Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked his government ministers to coordinate their secret political meetings in advance with his office, and to obtain permission from his office and from him personally before holding any secret meetings abroad.
The directives of Netanyahu’s office to the rest of the ministries stipulate that announcing or disclosing the secrecy of any such meeting requires the approval of the Prime Minister personally.
Netanyahu’s decision came after the crisis caused by the Foreign Ministry’s announcement that a meeting had been held between Minister Eli Cohen and his Libyan counterpart, Najla al-Mangoush, last week, in the Italian capital.
Netanyahu’s office refused to comment on whether the latter was aware of or was involved in the decision to publish the interview with Mangoush, but the Israeli Broadcasting Authority indicated that Netanyahu was not aware of the leak.
According to Haaretz newspaper, Arab and American diplomats estimated that the publication of Cohen’s engraved meeting would harm talks aimed at promoting normalization between Israel and Arab and Islamic countries in the near future.
The Israeli newspaper indicated that “the incident will undermine the degree of confidence that Arab countries will place in Israeli officials.”
The disclosure of Manqoush Cohen’s meeting sparked widespread anger in Libya, as political parties denounced it, and hundreds of Libyans went out in the cities of Tripoli, Al-Zawiya, Benghazi, and Al-Marj to express their rejection of him.
Libyan Law No. 62, issued in 1957, prohibits every natural or legal person from concluding, in person or through an intermediary, an agreement of any kind with bodies or persons residing in Israel or belonging to it by their nationality or working for it or with those on their behalf.
Whoever violates this shall be punished by imprisonment for a period of no less than 3 years and no more than 10 years, and a fine may be imposed.
The head of the Libyan National Unity Government, Abdul Hamid al-Dabaiba, had issued a decision to suspend al-Manqoush from working as a reserve and to refer her to investigation as soon as the news was circulated, then he dismissed the minister in a decision announced during his visit to the Palestinian embassy in Tripoli.
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2023-08-30 15:39:31
