A legislative petition for Moroccan citizenship for Jewish descendants of Moroccan citizens was submitted to the Moroccan Parliament on Saturday via the national citizen participation portal Eparticipation.ma. It seeks to obtain 20,000 signatures from citizens within less than 15 days to be submitted to the House of Representatives, in accordance with Moroccan law.
Introduced by a man named Houssain Ben Messaoud, the petition proposes granting Moroccan nationality to “all children and grandchildren of Moroccan Jews, subjects of the Commander of the Faithful”. It calls for “granting the children and grandchildren of Moroccan Jews their constitutional, political, religious, cultural, economic and social rights, while facilitating their integration into society”. Houssain Ben Messaoud, who is not known in the associative or other circles, explains that “Moroccan Jews living abroad suffered from the loss of their right to Moroccan citizenship by descent, unlike those residing in the kingdom. , and this, for reasons beyond their control”, in particular “the distance from Morocco and the difficulties linked to travel or the political, security, economic or social situations in their countries of residence”.
The text also demands that “the State works to protect the Moroccan Jewish community and its interests against any form of discrimination, targeting or aggression because of its religion or its identity in the West, and collaborates with the countries concerned to ensure their protection outside the West.
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It also proposes that “the State work with other actors to recover the economic, political, cultural, and other rights of the Moroccan Jewish community which was harmed, as well as its interests, during its collective departure”.
Since its publication, the text has been the subject of strong criticism by activists opposed to normalization between Morocco and Israel – notably from the Moroccan Observatory Against Normalization and the Moroccan Front to Support Palestine and opposition to standardization.
They thus consider that the proposal is a “propaganda operation” and represents a “danger for the stability of Morocco” which “could lead to the granting of nationality to settlers and soldiers involved in crimes of genocide against the Palestinian people “.
The petition has little chance of obtaining enough signatures to be submitted to the House of Representatives.
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