(JNS) Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana on Thursday expressed support for Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara.
Ohana spoke on a day he became the first-ever leader of Israel’s parliament to pay an official visit to the legislature of a Muslim country.
There, he presented the head of the parliament in Rabat with the smallest Koran in the world, printed with Israeli nanotechnology.
“Israel should move toward that goal of recognizing the Moroccan Sahara just as our closest ally the United States did…. I supported and pushed toward that goal,” Ohana said during a news conference in Rabat.
“Serious discussions” between the countries over the issue are underway and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “will be announcing his decisions in the near future,” he added.
The groundbreaking trip comes weeks before the foreign ministers of Israel and the four Arab countries that made peace with the Jewish state under the 2020 U.S.-brokered Abraham Accords are due to convene in Morocco.
The son of Moroccan Jewish immigrants to Israel, Ohana is a member of Netanyahu’s Likud Party.
שלום מרוקו! ????
Bonjour Maroc! ????
سلاماً المغرب! ???? pic.twitter.com/IFqiFSHHmh
— Amir Ohana – אמיר אוחנה (@AmirOhana) June 7, 2023
The chip containing the nano version of the Koran displayed inside a glass box was presented to Rachid Talbi el-Alami, the president of the House of Representatives of Morocco, who had invited his Israeli counterpart on the visit.
With 320,000 letters, it is 4.7-millimeters (0.185039 of an inch) high and 500-microns (0.019685 of an inch) wide, Ohana wrote on his Facebook page.
“The breakthrough in Israeli-Moroccan relations on the parliamentary level is a marvelous opportunity to connect between the past and the future, between tradition and advancement, between old and new, and to give honorable mention to Israeli innovation and technology,” he posted.
