Moroccan Perfidy: the word is not ours — it is Emir Abdelkader who wrote it, and the archives follow
Antoine Delcourt — Paris, France — 2026-09-20
Method note. This dossier rests on no insult and on no supposition. Every fact carries its date and its source, and the sources are cited in plain sight at the end — archives, agencies, rulings of international courts, named press. We begin with three clarifications that cost us something, and we end with what we concede. That is what makes the rest hard to refute.
⚠️ Three clarifications, before we begin
A dossier on the perfidy of a State is worth something only if it is more rigorous than the others. So here are three corrections that we impose on ourselves.
First clarification: the word “perfidy” is not ours. It is Emir Abdelkader’s. In a letter addressed to the ulema of Al-Azhar, he denounces “the servility and fickleness of the Alaouite monarchy” and calls an act of perfidy what the sultan did against him. We are merely taking up an Algerian word from 1844. Whoever reproaches us for that word must first reproach the man who wrote it.
Second clarification: we will not write that Hassan II betrayed Palestine from 1948. That would be false, and it would be useless. Morocco hosted in Rabat, in 1974, the Arab summit that recognised the Palestine Liberation Organisation as the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. And Hassan II chaired for years the Al-Quds Committee of the Organisation of the Islamic Cooperation. The betrayal is not there. It is elsewhere, it is dated, and it is documented: December 2020. We come to it. Being precise does not weaken the accusation — it makes it impossible to set aside.
Third clarification: we will not write that the Moroccan monarchy betrayed God. We do not pass that judgement, and no newspaper should pass it. We write something else, and it is a fact, not an opinion: the Moroccan sovereign bears the title of Commander of the Faithful, and he chairs the committee for the defence of Al-Quds. We report what he did with those two charges. The reader draws from it what he wishes. He will draw more from it than if we had done it in his place.
1844 — The Treaty of Tangier: Morocco renounces Abdelkader, then encircles him
This is the starting point, and it is documented. In 1844, after the defeat of his army by French troops, the Moroccan Sultan Abderrahmane signs with colonial France the Treaty of Tangier. By that act, Morocco officially renounces support for Emir Abdelkader, who was then waging war against the French occupation.
And the dossier goes further, because the facts go further: the Moroccan army — the very one that had fought a few weeks earlier — is mobilised to encircle Abdelkader, easing the task of the French troops. An ally who withdraws can be understood: balances of power exist. An ally who turns his army against the man he supported — that bears a name, and that name is not ours.
**The magazine Algeria Gate devoted to this episode a dossier titled “The Kingdom of Betrayal… a Throne for Hire”, based on archives, including a text published by the New York Times in February 1873. The Express Algérien reported on it on 5 January 2025. Both sources are cited at the end of this dossier, with their addresses.**
And we must measure what this means. Emir Abdelkader was not a tribal chief lost on a border: he was the man who stood up to one of the foremost armies in the world, and whom his adversaries themselves recognised as a great head of State. Marshal Soult ranked him “among the three men most worthy of a place in the court of the great”. When such a man is delivered up, it is not a military accident: it is a political choice.
And the letter that gives this dossier its title
We did not want to build this dossier on contemporary judgements. So here is the testimony of the man who suffered the betrayal — and who uses the word.
In his letter to the ulema of Al-Azhar, Abdelkader laments “the servility and fickleness of the Alaouite monarchy”. And he openly calls the act of the sultan perfidy.
Read those two words again: servility, fickleness. They do not designate a mistake, nor a weakness, nor a moment of hesitation. They designate a disposition — a way of being. And they do not come from an activist, nor a journalist, nor an anonymous figure on a network: they come from the man who fought, who was abandoned, and who had time to think during his years of captivity.
Let us add what history retains of what followed, and which suits no one — neither France nor Morocco: at his surrender, in 1847, guarantees had been given to him. They were not respected. The Emir was sent into exile in France. **The New York Times, in its February 1873 edition, calls that betrayal “shameful”. Thus, on this affair, it is not the Algerians who accuse most harshly: it is an American newspaper, a century later, and the man himself.**
And Abdelkader’s property was confiscated. A list detailing those confiscations today figures among the documents transmitted to the Algerian-French joint commission in charge of the memory dossier. So it is not a legend: it is an inventory.
1963 — The Sand War: three months after our independence
We change century, and the method does not change. In October 1963, less than eighteen months after Algeria’s independence, an armed conflict breaks out between the two countries on the Algerian-Moroccan border. It was called the Sand War.
The dispatches of the time bear its trace. **The New York Times, in October 1963, headlines the cross-accusations: Morocco says Algeria has opened a new front, Algiers denies it, and there is already talk of being “ready for the worst”. The same newspaper reports a few days later an attack on a post, and a king ordering his troops to halt.**
We will not say who fired first: we were not there, and we have no document that settles it. But we say this, and it is established: Algeria was emerging from a seven-and-a-half-year war of liberation, its State was under construction, its army was in formation — and it was at that precise moment that a border dispute was carried by arms. The choice of timing belongs to no one else.
And we must recall where the dispute came from: from a border fixed by the colonial power, and which Morocco — a few years after having signed the act that defined it — now contested. One cannot, in the same story, sign a border and then reproach the one who received it for holding it.
1965 — Ben Barka: the opponent abducted in Paris
There is an episode that Moroccan diplomacy would prefer forgotten, and which does not concern Algeria: it concerns France, and the truth. On 29 October 1965, in Paris, Méhdi Ben Barka — a figure of the Moroccan opposition — is abducted in broad daylight, outside the brasserie Lipp, on the boulevard Saint-Germain. He will never be found.
The affair has been described by France Culture as being “at the heart of Israeli-Moroccan secrets”. The suspicion, documented by the French instruction, points to the implication of senior Moroccan officials. A State that makes its opponent disappear on the soil of an allied country — and which, sixty years later, has never allowed the truth to be established — has no lesson in legality to give its neighbours.
We do not judge here in place of French justice, which has not concluded. We note this: the abduction took place, it is established, and the case remains open. Half a century of silence around a disappeared man is worth all the speeches about moderation.
1974-1975 — Western Sahara: the Court says no, the king advances anyway
Here is the heaviest dossier, and the best documented of all: it rests on a ruling of an international court, which we have read.
On 13 December 1974, the United Nations General Assembly asks the International Court of Justice for an advisory opinion on Western Sahara. Two questions: was that territory, at the time of the Spanish colonisation, a territory belonging to no one? And if not, what were its legal ties with the Kingdom of Morocco and the Mauritanian entity?
The Court delivers its opinion on 16 October 1975. It first answers the first question in the negative: Western Sahara was not a territory belonging to no one. Then, on the second, it finds the existence of “legal ties of allegiance between the Sultan of Morocco and some of the tribes” living in the territory.
And here is the decisive sentence, which we quote as it appears in the opinion:
“On the other hand, the Court’s conclusion is that the materials and information presented to it do not establish ANY TIE OF TERRITORIAL SOVEREIGNTY between the territory of Western Sahara, on the one hand, and the Kingdom of Morocco or the Mauritanian entity, on the other.”
The Court adds that these ties were not of a nature to affect the application of General Assembly resolution 1514 — the one that carries the declaration on the independence of colonial peoples — and in particular the principle of self-determination, through “the free and genuine expression of the will of the peoples of the Territory”.
In other words: a religious and tribal allegiance, yes. A territorial sovereignty, no. And a right to self-determination, intact.
Three weeks later, the Green March. On 6 November, tens of thousands of Moroccan marchers enter the territory — that is how a United Nations source puts it. And a few days later, the Madrid Accords transfer the administration of the territory to two States, without the population having been consulted a single time.
Let us keep the chronology, because it is pitiless: on 16 October, the highest court in the world says that there is no territorial sovereignty and recalls the right to self-determination. On 6 November, they march. The answer to an opinion of law was a march of crowds. That too is not a judgement: it is a calendar.
2020 — Jerusalem against Western Sahara: the deal
And here we are at the modern betrayal — the one that made the international press say what we could never have written without being accused of exaggerating.
On 10 December 2020, Morocco announces the normalisation of its relations with Israel. **The New York Times headlines: Morocco joins the list of Arab nations normalising their relations with Israel. The consideration is explicitly announced: recognition by the United States of Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara.**
A year earlier, the same newspaper had published an investigation with an eloquent headline: “Israel-Morocco Deal Follows History of Cooperation on Arms and Spying.” In other words: the rapprochement did not begin in 2020. It was prepared over decades, discreetly, while the Palestinian cause served as official discourse.
And this is where the question arises, posed not by us but by European media: “Has Morocco traded the Palestinians for Western Sahara?” That is the title of a France Culture programme. “Western Sahara as a bargaining chip?” That is the title of the RTBF. These questions do not come from Algiers.
What happened that day comes down to one sentence, and it is cruel: a country cashed in the cause of a people for the recognition of its own conquest. Whether or not one agrees with our dossier, that sentence is factual. And it explains why the word “perfidy” has left the history books to return to public debate.
2026 — Ceuta: when Europe speaks of “hybrid war”
It remains to speak of the current year, and here again, we rely only on documents.
In late July 2026, tens of thousands of people enter the Spanish enclave of Ceuta from Morocco — more than 70 000, according to the figures reported. On 17 September 2026, the European Parliament adopts, by 339 votes to 225 with 16 abstentions, a resolution titled “Recent hybrid attacks and the instrumentalisation of migrants in Ceuta”.
This text firmly condemns the mass entries from Morocco and calls the instrumentalisation of irregular migration a tool of “hybrid war” against the territorial integrity of a Member State. It asks Rabat to assume its responsibilities.
It is not Algiers that writes this. It is the European Parliament, by 339 votes. And it is the harshest formulation that a European institution has used towards Rabat in years.
2026 — Jabaroot: blaming Algiers so as not to look at home
Last episode, and it is recent. On 24 August 2026, a collective of hackers named Jabaroot publishes on Telegram the names of 70 000 agents of the Moroccan security services — including that of Abdellatif Hammouchi, who heads both the police and domestic intelligence, with his banking data.
The Moroccan press linked this group to Algeria — for months. **But on 26 August 2026, Le Monde writes the opposite: the attack is the work of former Moroccan intelligence officers. And El Confidencial, a Spanish outlet, reports that former Moroccan agents have confirmed the authenticity of several names.**
We devoted an entire dossier to this affair, and we do not return to it. But we draw from it an observation that has its place here: the first reaction was not to look for the breach. It was to look for a culprit outside. It is a reflex that this dossier has highlighted since 1844, and it is remarkably constant.
🔴 2017-2020 — The word given, the word taken back: and the minister's admission
One episode remains to be documented, and it is the most recent one — therefore the most embarrassing. We did not write it from memory: every piece carries its source and its date.
2017 — The king writes to the UN
Three years before the normalisation, King Mohammed VI sent a letter to the UN Secretary-General, António Guterres. In it he denounced Israel's “unacceptable” policy in Jerusalem, described as a “flagrant violation of the decisions of international legality”.
This is not a statement for the occasion: it is an official letter, addressed to the highest administrative authority in the world. **It is cited by the outlet Middle East Eye, and we attribute it to that outlet.**
And we must measure what it says: in 2017, the kingdom's official position is that Israeli policy violates international law. Three years later, the same kingdom normalises, and its minister explains that relations had never ceased. Between the two, there was no change of government, nor a change of king. There was a change of interest.
2019 — The secret meeting
**Still according to Middle East Eye, citing the Israeli channel Channel 13:**
“Israel reportedly pressed the United States to recognise Moroccan sovereignty over the disputed Western Sahara region. In exchange, Rabat would commit to normalising its relations with Israel.”
“Netanyahu reportedly even secretly met the Moroccan foreign minister, Nasser Bourita, to discuss this proposal.”
The revelation was published on 5 February 2020 — ten months before the official announcement. In other words: at the moment when the kingdom was publicly denying any normalisation, an Israeli channel was stating that its foreign minister was already negotiating its terms.
10 December 2020 — The announcement, and the price
On 10 December 2020, the outgoing American president announced two things in the same move: the recognition by the United States of Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara, and a normalisation agreement between Morocco and Israel. The Israeli prime minister immediately welcomed it. Two days later, the United States published a “new official map” of Morocco including the whole of the disputed territory.
Morocco became the fourth Arab country to announce a normalisation that year, after the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan.
13 December 2020 — And the admission, three days later
**Three days after the announcement, the Moroccan foreign minister Nasser Bourita gave an interview to the Israeli daily Yediot Aharonot. The interview was reported by the Moroccan outlet H24info, citing AFP. And this is what he said:**
“From our point of view, we are not talking about normalisation because relations were already normal — we are talking about restoring relations between the two countries as they were — because there have always been relations. They have never ceased.”
“Relations between Israel and Morocco are special and cannot be compared to the relations Israel has with any other Arab country.”
Let us read this first sentence again, slowly, because it is extraordinary. The minister does not say “we have changed our mind”. He does not say “circumstances have evolved”. He says that the relations have always existed, and that they have never ceased.
Yet the official position, until that week, was that there were no diplomatic relations with Israel. So the minister has just said, in one sentence, that what was denied existed. It is not we who observe it: it is the contradiction between his own statements, three days apart.
🎥 The video clip, published here so that everyone can hear it
We publish this clip, because our Arabic-speaking readers will hear for themselves — and that is worth more than any summary of ours.
Its origin: it comes from a Moroccan outlet, « كود », and it is being shared on social media.
Its provenance, we verified with our own eyes: we downloaded the clip and extracted thirty images, one per second. One sees Nasser Bourita, Morocco's foreign minister, in a suit, in an official setting, surrounded by several people in formal dress. And the watermark of the outlet « كود » appears top right throughout.
What it is presented as showing: a denial, by the minister, of the normalisation then being prepared — and the designation of Algeria as the source of the rumours. It is dated 2018 by those circulating it.
And here is what we could not establish — we say it instead of passing it over in silence:
1. No date. On the thirty images examined, there is no on-screen banner, no programme title, no subtitle, no timecode. The clip carries no date indication, and we cannot confirm the 2018 date.
2. No context. Nothing indicates where it was filmed, on what occasion, or before whom.
We therefore do not reproduce the minister's remarks, and we do not present them as quotations. We have not put words in his mouth: we leave them to the ears of those who understand the language. That is the only honest position — and it is also the strongest: a reader who hears with his own ears needs no commentator.
What we can write, on the other hand, is already enough, and it depends on no video: in 2018 and 2019, the kingdom publicly denied any normalisation. In December 2020, it did it — and its minister explained, three days later, that the relations had never ceased. The denial and the admission come from the same mouth. That, no one needs to believe us to check it: reading the two dispatches suffices.
And if the date and the context of this clip are ever established one day — by the outlet that broadcast it, by name — we will complete this dossier, and we will say that we had flagged it.
And the question that remains, the same as in 1844
We opened this dossier with a sultan who renounces an ally, then turns his army against him. We close it with a minister who denies for two years, then signs, then explains that everything was already in place.
Between the two, there are one hundred and seventy-six years, two kings, three kingdoms and two French republics. And a method that has not varied by a millimetre: deny as long as you can, do when you want, and call rumour what was already decided.
⚖️ What we concede, because it is true
First: we have no document establishing Moroccan responsibility in the triggering of the 1963 Sand War, nor in the direction of the first shots. We will not invent one. We have said what is established — the timing, the cross-accusations, the halt ordered by the king.
Second: the Ben Barka affair is not judged. The French instruction has not concluded, and we do not replace it. We have noted an established abduction and a case that has remained open — nothing more.
Third: Morocco did genuinely defend the Palestinian cause diplomatically, and we wrote so above. The 1974 Rabat summit and the Al-Quds Committee are not inventions. That is precisely what makes 2020 so heavy: it is not an indifferent country that changed its mind, it is a committed country that cashed in its commitment.
Fourth: the Alaouite monarchy is not solely responsible. The 1844 and 1845 treaties were imposed by a colonial power that had beaten its army. A defeated sultan who signs is not free. We do not confuse constraint with choice — except that choice always begins somewhere, and that at some point, one stops being defeated.
Fifth, and this is the most important: none of this justifies despising the Moroccan people. That people did not sign the Treaty of Tangier, did not march on Western Sahara against a court ruling, and did not cash in Jerusalem. It endures the same choices that we endure, often more harshly. Our dossier targets decisions, not men and women. We will not forget that distinction: it is what makes us a newspaper and not a mouthpiece.
🎯 The conclusion, in five sentences
The word “perfidy” is not an insult from Algerians: it was written by Emir Abdelkader in a letter to the ulema of Al-Azhar, to describe a sultan who had abandoned him and then had him encircled.
In 1963, a few months after our independence, the border dispute was carried by arms; in 1965, a Moroccan opponent was abducted in Paris; and in 1975, the highest international court said that no territorial sovereignty existed over Western Sahara — and three weeks later, they marched.
Then came December 2020: normalisation with Israel, against American recognition of a conquest — and the European press itself raised the question of the swap.
**And in 2026, the European Parliament spoke of “hybrid war” over Ceuta, while the Moroccan press accused Algiers of a leak of 70 000 names that Le Monde attributes to former Moroccan spies.**
A State may sign as many communiqués as it likes about moderation: it is the archives that bear witness, and they are dated. This dossier does not accuse — it files facts in order. That is what makes it, I believe, more embarrassing than an insult.
🔗 The sources, in direct access — click and verify for yourself
- The advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice of 16 October 1975: the absence of any tie of territorial sovereignty, and the reminder of the right to self-determination — International Court of Justice, Western Sahara case: https://icj-cij.org/fr/affaire/61
- **The 1844 Treaty of Tangier, the renunciation of support for Emir Abdelkader, the encirclement by the Moroccan army, the letter to the ulema of Al-Azhar (“servility and fickleness of the Alaouite monarchy”), the 1847 surrender and the February 1873 New York Times article** — L'Express Algérien, 5 January 2025, reporting on the dossier of the magazine Algeria Gate titled “The Kingdom of Betrayal… a Throne for Hire”: https://www.lexpressquotidien.dz/2025/01/05/quand-le-makhzen-et-la-france-ont-trahi-lemir-abdelkader/
- Nordine Djoudi, witness to Hassan II’s betrayal of the Arab cause — Radio Algérienne: https://news.radioalgerie.dz/fr/node/6430
- The Ben Barka affair “at the heart of Israeli-Moroccan secrets” — France Culture: https://www.radiofrance.fr/franceculture/podcasts/les-enjeux-internationaux/les-enjeux-internationaux-emission-du-vendredi-07-novembre-2025-5720348
- “Israel-Morocco Deal Follows History of Cooperation on Arms and Spying” — The New York Times, 10 December 2020: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/10/world/middleeast/Israel-morocco-cooperation-history.html
- “Morocco Joins List of Arab Nations to Begin Normalizing Relations With Israel” — The New York Times, 10 December 2020: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/10/world/middleeast/israel-morocco-trump.html
- “Has Morocco traded the Palestinians for Western Sahara?” — France Culture, international press review: https://www.radiofrance.fr/franceculture/podcasts/revue-de-presse-internationale/israel-le-maroc-a-t-il-troque-les-palestiniens-contre-le-sahara-occidental-1316802
- “Morocco normalises its relations with Israel: Western Sahara as a bargaining chip?” — RTBF: https://www.rtbf.be/article/diplomatie-le-maroc-normalise-ses-relations-avec-israel-le-sahara-occidental-comme-monnaie-d-echange-10651131
- **The New York Times dispatches of October 1963 on the Sand War: the cross-accusations, and the king who orders the halt** — https://www.nytimes.com/1963/10/19/archives/algeria-accused-of-fresh-attack-moroccans-say-new-front-was-opened.html — https://www.nytimes.com/1963/10/28/archives/moroccans-trap-attacking-force-of-200-at-oasis-king-then-checks.html
- The European Parliament resolution of 17 September 2026 “Recent hybrid attacks and the instrumentalisation of migrants in Ceuta”, adopted by 339 votes to 225 with 16 abstentions — TSA Algérie: https://www.tsa-algerie.com/crise-de-ceuta-le-parlement-europeen-adopte-une-resolution-contre-le-maroc/
These links open the cited documents directly, with their dates. The first is the most important: read the opinion of the Court, word for word, and compare it with what happened three weeks later.
Final note. We did not have access to the original archives of the Treaty of Tangier, nor to the pieces of the French instruction in the Ben Barka affair: we hold to what our sources report of them, and we name them. We also have no document establishing Moroccan responsibility in the triggering of the 1963 Sand War, and we have not asserted it. No fact in this dossier has been recorded without its source. Where we do not know, we write that we do not know — and on such a subject, that is the only way not to expose ourselves.