Secret meeting in Rome between Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen and Libyan counterpart Naila Mangush, got the opposite result from what the government of the Jewish state expected. The head of Israeli diplomacy announced the meeting, making it clear that in relations with Tripoli there is a quiet, but ever closer normalization. Instead, what should have been the pinnacle of change has turned into a detonator of a crisis that also serves to draw attention to the difficult Libyan issue. Because a few miles from Italy, the chaos seems more and more rampant. Any way of rapprochement with Israel is seen by many Libyan factions as a betrayal.
Prime Minister of the Government of National Unity Abdelhamid Dbeiba immediately removed the minister after she had to flee to Turkey on a plane that had left Mitiga airport in a hurry.. But the actions of an increasingly precarious Dbeiba may not be enough for his political survival. The head of the Libyan presidential council, Mohammed Menfi, called the minister’s decision, approved by the chief executive, “a violation of Libyan laws that criminalize the normalization of relations with the Zionist entity.” Other politicians and especially influential people in this North African country have expressed the same opinion, interpreting this possible turning point (interrupted for the moment) as a way to completely exclude Tripoli from the defense of the Palestinian cause. On the contrary, this issue has always been an integral part of Libya’s foreign agenda since the days of Muammar Gaddafi and which has never been questioned even by post-revolutionary governments.
Protests in Tripoli and accusations from Libyan politicians come together, albeit from opposite positions, to the dissatisfaction expressed by the Biden administration and disclosed by the Axios portal. The White House, in fact, was very annoyed with the way the Israeli ministry handled the meeting in Rome. A meeting that was supposed to remain secret due to significant political implications and which many analysts believe would be part of a complex triangulation between Washington, Tripoli and Jerusalem, in which the normalization of relations between Libya and Israel would be a request from the US to confirm support for the Dbeiba leadership . A support that has already been confirmed by a rare (and therefore even more curious) meeting held in January this year in Tripoli between the Libyan Prime Minister himself and the head of the CIA, William Burns.
The United States now fears that the mistake made by Israeli diplomacy could have consequences not only for relations between Israel and Libya, but also for other dossiers.. On the one hand, this could affect the US plan to persuade Arab countries and Islamic-majority countries in general to recognize Israel. The Libyan prime minister has already visited the Palestinian embassy in Tripoli, signaling that he doesn’t want to be seen as a leader close to the Jewish state. On the other hand, at this juncture, Dbeiba’s fragility may prove unsustainable for the US, raising a new question mark in Biden’s already difficult standoff between North Africa and Africa. The Wall Street Journal reported that Russian Deputy Defense Minister Yunus-Bek Yevkurov’s recent visit to Benghazi confirmed the transfer of Wagner’s activities in Libya – on the side of Cyrenaica – directly to Moscow. And this confirms that the Kremlin, after the death of Yevgeny Prigozhin, will not abandon its North African outpost. Thus, Washington risks seeing the leadership of its interlocutor in Tripoli evaporate more and more, while Moscow cuts ties with the strongman of Cyrenaica, Khalifa Haftar, who now also intends to strike at the rebels in Chad. Proof that the fate of Libya cannot be separated from the fate of the fiery Sahel.
© Playback is protected.