authority responsible once again for both Gaza and the West Bank.

“Then, all of a sudden, you have the basis of a two-state solution, and in my view, this is the end game to which the Americans are now trying to push the Israelis.”




Israeli security forces use a water cannon to disperse demonstrators blocking the entrance of the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, in Jerusalem on July 24, 2023, amid a months-long wave of protests against the government’s planned judicial overhaul. (AFP/File)

Bregman concedes that such a historic outcome is not certain but, he believes, would be more palatable to many in Israel than the alternative options, which range from strengthening and deepening the “ring of steel” around Gaza to imposing a West Bank Area B situation, in which Hamas is allowed to continue running civil society but Israel controls security.

Certainly, said Palestinian-American historian Rashid Khalidi, author of “The Iron Cage" and The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine,” a continuation of the status quo cannot be contemplated. 

“If Israel and the US end this war they are collectively waging as they have every previous one — 1982, 2006, 2008-09, 2014, etc. — allowing for no possible political solution involving Palestinian national rights and an end to occupation and settlement … it will be sowing the seeds of another inevitable war,” he said.

On Aug. 11, 1919, British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour, the enthusiastic supporter of Zionism whose declaration of 1917 paved the way for generations of misery, wrote a shocking memo that underscored the British Empire’s contempt for the Arabs of Palestine.

Zionism, he wrote, “be it right or wrong, good or bad, is rooted in age-long traditions, in present needs, in future hopes, of far profounder import than the desires and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land.”

Perhaps now, after almost a century of pain and suffering, the Hamas assault on Israel might prove to be the impetus for Israel and the world finally to recognize that the age-long traditions, present needs, and future hopes of the Arabs of Palestine are of equal importance to those of the Jewish people.

 


Residents of Israeli settlement ‘Trump Heights’ welcome Donald’s return to US presidency

Residents of Israeli settlement ‘Trump Heights’ welcome Donald’s return to US presidency
Updated 56 min 45 sec ago
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Residents of Israeli settlement ‘Trump Heights’ welcome Donald’s return to US presidency

Residents of Israeli settlement ‘Trump Heights’ welcome Donald’s return to US presidency
  • During his first term, Donald Trump became the first and only foreign leader to recognize Israel’s control of the Golan Heights
  • Trump’s election has inspired hope in the community that it will attract more members and also more funding for security improvements

RAMAT TRUMP, Golan Heights: Israeli residents of “Trump Heights” are welcoming the election of their namesake, hoping Donald Trump’s return to the US presidency will breathe new life into this tiny, remote settlement in the central Golan Heights.
During his first term, Trump became the first and only foreign leader to recognize Israel’s control of the Golan, which it seized from Syria in the 1967 Mideast war. Israel thanked him by rebranding this outpost after him.
But a large-scale influx of new residents never materialized after that 2019 ceremony, and just a couple dozen families live in Trump Heights, or “Ramat Trump” in Hebrew. Job opportunities are limited, and Israel’s more than yearlong war against Hezbollah militants in nearby Lebanon has added to the sense of isolation.
Trump’s election has inspired hope in the community that it will attract more members and also more funding for security improvements.
“Maybe it can raise more awareness and maybe some support to help here and help our kids here,” said Yarden Freimann, Trump Heights’ community manager.
Ori Kallner, head of the Golan’s regional council, showed off dozens of plots of land, replete with new asphalt roads, lampposts and utility lines, that residents have prepared for future housing developments.
“President Trump’s return to the White House definitely puts the town in the headlines,” he said.
Hanging on while war rages nearby
Kallner stood next to a metal statue of an eagle and a menorah, symbolizing the United States and Israel, as Israeli warplanes flew overhead. Two explosions from rockets fired from Lebanon punched the hills nearby, and just across the border in Lebanon, plumes of smoke rose into the air from Israeli airstrikes.
An enormous sign with the settlement’s name in Hebrew and English gleamed in the sun, while two large sunbaked metal flags of Israel and the United States were faded almost beyond recognition.
Surrounded by ashen ruins of villages fled by Syrians in the 1967 war, the town is perched above the Hula Valley, where Israel has amassed tanks, artillery and troops for its fight in Lebanon. Most towns in the valley have been evacuated. Trump Heights sends its kids to a makeshift daycare in a nearby settlement after the government shuttered all schools in the region in the wake of the Oct. 1 invasion of Lebanon.
“We find ourselves hanging by our fingernails to be in our own community, not be evacuated, and on the other hand, we cannot work, we cannot send our kids to any kind of an education system,” said Freimann.
Trump Heights is only about 12 kilometers from Lebanon and Syria. Alerts for incoming fire gives residents about 30 seconds’ head start to get to a bomb shelter.
Trump broke with other leaders on the Golan Heights
Israel annexed the Golan, a strategic plateau overlooking northern Israel, in 1981 in a move that is not internationally recognized.
That changed in March 2019 when Trump, without notice, tweeted that the US would “fully recognize” Israel’s control of the territory. His announcement drew widespread condemnation from the international community, which considers the Golan to be occupied Syrian territory and Israel’s settlements to be illegal. The Biden administration left the decision intact, but the US remains the lone country to recognize the Israeli annexation.
Kallner said he hopes Trump will now persuade European countries to recognize Israeli sovereignty there.
According to Israeli figures, the Golan is home to about 50,000 people — roughly half of them Jewish Israelis and the other half Arab Druze, many of whom still consider themselves Syrians under occupation.
Israel has encouraged and promoted settlements in the Golan, and the Druze residents operate farms and a tourism and restaurant sector popular with Israelis. But the area has struggled to develop because of its remoteness, several hours from Israel’s economic center in Tel Aviv.
That economic hardship has only worsened during the war as the hospitality sector cratered. On July 28, a rocket killed 12 Druze children on a soccer field in the city of Majdal Shams, about 12 miles (20 kilometers) away. Israel invaded Lebanon months later.
In June 2019, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu led an inauguration ceremony for Trump Heights. The US ambassador at the time, David Friedman, noted that the ceremony came days after Trump’s birthday and said: “I can’t think of a more appropriate and a more beautiful birthday present.”
As president, Trump was close with Netanyahu
The Golan recognition was among a series of diplomatic gifts that Trump delivered to Israel during his first term. They included recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and moving the American embassy to the contested city, and a series of diplomatic agreements with Arab countries known as the Abraham Accords.
He has vowed to bring peace to the tumultuous region during his second term, but has not said how.
Netanyahu enjoyed a close relationship with Trump during his first term but ran afoul of the former president when he congratulated Joe Biden on his 2020 victory. The Israeli prime minister announced Tuesday that he was one of the first foreign leaders to call the president-elect and congratulate him on his victory. An official in his office, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss internal communications, said aides were upbeat and giddy.
“Congratulations on history’s greatest comeback!” the Israeli leader said in a statement. “Your historic return to the White House offers a new beginning for America and a powerful recommitment to the great alliance between Israel and America.”
At Trump Heights, Kallner was optimistic too: “The Golan community is strong and resilient, and people that want to come and live here are from the same material. I believe we will overcome these challenging times and won’t stop growing.”


US says Israel to open new Gaza crossing as aid deadline looms

US says Israel to open new Gaza crossing as aid deadline looms
Updated 08 November 2024
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US says Israel to open new Gaza crossing as aid deadline looms

US says Israel to open new Gaza crossing as aid deadline looms
  • US has given Israel until Nov. 13 to improve humanitarian situation in Gaza
  • The letter calls for a minimum of 350 trucks per day to be allowed into Gaza

WASHINGTON: Israel has informed the United States that it will open an additional crossing for aid into Gaza, the State Department said Thursday, as a US-imposed deadline looms next week.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin have given Israel until November 13 to improve the humanitarian situation in the war-besieged Gaza Strip or risk the withholding of some military assistance from the United States, Israel’s biggest supporter.
They made the demands in a letter before Tuesday’s election of President-elect Donald Trump, who has promised to give freer rein to Israel.
State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said that Israel, after recently reopening the Erez crossing, has informed the United States that they “hope to open an additional new crossing at Kissufim” in “the next few days.”
“We have continued to press them, and we have seen them, including in the past few days since the election, take additional steps,” Miller told reporters.
He stopped short of saying how the United States would assess Israel’s compliance with the aid demands.
In the letter, Blinken and Austin had urged Israel to “consistently” let aid through four major crossings and to open a fifth crossing.
Kissufim, near a kibbutz across from southern Gaza that was attacked in the October 7, 2023 Hamas assault that sparked the war, has mostly been in disuse except by the military since Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005.
The letter called for a minimum of 350 trucks per day to be allowed into Gaza. Miller said 229 trucks entered on Tuesday.
Outgoing President Joe Biden has repeatedly pressed Israel to improve humanitarian aid and protect civilians, while mostly stopping short of using leverage such as cutting off weapons.
Miller said Blinken hoped to keep using the rest of his term to press for an end to the wars in Gaza and Lebanon.


US says Israel to open new Gaza crossing as aid deadline looms

Children stare at the destruction following an Israeli strike in the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip on November
Children stare at the destruction following an Israeli strike in the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip on November
Updated 08 November 2024
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US says Israel to open new Gaza crossing as aid deadline looms

Children stare at the destruction following an Israeli strike in the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip on November
  • The US has given Israel until November 13 to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza
  • Letter calls for a minimum of 350 trucks per day to be allowed into Gaza

WASHINGTON: Israel has informed the United States that it will open an additional crossing for aid into Gaza, the State Department said Thursday, as a US-imposed deadline looms next week.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin have given Israel until November 13 to improve the humanitarian situation in the war-besieged Gaza Strip or risk the withholding of some military assistance from the United States, Israel’s biggest supporter.
They made the demands in a letter before Tuesday’s election of President-elect Donald Trump, who has promised to give freer rein to Israel.
State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said that Israel, after recently reopening the Erez crossing, has informed the United States that they “hope to open an additional new crossing at Kissufim” in “the next few days.”
“We have continued to press them, and we have seen them, including in the past few days since the election, take additional steps,” Miller told reporters.
He stopped short of saying how the United States would assess Israel’s compliance with the aid demands.
In the letter, Blinken and Austin had urged Israel to “consistently” let aid through four major crossings and to open a fifth crossing.
Kissufim, near a kibbutz across from southern Gaza that was attacked in the October 7, 2023 Hamas assault that sparked the war, has mostly been in disuse except by the military since Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005.
The letter called for a minimum of 350 trucks per day to be allowed into Gaza. Miller said 229 trucks entered on Tuesday.
Outgoing President Joe Biden has repeatedly pressed Israel to improve humanitarian aid and protect civilians, while mostly stopping short of using leverage such as cutting off weapons.
Miller said Blinken hoped to keep using the rest of his term to press for an end to the wars in Gaza and Lebanon.


France mulling new sanctions on Israeli settlers, minister says in West Bank

France mulling new sanctions on Israeli settlers, minister says in West Bank
Updated 07 November 2024
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France mulling new sanctions on Israeli settlers, minister says in West Bank

France mulling new sanctions on Israeli settlers, minister says in West Bank
  • “France has been a driving force to establish the first sanction regime at the European level,” Barrot said
  • Barrot renewed France’s commitment to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

RAMALLAH: France is mulling new sanctions on those enabling the expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, regarded as illegal under international law, Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said on a visit to the territory on Thursday.
“France has been a driving force to establish the first sanction regime at the European level targeting individuals or entities, either actors or accomplices of settlement activities,” Barrot said after talks with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas in Ramallah.
“This regime has been activated two times already and we’re working on a third batch of sanctions targeting these activities that again are illegal with respect to international law.”
Barrot renewed France’s commitment to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and warned settlement activities “threaten the political perspective that can ensure durable peace for Israel and Palestine.”
Before meeting Abbas, Barrot visited the adjacent town of Al-Bireh, where Israeli settlers set fire to 20 cars on Monday, damaging a nearby building.
After speaking with residents and local officials at the scene, Barrot noted that the attack took place in a part of the West Bank where the Palestinians were supposed to enjoy both civil and security control under the Oslo Accords of the 1990s.
“These attacks from extremist and violent settlers are not only completely inexcusable, not only contrary to international law, but they weaken the perspective of a two-state solution,” Barrot said.
Ramallah and Al-Bireh governor Laila Ghannam expressed outrage that settler attacks were “taking place in full view and hearing of the entire silent international community.”
“Perhaps today, with the visit of the French foreign minister, there will be a spotlight here,” she told AFP.
Speaking in Jerusalem earlier Thursday, Barrot said he saw prospects for ending Israel’s wars in Gaza and Lebanon after Donald Trump’s re-election, citing the Republican’s “wish to see the end of the Middle East’s endless wars” as well as recent “tactical successes” for Israel.


Moroccan population grows to 36.8 million in 2024

The Moroccan population grew by 2.98 million since the last census in 2014. (AFP)
The Moroccan population grew by 2.98 million since the last census in 2014. (AFP)
Updated 07 November 2024
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Moroccan population grows to 36.8 million in 2024

The Moroccan population grew by 2.98 million since the last census in 2014. (AFP)

RABAT: The Moroccan population grew to 36.82 million by September 2024, according to the preliminary results of a national census, the spokesman for the government said on Thursday.
Compared with the most recent census in 2014, the Moroccan population grew by 2.98 million or 8.8 percent, spokesman Mustapha Baitas told reporters.
The number of households grew to 9.27 million by September 2024, up 26.8 percent compared to 2014, while the number of foreigners living in the country increased to 148,152, up 71.8 percent, he said.