When news broke, in 2023, that Libya’s first female foreign minister, Najla Al-Mangoush, had secretly met her Israeli counterpart, Eli Cohen, in Rome, most Libyans were stunned. It was, as far as is publicly known, the first official meeting between the two countries and the first known high-level diplomatic contact between Libya and Israel. It was not an accidental encounter or a chance meeting, but a deliberately arranged session with a specific agenda — apparently, both sides wanted the meeting.

That distinction is crucial to understanding what became known as the Mangoush affair. The significance of the meeting was not simply that a Libyan foreign minister had spoken to an Israeli foreign minister. It was that the episode exposed a fundamental contradiction in new Libya’s foreign policy: what government officials might be prepared to discuss quietly with foreign powers is not necessarily what they can defend publicly before their people.

Israel’s foreign minister at the time chose to disclose the secret meeting, prompting a protest from the Biden administration, which had wanted the meeting to remain secret.

When Cohen disclosed it on 27 August 2023, the reaction in Libya was immediate. Mangoush was suspended and then dismissed; protests erupted in Tripoli and other cities; and she left the country amid fears for her safety.

When Cohen disclosed it on 27 August 2023, the reaction in Libya was immediate. Mangoush was suspended and then dismissed; protests erupted in Tripoli and other cities; and she left the country amid fears for her safety.

The episode therefore became much more than a diplomatic embarrassment. It demonstrated the power of the Libyan street — and its ability, under certain circumstances, to shape or even veto the country’s foreign-policy choices when a deeply entrenched red line is crossed. Palestine is one such red line.

Almost two years later, after the affair appeared to have disappeared from the news, Al-Mangoush, in an attempt to explain herself, spoke in January 2025 in an interview with Al Jazeera’s Atheer podcast, giving her first detailed........

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