Algeria senior lawmaker rejects normalization with ‘colonial’ Israel

A senior Algerian lawmaker says the North African nation will not join other countries in normalizing ties with Israel, describing the regime as a colonial entity that could never integrate into the Muslim world.

Moussa Kharfi, the deputy speaker of the Algerian parliament, told the Arabic service of Russia’s Sputnik news agency on Tuesday that Algeria will maintain its adamant refusal to establish ties with Israel, even if it stands alone on that path.

He underlined that Algeria will not accept any sort of normalization at whatever cost and will stand against any attempt that would encourage such a decision.

Algeria has suffered for decades from colonialism, and knows very well about the menace and its fallout, he said.

“We consider Israel to be among the colonial entities, and it cannot be part of the Arab world one day,” Kharfi stated.

He also argued that the normalization of ties with Israel is simply confined to the state level, and the nations of those Arab states categorically reject the process.

Algeria has been one of the few Arab states to maintain a pro-Palestinian and anti-Zionist stance. Algerian Foreign Minister Ramtane Lamamra has repeatedly urged Arab countries to support the Palestinian people instead of supporting Israel’s expansion in the region.

Under the so-called Abraham Accords, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco signed US-brokered normalization deals with the Israeli regime in late 2020. Palestinians have denounced the deals as a “betrayal” to their cause.

Morocco’s decision to normalize ties with Israel came after former US president Donald Trump recognized the North African country’s “sovereignty” over Western Sahara, which has been at the center of a decades-old territorial row between Morocco and the Polisario Front.

The Algerian foreign ministry later rejected Trump’s stance, saying the US decision “has no legal effect because it contradicts UN resolutions, especially UN Security Council resolutions on Western Sahara.”

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