In March 2023, the Israeli firm Netafim—a global provider of drip irrigation technology—opened its first Moroccan factory in the city of Kenitra.
Wahid Aguertite, a farmer, walks among orange trees dried out by drought on Morocco’s southern plains of Agadir in the country’s agricultural heartland, October 2020. Fadel Senna/AFP via Getty Images
The company framed the move as a step to “strengthen the successful implementation of precision irrigation in the kingdom and reinforce its agricultural sector.”[1] A handful of local agricultural leaders publicly endorsed the venture. In a video posted to the company’s Facebook page, Mohamed Krata, vice president of the Rabat-Salé-Kenitra agricultural chamber, tells viewers, “My secret to success is that I seek out companies that always bring something new. I was the first farmer in the Gharb region to work with Netafim.”[2] Another farmer, Abdelilah Miftah, adds: “We used to farm haphazardly. But now, with Netafim, the opposite is true.” The clip garnered over one million views and more than a hundred comments, most lauding both the firm and the Moroccan farmers who partnered with it.
A slick, high-quality production, the video recycled a familiar, paternalistic storyline in which backward locals need outside expertise to harness their own resources. Once used to justify colonial rule, this framing has been repurposed to legitimize Morocco’s formal normalization with Israel, particularly in the agricultural sector, following the December 2020 Morocco-Israel agreement, brokered under US sponsorship as part of the Abraham Accords.
In the case of Morocco, “normalization” is something of a misnomer. Morocco was never at war with Israel, and informal ties date back to the early years of Moroccan independence in 1956. Yet the Accords marked a qualitative shift. Israeli agribusiness previously operated in Morocco indirectly, often through third-country intermediaries. One example is the etrog, a citrus fruit central to Jewish ritual during the Sukkot holiday. For years, Moroccan-grown etrogs reached Israel via Turkey, Spain or Italy. The Accords made such routes unnecessary, shifting cooperation from discreet transshipping arrangements to open partnerships and direct investment.
While firms such as Netafim tout their operations as beneficial to Moroccans, a closer look illustrates how cooperation allows Israeli companies to exploit Morocco’s resources and labor at the expense of local workers and ecosystems. Partnerships with Moroccan companies also ensure Israel greater access to European and African markets.
Unequal Trade and the Politics of Phosphates
Trade between Israel and Morocco has expanded since normalization, with flows moving in both directions. In 2024, Israel imported $141.55 million worth of goods from Morocco, while Morocco imported just under $95 million from Israel. These headline figures suggest relative balance in favor of Morocco, but the pace of change reveals an asymmetry. Israeli purchases from Morocco have grown steadily over the past five years, while Moroccan imports from Israel have surged at a far faster rate, reflecting how normalization has opened Moroccan markets more dramatically to Israeli goods.[3]
…this trade follows a familiar North-South divide: Israel sells goods high on the value chain, while Morocco exports lower-profit products.
Moreover, this trade follows a familiar North-South divide: Israel sells goods high on the value chain, while Morocco exports lower-profit products. Between October 2023 and February 2025—amid Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza—Morocco’s exports to Israel included clothing and accessories, sugar and confectionery, aircraft and vehicle parts and processed fruits and vegetables. Israel’s exports to Morocco consisted of machinery, electrical equipment, plastics, inorganic chemicals, precious-metal compounds, seeds and cooking-oil plants, fodder and advanced medical and optical instruments. Even Morocco’s aircraft and vehicle parts exports are misleading: They are largely produced by French and US firms that benefit from inexpensive labor in Morocco’s tax-free industrial zones.
This structural inequality is visible in agriculture. Israeli seeds, for example, have dominated Moroccan farming since 2008, accounting for 80 percent of those planted. But many are sterile seeds containing so-called terminator genes, engineered so these crops cannot produce seeds for the next planting, locking farmers into annual purchases.
Phosphates, on the other hand, flip the equation. Morocco controls the world’s largest reserves of this essential ingredient for fertilizers, and the state-owned Office Chérifien des Phosphates (OCP)—converted in 2008 into a joint-stock corporation—has built global reach. Through its subsidiary OCP Africa, it markets itself as empowering African farmers with fertilizer, resources and training, while also securing Morocco’s influence across the continent. For Israel, whose agriculture is highly dependent on fertilizer inputs, phosphate is a critical raw material. Since normalization, some Israeli imports of Moroccan phosphate have taken place, but more important is how Israel views OCP’s footprint in Africa as an opportunity. Collaboration between OCP and Israel Chemicals Ltd. has already begun in research and sustainability initiatives, and Israeli policymakers see Morocco’s phosphate power as a platform to expand influence in African markets.
Africa’s abundant resources and expanding markets have long attracted global investors, and today the continent has become a major arena of rivalry—most prominently between the United States and the European Union, on one side, and China on the other. Morocco positions itself as a conduit for Western capital into the continent. Israeli policy institutes have seized on this role. A 2022 article from the Israeli Institute of National Security Studies presented bilateral relations with Morocco as a “gateway to Africa,” arguing that Morocco’s infrastructure and regional ties could help Israel expand into African markets, especially in countries where it lacks diplomatic relations. Similarly, a January 2024 report from the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security called for deepened Morocco-Israel cooperation in Africa, extending beyond trade into security and large-scale development aid for “like-minded” African governments. Such calls for cooperation are thinly veiled efforts by Israeli companies to profit from Morocco’s strategic position on the continent.
These dynamics are not entirely new. King Hassan II’s regime (1961–1999) sought to normalize economic relations with Israel in ways that extended beyond bilateral ties to encompass the wider Maghreb. The 1994 Middle East and North Africa Economic Summit in Casablanca—chaired by Hassan II and attended by high-level diplomats and representatives of International Financial Institutions—linked the 1993 Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestinians with regional development. The summit’s secretary general, Mustapha Terrab, was later appointed executive director of OCP by the king in 2006. Nearly three decades after the economic summit, the Policy Centre for the New South—an OCP-affiliated think tank—hosted the 2023 Emerging Markets Forum in Marrakesh, with Israel represented by Jacob Frenkel, former governor of the Bank of Israel.
Rabat’s motivations are as much political as economic. Much of Morocco’s phosphate lies in the disputed Western Sahara. For the Moroccan state, exporting these resources signals recognition of its sovereignty over the territory. In the past, the Sahrawi nationalist liberation movement and representative body, the Polisario Front, used EU courts to challenge such exports, citing its status as a disputed territory. In December 2016, the EU Court of Justice ruled the EU-Morocco Association Agreement does not apply to Western Sahara. But since the Abraham Accords and Washington’s official recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara, EU states have defied these objections.
Israeli Agribusiness and Resource Exploitation
Formal agricultural cooperation lagged behind the initial diplomatic fanfare of the Abraham Accords. On September 28, 2023, Israeli Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter met his Moroccan counterpart to formalize a declaration of intent that expressed wide-ranging goals: boosting private agricultural technology companies, improving food supply chains in both countries, promoting rural development, enhancing production under drought conditions, expanding aquaculture and investing in research and development in arid and semi-arid conditions to increase productivity and efficient irrigation techniques.
In addition to Netafim, several Israeli firms were quick to seize on this opening. Mehadrin—a major Israeli agri-food and real estate firm that is one of the country’s largest citrus and avocado producers—has announced a 455-hectare avocado plantation backed by about $8 million, with the goal of exporting 10,000 tons annually. In April 2023, a coalition of four Israeli food-tech startups, led by the investment firm Hellman Doby Technologies, announced a project in Morocco’s desert to develop “sustainable food solutions,” focusing on algae-based fish feed—an advanced aquaculture input aimed at expanding fish farming capacity.
Beyond the trade in raw goods, Israeli agribusiness operations in Morocco have become a visible pillar of cooperation. Official narratives from both governments present these ventures as solutions to Morocco’s food security and water crises, especially in the face of severe droughts and climate change. As Morocco World News put it: “At a time when the world faces mounting challenges around food security, water scarcity, and climate change, Morocco and Israel have worked to address these issues and draw on each other’s strengths in agriculture to achieve shared goals.”[4]
The reality is far less harmonious. For example, numerous studies and reports have raised concerns about the Israeli company Mehadrin and its investment in large-scale avocado cultivation in Morocco, which is highly water intensive. “Avocados, like other high-water-demand fruits, should not be grown in Morocco today,” a Moroccan agricultural engineer told The New Arab, noting such choices are political and ultimately made by the king.[5] The agriculture ministry estimates that drip-irrigating one hectare of avocado trees requires 4,000–8,000 cubic meters of water—meaning Mehadrin’s operations would consume 2.5 to 4 million cubic meters annually, nearly equivalent to the water consumed by Morocco’s largest city, Casablanca, in 134 days. This situation has negative effects on people and the environment in a country suffering from severe water shortages due to a harsh drought. Key reservoirs have diminished so much that many farmers have scaled back the size of plantings and reduced how much water they are using to water crops.
As in earlier eras of European colonial exploitation, Israel now treats Morocco as a source of cheap natural resources and labor to lower production costs.
As in earlier eras of European colonial exploitation, Israel now treats Morocco as a source of cheap natural resources and labor to lower production costs. Mehadrin CEO Shaul Shelach made this dynamic explicit: “The price of water in Morocco is negligible compared to Israel, and we have to compete with that. Water is our main expense, along with labor.”[6]
Water use is only part of the picture. Journalist Latifa Babas reports that Mehadrin and its Moroccan partner, Cherdoud, export Moroccan-grown avocados to Europe, but fruit deemed unfit for export is sold at home.[7] Such examples cut through the rhetoric of partnership and cooperation omnipresent in official Moroccan and Israeli discourse to reveal how Israeli agricultural policy in Morocco echoes older colonial strategies that undermined subsistence agriculture, exploited cheap labor and made territories in the Global South dependent on foreign trade.
Moreover, a foothold in Morocco allows Israeli agribusinesses to dodge European boycott campaigns. Produce grown in Morocco under Israeli management is shipped abroad with a “Made in Morocco” label, tax-free, funneling profits back to Israeli firms and shielding them from boycott efforts. As EU citizens, in response to the genocide, accelerate their demands that supermarkets cease stocking Israeli goods, these measures dull the economic impact of the global Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement.
Academic Partnerships and the Struggle Against Normalization
In April 2023, during the Meknes Agricultural Exhibition, Israeli Economy Minister Nir Barkat told attendees that, “Moroccan companies will benefit from direct exposure to Israeli technology.” [8] At the Expo, Barkat met with Moroccan Industry and Trade Minister Ryad Mezzour to discuss expanding agricultural cooperation through joint training programs, academic exchanges and partnerships linking Moroccan and Israeli universities with agricultural research institutes. These initiatives tie normalization directly to the infrastructure of higher education, applied research and on-the-ground farming practices.
These initiatives tie normalization directly to the infrastructure of higher education, applied research and on-the-ground farming practices.
Critics, however, see a different dynamic at work. Mohamed Naji, a professor at the Hassan II Institute of Agronomy and Veterinary Medicine—and a vocal opponent of normalization—argues that technology transfer in this context rarely builds genuine local capacity. Speaking at a symposium on “Zionist Infiltration in Morocco’s Higher Education Sector,” he pointed to Netafim as an example: farmers who register on its platforms must supply detailed information about their farms, crops, seeds and production methods—data he considers a strategic national asset. Once that information is in Israeli hands, he warned, it can be leveraged for economic and political advantage. Netafim’s model, he said, offers initial free services, then demands payment while maintaining a steady flow of agricultural intelligence to Tel Aviv. “If relations break down tomorrow,” Naji cautioned, “Israel will know more about your farms than you do.”[9] For Naji, such arrangements amount to state-sanctioned industrial espionage under the guise of agricultural cooperation.
Academic collaboration as a key channel for entrenching normalization began before the meeting at the expo. In October 2022, the Moroccan National Institute of Agricultural Engineering and the Israeli Volcani Center for Agricultural Research signed an agreement to strengthen cooperation and exchange expertise in farming and agricultural science. A year earlier, Morocco’s state-run phosphate giant, OCP, which has been central to academic outreach, backed a partnership between Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and Mohammed VI Polytechnic University. They pledged to provide scholarships, facilitate faculty exchanges and collaborate across a wide range of sustainability fields—from food security, environmental protection and smart agriculture to water management, climate change mitigation, renewable energy, entrepreneurship and tourism.
The cooperation between the two universities has been heavily criticized, especially by students at Mohammed VI University, more than 1,200 of whom signed a petition in June 2024 calling on the university administration to sever ties with Israeli partners involved in war crimes against Palestinians. The petition noted that the university administration had rejected their demand and pointed to its numerous partnerships in Israel, including Bar-Ilan University, Ben-Gurion University, Tel Aviv University, Western Galilee Academic College, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Reichman University and Sapir Academic College.
Opposition to economic normalization with Israel is not solely a response to the ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people—although that alone is reason enough. Normalization fortifies Israel’s capacity to act with impunity more broadly since the state does not incur economic costs for its actions. Without sustained international economic support—and, more recently, economic normalization with Arab states—Israel could not have pursued a nearly century-long project of occupation and mass violence in Gaza, the West Bank and the region.
Rather than competing to attract Israeli and other Northern capital in a destructive race to the bottom, states in the region could pursue South-South cooperation as a strategy to escape dependency. In North Africa, for example, integration could leverage complementary strengths: Algeria, Libya and Egypt possess significant energy resources, while Morocco and Tunisia have phosphate reserves and agricultural capacity. Algerian oil revenues could be redirected toward regional investment to finance productive projects in Tunisia and Morocco, instead of IMF loans. In turn, Morocco and Tunisia could supply Algeria with food and renewable technologies rather than its relying on costly imports from Europe or Russia. Morocco, a producer of solar energy, could import solar panels from Tunisia, a producer. Such cooperation would not only build productive capacity and enhance food sovereignty but also challenge the region’s subordination to Western capital. Breaking the cycle of dependency requires reorienting economies away from serving the needs of Europe and Israel toward more equitable trade and shared technologies across the Global South.
This article appears in MER issue 315/316 “The Material Politics of Normalization.”
[Ali Almouzai is an activist and researcher from Morocco. He is a member of Al Mounadil-a (a revolutionary socialist labour movement), ATTAC-Morocco and Siyada Network.]
Endnotes
[1] Netafim Morocco, “In the Second Episode of the Secret of the Craft,” Facebook Post, May 9, 2024.
[2] Ibid.
[3] The figures are taken from the OEC Morocco/Israel page, https://oec.world/en/profile/bilateral-country/mar/partner/isr
[4] Sara Zouiten, “SIAM: Israel to Share Agri Tech, Water Management Expertise with Morocco,” Morocco World News, May 3, 2023.
[5] Basma El Atti, “Are Israeli avocados exacerbating Morocco’s drought crisis?,” The New Arab, February 8, 2024.
[6] Latifa Babas, “Israel’s largest food exporter Mehadrin to grow avocados in Morocco,” Yabiladi, April 21, 2021.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Sara Zouiten, “SIAM: Israel to Share Agri Tech, Water Management Expertise with Morocco,” Morocco World News, May 3, 2023.
[9] Howiya Press, “Unprecedented data: Dr. Muhammad al-Naji reveals Zionist infiltration of the higher education sector in Morocco,” YouTube, January 16, 2025. [In Arabic]