Posted on 08/29/23
| News Source: The Algemeiner
Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen on Monday defended his record of accomplishments since taking office amid the ongoing fallout from his announcement of an unprecedented meeting with his Libyan counterpart, who has since been fired and forced to flee the country.
“The [Foreign] Ministry’s many achievements in the past year, including the opening of Oman’s skies to flights, a trade agreement with the United Arab Emirates, two new embassies in Muslim countries, three embassies that will move to Jerusalem, and more, would not have matured without discreet preparatory actions and leading secret moves through many channels,” Cohen posted on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.
Most countries with an official diplomatic presence in Israel have their embassies in Tel Aviv — only the US, Guatemala, Honduras, and Kosovo currently have their embassies in Jerusalem. In recent weeks, however, Papua New Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Paraguay have each announced their intention to move their embassy to Israel’s capital.
Cohen’s effort to highlight Israeli diplomatic accomplishments during his tenure follows his announcement in a press release on Sunday of a “historic” meeting in Rome with Libyan Foreign Minister Najla Mangoush, which he said was “the first step in the relationship between Israel and Libya.”
Libya does not formally recognize Israel, and public sentiment remains strongly supportive of the Palestinian cause. Protests erupted in Libyan cities on Sunday and Monday following Cohen’s announcement, with demonstrators setting fire to tires and Israeli flags and unsuccessfully trying to breach the Foreign Ministry building in Tripoli.
Amid the ongoing fallout, Mangoush has been fired and fled to Turkey. Meanwhile, the Libyan government has tried to deny there had been any formal agreement for the foreign ministers to meet or that they agreed to any announcement with Israel.
For his part, Cohen on Monday denied that the announcement had been a “leak,” a charge leveled against him by Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid.
According to Israeli media reports, the episode has also drawn sharp criticism from the Biden administration, which has been seeking to expand Israel’s official diplomatic relations in the broader Middle East.
“It has cut off the channel of negotiations with Libya and made our efforts to promote normalization with other countries much more difficult,” one US official told Walla.
The Biden administration has publicly said that achieving normalization agreements between Israel and Arab countries, particularly Saudi Arabia, is a priority. But the Libya setback also comes at a difficult time in bilateral relations between the US and Israel.
For months following Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu taking office, US President Joe Biden held off on extending an invitation to him to meet in Washington over US concerns about Netanyahu’s judicial overhaul as well as Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank.