The dismissal of Libyan Foreign Minister Najlaa al-Mankush and her flight to Turkey did not surprise those involved in the Arab issue. Her meeting with Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen under Italian auspices and the exposure of the meeting by the foreign minister and the director general of his ministry caused considerable Libyan unrest, and armed groups belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood and loyalists of Gaddafi and others announced that they would set the area on fire.
Tripoli's prime minister, Abdelhamid Adebiba, was forced to fire his foreign minister and exile her to Turkey lest she be harmed in the divided country. The Libyans hoped for secrecy and tried to find out the possibility of American support for the faltering Libyan government due to internal disagreements in the war-torn country, but this attempt evaporated in the air as soon as the meeting was announced.
Protests in Libya against Foreign Minister's meeting with Eli Cohen and normalization with Israel // Israel Hayom News
There is no doubt that the haste from the devil, and rushing to tell the company is not always right, and if the foreign minister and his people are interested in getting headlines, they are welcome to turn to other channels and other topics and not to run and tell about secret meetings. Minister Eli Cohen had to learn from the mistakes of others, for example, from the mistake of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who leaked a visit to the Saudi city of Neum in 2020, and since then the Saudis have cut off all ties with Israel and refrained from holding meetings with all levels under the instructions of King Salman himself and under the auspices of the crown prince, as well as going back to the time of Ehud Olmert, who leaked a meeting with a senior Saudi official in Jordan, causing a years-long rift with the Saudis.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Photo: Oren Ben Hakon
Personalities in Arab countries who met in the past with the director general of the Foreign Ministry (Maoz), who presented himself as a Mossad operative in his previous positions, are now afraid of leaking the existence of the meetings, and these people, and rightly so, fear for their lives. Some of them expressed serious concern to me.
It is expected that all planned meetings with Israeli officials will be canceled and the various levels in Arab and Muslim countries will be instructed to cancel meetings and reject any request from any level to meet with Israelis, including businessmen, journalists and others. The question arises here: What did the minister and the director general of his ministry gain from publicizing the meeting with the foreign minister of half a Libyan country? I can state with certainty that they did not gain anything, but on the contrary, caused enormous damage to the State of Israel.
A little bit about Libya today - a divided country suffering from a bloody war with two entities. One in the East and one in the West, as well as other armed militias of all kinds and types. Did the foreign minister and his band of advisers really think that this country would benefit Israel's foreign relations in any way? Or anyone who comes welcome?
Israel's foreign relations are a sensitive and serious matter, certainly when it comes to relations with Arab countries, and certainly those with which we have no official relations.
When you do everything for PR and headlines, with zero responsibility and forward thinking - that's what happens. In foreign relations or security, economics or education.
Netanyahu's government is a negligent government... pic.twitter.com/r1RRSjUi3X
— Benny Gantz (@gantzbe) August 28, 2023
In Libya, Israel's involvement in what is happening there is seen as sabotaging attempts at national unity, and even the countries operating there will not like Israeli intervention in matters such as Turkey, Russia, the United Arab Emirates, and Egypt.
Quiet diplomatic work characterized Israel's relations with the Arab countries, and even the most hostile of them, and those who met with senior officials always knew how to keep all the talks and summaries secret.
From personal acquaintance with those who have engaged in the work in the past, I can state with certainty that the current conduct of officials and elected officials causes tremendous damage to the State of Israel, and not to mention the damage caused to those on the other side who expose them, damage that costs them to the point of real danger to their lives. A tangible fact - Libya's foreign minister fled to Turkey quickly.
الليبيين أحفاد #عمر_المختار ينتفضون ضد وزيرة خارجيتهم و يتظاهرون ضد أي محاولة للتطبيع !!
pic.twitter.com/Ae1MyQHNop
— Dr.Sam Youssef Ph.D.,M.Sc.,DPT. (@drhossamsamy65) August 27, 2023
When the news of the meeting, the dismissal and the flight was published, I remembered a proverb in Arabic that the former member of the Israeli security establishment told me in Arabic: (من كتم سره بلغ مراده) "Man katam srahu balagh muradhu" and in simple Hebrew: Whoever keeps his secret comes to what he wants.
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