Mehdi Ben Barka (; 1920 – disappeared 29 October 1965) was a Moroccan nationalist, Arab socialist, politician, revolutionary, anti-imperialist, head of the left-wing National Union of Popular Forces (UNFP) and secretary of the Tricontinental Conference. An opponent of French Imperialism and King Hassan II, he was "disappeared" in Paris in 1965.
Many theories attempting to explain what happened to him were put forward over the years; in 2018 new claims regarding his disappearance were made by Israeli journalist and author Ronen Bergman in his book Rise And Kill First: The Secret History of Israel's Targeted Assassinations. Based on research and interviews with Israeli intelligence operatives who were involved in planning the kidnapping of Barka, Bergman concluded that he was located by the Mossad on behalf of Moroccan intelligence, who assisted the latter in planning the murder ultimately committed by Moroccan agents and French police, after which the Mossad disposed of his body.
Background
Youth and the fight for Moroccan independence
Mehdi Ben Barka was born January 1920 into a middle class family in Rabat; his father Ahmed Ben M'hammed Ben Barka was at the beginning of his career, serving as personal secretary of the Pasha of Tangier, before becoming a businessman in Rabat, and his mother Lalla Fatouma Bouanane, was a stay-at-home mother.
He was one of the very few Moroccan children not from the colonial bourgeoisie to have access to a good education. He studied at in Rabat, among the children of the and the city's nobility, where he joined the drama club and excelled in his studies. Meanwhile, in addition to his studies, he worked as a simple accountant at the wholesale market to help his family. He earned his first diploma in 1938 with high honors at a time when Morocco only produced about 20 or so graduates of baccalauréat secondary school programs per year.
In response to the Berber Dahir of May 16, 1930, which placed Amazigh populations under the jurisdiction of the French authorities, 14-year-old Mehdi Ben Barka joined the , the first political movement born under the protectorate.
His outstanding academic performance attracted the attention of the French Charles Noguès, who sent him along with other distinguished students on a trip to Paris. He studied at Lycée Lyautey in Casablanca from 1938 to 1939, and received his baccalauréat diploma in mathematics in 1939.
As a 17-year-old, he became one of the youngest members of Allal al-Fassi's National Party for the Realization of Reforms (), which would become the Istiqlal Party a few years later.
Though he wanted to complete his studies in France, the outbreak of World War II forced him to continue his studies in mathematics at the University of Algiers, also under French control in 1940, instead. He earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics and became the first Moroccan to do so at an official French school. The Algerian People's Party influenced him to broaden the scale of his nationalism to incorporate all of North Africa. He could not disassociate the fate of Morocco from the fate of the entire Maghreb.
He returned to Morocco in 1942. At 23 years old, as the first Moroccan Muslim graduate in mathematics of an official French school, he became a professor at the Royal Academy (, ), where the future king of Morocco Hassan II was one of his students. He participated in the creation of the Istiqlal Party, which would play a major role in Morocco's independence. He was the youngest signatory of the Proclamation of Independence of Morocco of January 11, 1944. His signature got him arrested along with other party leaders, and he spent more than a year in prison. cites Ben Barka as having participated—along with Ahmed Balafrej, , Mohamed Laghzaoui, and —in the creation of the newspaper Al-Alam in 1946. According to Mohammed Lahbabi of the USFP, Mehdi Ben Barka prepared the Tangier Speech delivered by Sultan Muhammad V April 10, 1947.
He also remained an activist in the nationalist movement, to the extent that the French General Alphonse Juin described him as the "enemy #1 of France in Morocco.” Mehdi Ben Barka was put on house arrest February 1951. In 1955, he participated in the negotiations that led to the return of Muhammad V, who French authorities had ousted and exiled, and to the end of the French protectorate.
Primary opponent of Hassan II
He left the Istiqlal Party in 1959 after clashes with conservative opponents to found the left-wing National Union of Popular Forces (UNFP).