Last week, the Libyan foreign minister Najla Mangoush met with her Israeli counterpart Eli Cohen in Italy. But after Israeli officials announced that the meeting had taken place, Prime Minister Abdul Hamid al-Dbeibeh first insisted it was a chance encounter, then fired Mangoush and claimed that she orchestrated the meeting of her own accord—which she denies. Protests subsequently broke out in Tripoli and a few other cities, leading Mangoush to flee the country. Complicating the situation is the fact that Dbeibeh only governs the western part of Libya, and is locked in a civil war with the Russia-backed warlord Khalifa Haftar, as well as various jihadist groups.
Gianluca Pacchiani discusses the affair with Raphael Luzon, a Libyan Jew who has been involved in trying to foster contacts between Jerusalem and Tripoli:
While Luzon was not connected to the latest diplomatic get-together, . . . he described the first contacts he facilitated between high-ranking Israeli and Libyan officials some six years ago, opening the way to last week’s meeting. In June 2017, Luzon arranged a meeting on the Greek island of Rhodes that brought together [ministerial] delegations from the two countries.
Held at the Rodos Palace Hotel over three days, the conference focused on the 50th anniversary of the expulsion of Jews from Libya after the 1967 Six-Day War between Israel and the Arab world. The Libyan delegate spoke at the conference about Libyan Jews’ right to return to the country and to receive compensation for the losses they incurred.
According to Luzon, the inkling of a rapprochement between the two countries initially came from the Abraham Accords. But unlike Gulf countries such as the UAE and Bahrain, which share a common regional foe with Israel in Iran, Libya is not faced with a significant external threat. Its most severe problem is its internal instability.
Indeed, its incentives for establishing preliminary ties with the Jewish state have more in common with those of Morocco. “Libyan officials are in awe at Israel’s ability to make the desert bloom,” Luzon said. “The country is mostly covered in sand; it’s massive in size and underpopulated. It was already an obsession under [the late dictator Muammar] Gaddafi to make the desert livable and prosperous.”
Read more on Times of Israel: https://www.timesofisrael.com/peace-with-lybia-is-doubtful-but-contact-aided-by-local-jews-started-years-ago/