After scandal, ex-Libyan FM insists 2023 Israel meeting was okayed by Tripoli

Najla Mangoush was fired and forced to flee country after then-foreign minister Eli Cohen publicized secret sit-down and hailed it as a ‘first step’ toward diplomatic ties

Libyan Foreign Minister Najla Mangoush speaks during a press conference with her Turkish counterpart at Turkey's foreign ministry in Ankara, February 13, 2023. (Adem Altan/AFP)
Libyan Foreign Minister Najla Mangoush speaks during a press conference with her Turkish counterpart at Turkey's foreign ministry in Ankara, February 13, 2023. (Adem Altan/AFP)

Former Libyan foreign minister Najla Mangoush insisted in a recent podcast interview that an August 2023 meeting she held with Israel’s then-foreign minister Eli Cohen — an encounter that sparked intense backlash against her when it became public — had been greenlit by Tripoli.

Mangoush was fired and fled the country for her safety after Cohen announced that the two had met.

In her first comments since the 16-month-old debacle, Mangoush told Al Jazeera’s Atheer podcast in an episode aired last week that the conversation with Cohen took place on the sidelines of a wider summit in Rome and was not an official meeting.

“It was a secret meeting,” she said, stressing that it never meant “normalization” with Israel.

At the time, Cohen hailed the meeting as “historic” and a “first step” in the establishment of diplomatic ties between Israel and Libya. He was taken to task by government officials and opposition members for revealing that the two had met, and senior sources accused him of inflicting serious harm on Israeli diplomacy.

News of the meeting was ill-received in Libya when it was publicized by Cohen, and angry protesters stormed the foreign ministry headquarters, while others attacked and burned a residence of the prime minister in Tripoli.

Mangoush, the first and only woman in Libya to hold the office of foreign minister, was fired in the wake of Cohen’s announcement, and Libyan Prime Minister Abdul Hamid al Dbeibeh announced the formation of a panel to investigate her.

People burn a shirt showing Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen and his Libyan counterpart Najla Mangoush in Tripoli, Libya, August 27, 2023. (AP Photo/Yousef Murad)

But speaking to Atheer, Mangoush said Dbeibeh had not only been aware that the meeting was taking place but had sent her to speak to Cohen, in order to discuss “strategic issues related to the security and the stability of the Mediterranean.”

Pushed to elaborate further, according to an English translation of the Arabic-language podcast, Mangoush said the conversation with her Israeli counterpart related to “sensitive strategic and security issues that matter to Libya’s safety and stability.”

She also claimed that she used the meeting as an opportunity to express “the Libyan people’s point of view and our feelings in support of the Palestinians and rejection of the policies of the Israeli government.”

Mangoush’s claim that Dbeibeh ordered the meeting appeared to be in line with reports from August 2023 that the talks had been authorized by Tripoli.

At the time, analysts suggested that the meeting was the result of a failed attempt by Dbeibeh’s government to play politics with a rival administration in the country’s east, and that the Mangoush had become the “fall person” as a result.

According to analyst Jalel Harchaoui, Dbeibeh set up the meeting in response to “pressure” from the US for warmer ties with Israel, but distanced himself from it after underestimating the backlash to it from those opposed to ties with Israel — including the eastern administration.

Libya expert Anas El Gomati of the Sadeq Institute posited, however, that Dbeibeh’s rival strongman Khalifa Haftar and the eastern-based parliament had known about the meeting as well, and together with Dbeibeh allowed Mangoush to become the scapegoat.

The rivals “used Libya’s first female foreign minister as the fall person for decisions they all partook in,” he said at the time.

Even after it cost her her job, Mangoush told the podcast that she did not believe the meeting was wrong “in principle,” and defended herself against the uproar by pointing out that it was just part of the “diplomatic work” required of a foreign minister.

Mangoush criticized Dbeibeh and his handling of the diplomatic storm, which she alleged he had played a part in creating, and insisted that “the issue would have been resolved simply if Dbeibeh had spoken directly, addressed the Libyan people and revealed the truth.”

Instead, she was suspended from her position, which she had filled for just over two years at the time, and departed the country, first to Turkey and then later to the United Kingdom for fear of retribution. She has yet to return.

The podcast interview sparked renewed anti-government protests in Libya last week, as angry demonstrators accused Dbeibeh of collaborating with Israel.

Israel and Libya have never had formal diplomatic relations, although backchannel meetings have long been rumored between the two countries.

Specifically, contacts were reported between Israeli officials and the son of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, and even with Gaddafi himself, before his regime’s fall. Gaddafi apparently reached out to Israel on a number of occasions, including to push his proposal for a united Israeli-Palestinian country, to be called Isratine.

In 2021, the son of Libyan warlord Haftar reportedly visited Israel for a secret meeting with Israeli officials, in which he offered to establish diplomatic relations between the two countries in return for Israeli support.

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