Colonial Plunder Reloaded: Morocco Grants Zionist Entity Gas Exploration Rights Off Occupied Western Sahara

✍️ BY: Dr. Hana Saada

In a brazen act of neo-colonial aggression, the Makhzen regime partners with the Zionist entity to loot Sahrawi natural resources—defying international law, provoking regional tensions, and deepening its betrayal of both Palestine and Africa.

Algiers, Algeria | May 15th, 2025 — In a scandalous move that underscores its flagrant disregard for international law and human dignity, Morocco’s Makhzen regime has granted a massive offshore gas exploration permit in the occupied waters of Western Sahara to a joint Zionist-Moroccan consortium—an unholy alliance that many have condemned as a criminal pact between two colonial powers.

The exploration permit, spanning an area of 28,935.3 km² within the “Boujdour Atlantique” block, was awarded to NewMed Energy (formerly ‘Israel’’s Delek Group) and the Moroccan company Adarco Energy, with each partner holding a 37.5% stake, while the Moroccan state retains the remaining 25% through the National Office of Hydrocarbons and Mines (ONHYM). This eight-year license grants the Zionist entity unprecedented access to Sahrawi waters—an area explicitly recognized by the United Nations as “a non-self-governing territory” pending decolonization.

This geopolitical provocation occurs dangerously close to the Spanish Canary Islands, sparking fears of a maritime conflict. The Spanish regional government and Coalición Canaria have sounded the alarm, warning of potential environmental disasters and escalating disputes due to the absence of a clearly defined maritime border between Morocco and Spain. The project’s proximity to the Tropic Seamount, a volcanic underwater mountain rich in critical minerals, only heightens ecological and geopolitical concerns.

Beyond the threat to regional stability, this exploitation constitutes a blatant violation of international law. In 2002, UN Legal Advisor Hans Corell clearly stated that any exploration or exploitation of Western Sahara’s natural resources must respect “the wishes and interests of the Sahrawi people.” This has been reaffirmed most recently by the European Court of Justice (ECJ), which annulled EU-Morocco agricultural and fisheries agreements in its October 2024 ruling, citing the lack of Sahrawi consent.

Faced with growing international legal constraints and a mass exodus of European companies from Sahrawi waters, Rabat turned to the Zionist entity—a partner already complicit in multiple violations of international law and human rights—to sustain its plunder. The partnership is a direct extension of the Abraham Accords, where Morocco sold its soul and the Palestinian cause in exchange for U.S. recognition of its illegitimate sovereignty over Western Sahara.

The timing is no coincidence. As Donald Trump re-enters the global political arena, the Makhzen feels emboldened to reassert its colonial ambitions, even at the expense of longstanding allies like Spain, whose government under Pedro Sanchez was deceived into supporting Morocco’s so-called “autonomy plan” for Western Sahara. Rabat’s promises to Madrid regarding maritime border agreements have already been broken, once Moroccan interests were secured through Sanchez’s controversial letter to Mohammed VI.

For the Polisario Front, and international human rights organizations like Human Rights Watch and Western Sahara Resource Watch, this move amounts to “organized looting” of Sahrawi wealth. Mohamed Yeslem Bessat, head of Sahrawi diplomacy, stated unequivocally:

“The resources stolen from the Sahrawi people will be recovered. It is only a matter of time. This theft will not go unpunished.”

Indeed, the alliance between the Makhzen and the Zionist entity not only cements the betrayal of Palestine, but also sets a dangerous precedent for resource colonialism in Africa. It is a brazen demonstration of what happens when corrupt regimes and apartheid states unite to exploit oppressed peoples under the shadow of Western silence and complicity.

The so-called “normalization” between Rabat and Tel Aviv has become a euphemism for mutual impunity—a calculated merger of two settler-colonial ideologies hell-bent on defying UN resolutions, ignoring international courts, and trampling on the self-determination of indigenous populations.

As the Sahrawi and Palestinian peoples continue to resist against all odds, the world must recognize this alliance for what it is: an axis of colonial criminality, bent on regional destabilization, ecological disaster, and resource theft.

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