FM Cohen may have been publicly rebuked by Netanyahu, but his backers remain loyal
After Libya debacle, supporters of the foreign minister have accused the various intelligence agencies that oppose the current government of trying to sabotage his work
Shalom Yerushalmi is the political analyst for Zman Israel, The Times of Israel’s Hebrew current affairs website
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu landed a painful blow on his foreign minister, Eli Cohen, for meeting his Libyan counterpart and letting the world know about it.
The statement that Netanyahu released Tuesday — in which he announced that henceforth any sensitive meeting conducted by a cabinet minister, and any publication of news of such a meeting, must first be cleared with him — was a clear public rebuke of Cohen.
The prime minister, of course, conveniently skirted the fact that he had known in advance about Cohen’s meeting in Italy last week with Libya’s Najla Mangoush, even if he was not given prior warning about the Foreign Ministry’s problematic decision Sunday to publicize the meeting.
That announcement was not well received by Libya, which reportedly swiftly asked Israel’s Foreign Ministry to take down an Arabic-language statement on the meeting that the ministry had shared on its social media accounts.
While the ministry indeed quickly deleted the posts, it had already sent out Cohen’s statement to Israeli outlets and they immediately reported the meeting.
Hours later, Libyan Prime Minister Abdul Hamid al-Dbeibeh suspended Mangoush and announced the formation of a panel to investigate her for meeting Cohen, while Libya’s foreign ministry denied there had been any official interaction. Mangoush swiftly fled to Turkey, according to widespread reports.
Cohen paid a far smaller price than Mangoush — sharp criticism from political opponents and diplomatic officials, followed by the public rebuke from Netanyahu.
The prime minister had hitherto given his foreign minister a lot of freedom, with the two men carving up the diplomatic workload according to the traditional order of importance: Netanyahu deals with the superpowers, Iran and the larger Arab countries, leaving the rest of the world to Cohen, who over his first months in office registered some successes that his boss could appreciate.
After the Libya debacle, it is safe to assume that there will be a shift.
Cohen is angry with Netanyahu for hanging him out to dry despite knowing of the meeting in advance.
The prime minister’s statement caught him by surprise. It is an expression of diminished trust, which could translate to limits on Cohen’s activity as foreign minister. Netanyahu is quite adept at isolating those who cause damage, and Cohen may well fit into that category now.
Cohen’s official statement publicizing the meeting — which he claims he released only after reporters had gotten wind of the sit-down — also pits him against officials in the Mossad, the National Security Council and other intelligence bodies, who will have a hard time cooperating with him in the future on other sensitive areas.
The government’s contentious judicial overhaul plan figures into this conflict, too, with sources close to Cohen accusing the various intelligence agencies that oppose the policies of Netanyahu’s government of trying to sabotage his work on political grounds.
According to this claim, those agencies have grown envious of Cohen’s achievements and view him as stepping on their toes. Plus, his successes ostensibly prove that the diplomatic fallout from the judicial overhaul is not as severe as the spymasters would have us believe.
(In the last eight months, Cohen has laid the groundwork for an agreement with Sudan, clinched a deal for Oman to open its airspace to Israeli flights, forged diplomatic ties with Turkmenistan, facilitated the transfer of embassies to Jerusalem and more.)
Political and diplomatic officials reject such accusations as baseless, and say they are part of an attempt by Cohen’s people to deflect attention from his strategic blunder on Libya. According to one of these sources, the tenuous ties with Libya were established through a protracted and painstaking process, with the close assistance of Mossad and the National Security Council, which clearly have no interest in sabotaging Israel’s international standing.
“The Foreign Ministry’s publication [of the meeting] with the purpose of glorifying Minister Cohen ruins everything,” one defense official said. “From now on we will have a harder time developing relationships in Arab countries.”
Next week, Cohen is scheduled to fly to Bahrain. The state visit was meant to take place a month ago, but was postponed after far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir visited the Temple Mount. It will be interesting to see if the visit is postponed again, perhaps with the excuse that there’s no point holding meetings with Cohen if the content will be leaked to the press.
Cohen is meant to remain foreign minister for another four months; in January he is scheduled to swap cabinet seats with Energy Minister Israel Katz as per the rotation agreement between them. He will then return to the Foreign Ministry in early 2026, assuming the current government is still in power.
While the Libya debacle has wreaked havoc on Cohen’s reputation abroad, he remains as popular as ever in Likud. In the party’s last primaries, a year ago, Cohen came in second, behind only Justice Minister Yariv Levin.
Likud activists have been lapping up his claims of political prosecution in the wake of the Libya affair. To them, he is just the latest victim of the anti-overhaul movement.
