The recent uproar over a botched meeting
between Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen and his now-fired Libyan
counterpart, Najla Mangoush, highlights the complications surrounding
normalization attempts in the Maghreb.
اضافة اعلان
Disclosure of the August meeting, which was
supposed to remain secret, provoked an outcry in Libya, leading Prime Minister
Abdul Hamid Dbeibah to distance himself from the encounter by describing it as
a personal initiative by Mangoush.
But the prime minister’s defense –
ignorance – is highly implausible. No Arab foreign minister, regardless of
their margin of maneuver, can meet with a senior Israeli official without a
green light from the highest levels of government.
What raised even more doubts about the
premier’s denials is that political figures from both sides of the Libyan
divide have allegedly pursued undercover contacts with Israeli officials for
years, reportedly with encouragement from the United States.
Dbeibah miscalculated, either by presuming
that the Israelis would keep the news of the meeting under wraps, or in
believing he could control angry reactions from the public. He was wrong on
both counts – a “strategic mistake” of the highest order. In a splintered
political landscape rife with enmities, Dbeibah set himself up for political
ambush with little or nothing to gain.
Amid growing calls for a new Libyan
government, Dbeibah seems to have been driven by desperation for international
legitimacy, as he sought to win favor with the US and other Western powers by
moving closer to Israel. This was only matched by the craving of the Israeli
government for good news amid a bleak domestic landscape and by Washington’s
desire to extend the Abraham Accords beyond Bahrain, Morocco, Sudan and the
United Arab Emirates before the 2024 US election.
Because of widely-shared public distrust
over normalization with Israel, contacts with the Israeli government have long
been conducted in secret, creating a chasm between governments and their
populations over the issue.
Some of the highest rates of
anti-normalization sentiment are registered in the Maghreb. No less than 99
percent of the public in Algeria and Mauritania, 96 percent in Libya and 90
percent in Tunisia oppose recognizing Israel, according to the 2022 Arab Opinion
Index. Moroccan public opinion is more receptive to normalization but still
opposes it by a 67 percent margin.
This trend is coupled with a perception of
the Palestinian issue as a pan-Arab cause, a view shared by 89 percent of
Algerians and Mauritanians, 86 percent of Tunisians, 85 percent of Libyans and
59 percent of Moroccans.
There are variations on these trends in
other surveys, but most results are similar. The one exception is the latest
Arab Youth Survey, which put support for normalization at 50 percent in Morocco
and 31 percent in Algeria
Politicians in the Maghreb normally know
the risks involved in ignoring their public’s opinion. “The latest incident with Libya highlights
the price that might be paid for such an agreement and the weight of the Palestinian
issue on the decision-making process,” said Michael Harari, a former senior
Israeli diplomat and policy fellow at Mitvim, the Israeli Institute for
Regional Foreign Policies.
The latest incident with Libya highlights the price that might be paid for such an agreement and the weight of the Palestinian issue on the decision-making process
Furthermore, ties to Israel are entangled
in the Maghreb’s regional politics. While Algeria has considered normalization
a national security threat, Morocco pursued it to its full extent with its
approach buttressed by the legitimizing authority of the king and the strategic
dividends it received in return.
It didn’t help Algerian-Moroccan relations
that normalization between Morocco and Israel, formalized in December 2020, was
premised on US recognition of the kingdom’s sovereignty over the Western
Sahara, a former Spanish colony annexed by Morocco in 1975.
While the diplomatic thaw between Israel
and Rabat cleared the way for multifaceted cooperation, including in military
and security areas, it was perceived as a casus belli by Algiers. Then, last
July, Israel formally recognized Morocco’s sovereignty over the disputed
territory; Algeria called the move “illegal.”
The issue has also cast a long shadow over
Tunisian-Algerian relations, despite the long-standing opposition of Tunisian
President Kais Saied to any notion of normalization.
Algeria has always been wary of Tunisia
joining the normalization track, a concern that was revived during the July
2022 Senate confirmation hearing for the US ambassador to Tunis, Joey R Hood.
Hood’s pledge to “support further efforts to normalize diplomatic and economic
relations with the State of Israel in the region” fueled conjecture about an
hypothetical US transactional offer that would push cash-strapped Tunisia to
join the Abraham Accords.
Abdelkader Bengrina, the leader of
Algeria’s Islamist El Bina party, suddenly fueled such concerns last month, by
predicting, with little evidence, that Tunisia would recognize Israel “very
soon.” The speculation has since been refuted by Tunisia and Algeria.
But every surge of rumors seems to lead to
new barriers to normalization attempts in the region, such as Libyan and
Tunisian parliaments considering new initiatives to criminalize ties to Israel.
Outside the Moroccan exception,
normalization isn’t a priority issue in the Maghreb. The region’s governments
don’t see enough transactional incentives that would make normalization with
Israel worth the risk. The only certainty is that a strong pro-Palestinian
sentiment on the region’s streets remains a factor too compelling for leaders
to ignore.
Oussama Romdhani is the editor of The
Arab Weekly. He previously served in the Tunisian government and as a diplomat
in Washington.
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