(July 12, 2024 / JNS) A group of two dozen Moroccan social media influencers and young professionals are visiting Israel this week seeking to promote people-to-people peace.

The Muslim delegation in the Holy Land, which was organized by the Sharaka (Arabic for “Partnership”) nongovernmental organization, aims to build on the historic peace agreement signed between the two countries four years ago and serve as a counterweight to the vehemently anti-Israel reporting being broadcast around the world.

“In a world where nuance and balanced opinion have vanished, and where words like ‘Holocaust,’ ‘genocide’ and ‘massacre’ are being used left and right by people with more than questionable intentions, we must see the truth with our own eyes,” said delegation member and Casablanca resident Achraf Ibra, 29, during a gala event at Jerusalem’s Friends of Zion Museum on Tuesday night.

“In Morocco, we are getting only one narrative, and it’s the Al Jazeera narrative,” said Youssef Elazhari, director of Sharaka Morocco. “Some 99% believe this narrative but we are the 1% who are trying to seek another narrative.”

Israel and Morocco, which had maintained decades of covert cooperation on defense and intelligence, formalized relations as part of the 2020 Abraham Accords that saw four Muslim-majority countries make peace with Israel. But with the Hamas Oct. 7 massacre that triggered the current war, the region has been on edge.

The weeklong visit, one of more than a dozen Sharaka has organized over the last four years from several Arab countries, was geared to strengthen the ties between the two peoples even as friends and family members back home were getting a different picture from the news.

Half of the members of the well-educated delegation previously participated in the March of the Living in Poland and visited Auschwitz.

PHOTO: Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli (right) speaks with the guests from Morocco at the Friends of Zion Museum in Jerusalem, July 9, 2024. Photo by Yossi Zamir.