Two Short Stories: The Libyan Mess and “Sorry, Mohammed.”

Labor Day Weekend Note

As are the majority of the readers of State of Tel Aviv, I am in North America for that last official blast of summer: the sacred Labor Day long weekend. I can be found in that hardscrabble terrain known as the Canadian Shield in Geography class, or Paradise in August. After signing off on this bundle of articles I will go jump in the lake, for real, and do a 2-3km swim. Open, fresh, water. A touch bracing when you dive in but, I’m a Canadian girl, eh?. You warm up quickly. For anyone who has never experienced Ontario cottage life, put it on your bucket list. It really is not to be missed.

Before signing off for a few days I wanted to be sure that you had plenty of reading to keep you going until next week. In addition to two new “short stories” – “The Libyan Mess” and “Sorry, Mohammed,” we are also drawing your attention to some related articles that provide a longer-term sense as to how things have been unfolding in Israel and beyond.

To that end, I commend to you the short update by Natan Odenheimer published recently in STLV on how the radical “hilltop youth” are being embraced by the new mainstream, led by Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben Gvir and Minister of Finance, Bezalel Smotrich.

This recent article by Odenheimer ought to be read in conjunction with two exceptional feature articles he wrote for STLV a year ago, found here and here. Our long weekend gift to you is the lifting of the paywall on all of Odenheimer’s work for a short time.

Wishing all STLV readers a peaceful, safe and fun long weekend. We’ve got some fabulous podcast and written content coming in September. For those of you who have not yet committed to supporting STLV with a paid subscription, please consider doing so in the coming weeks. We will be applying paywalls more frequently in order to grow our revenue base. We are, after all, independent and require resources to produce our podcasts and articles. If you value our work there is no better way to demonstrate that than by supporting us financially.

Many thanks, in advance, for reading.

OK. The lake beckons.

P.S. I really wanted to wish you all a great Labour Day long weekend, but, as one of my American friends said to me some time ago: “Viv. If you do your Canadian/British spelling thing then people will think you don’t know how to spell!”

So, I gave in. But…..for my fellow Canucks…..Happy Labour Day. I just want to reassure you that I still know how to spell properly.

I. The Libyan Mess

In the early 80s, I was descending a Swiss mountain in a funicular with my mother. It was off-season and very few people joined our car; just two couples, early middle age, ended up sitting across from one another.

They began a polite conversation of the sort one has with strangers on a funicular. Beautiful day. Beautiful mountain. Beautiful weather. How long are you here. Where are you from?

One couple said that they were from Libya. The wife of the companion couple seemed excited. “We are from Israel,” she said. And waited. For a response. A reaction. Something.

Nothing.

Suddenly, everything became weird. The friendliness was gone. The Libyans were stone-faced. “No. No understand.”

To her credit, the Israeli woman gave it another go. “Israel. We are from Israel.” Fell flat. My mother and I glanced at one another. We all wanted to get to the bottom, asap.

The Libyans, I’m sure, were very nice people. But they lived in a dictatorship with a vengeful leader, Muammar Gaddafi. Just being in Switzerland meant they had money, and a degree of free movement that most Libyans did not. By definition they were members of the Libyan elite. They may have been followed. Who knows. But what is certain is that if they engaged in a remotely amicable manner with Israelis, that could invite very serious trouble.

For the remainder of our descent we all sat, silent and unmoving. My mother and I had not uttered a word. There was nothing to say. The encounter was haunting then and has never left me.

I was reminded of that day on the funicular last week when a story broke that Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs, EIi Cohen, had met with his Libyan counterpart, Najla al-Mangoush, in Rome, hosted by Italy’s top diplomat, Antonio Tajani. For no apparent reason, Cohen’s office publicly confirmed the meeting. This astonishingly stupid and dangerous unilateral move set off an international maelstrom.

Widespread rioting erupted and continued for two days and nights in Tripoli. Libyan Prime Minister Abdul Haid Dbeibah immediately distanced himself from his Minister of Foreign Affairs. By all accounts, she was imposed upon him by the UN following recent elections. Inclusion of a senior woman in the government line-up was critical for UN support, and so al-Mangoush became the token and sacrificial lamb. She was totally expendable and thrown overboard.

Al-Mangoush’s life was threatened and she was secreted out of Libya, apparently hiding out, for now, in Turkey.

Libya’s PM scrambled to sell the fiction that he had no knowledge of the meeting. Israel’s Eli Cohen tried the “chance encounter” lie, while PM Netanyahu preferred a variation on the Libyan approach – saying that in future all such meetings must be approved by his office.

The implication, of course, is that PM Netanyahu was blindsided by his foreign minister, which no one is buying.

At the end of the day what most people seem to believe is that the meeting occurred and was orchestrated by multiple nations; at a minimum, the U.S., Israel, Libya and Italy.

Libya is in desperate need of cash and stability and broader international support in order to develop economically. Italy is keen to encourage prospective Libyan migrants to stay in their country. Israeli ties with yet another majority Muslim country in the MENA region is an obvious win for multiple reasons. And if successful, such bonhomie enhances American credibility and influence in the region and beyond.

That is now all in the past.

The White House was reportedly apoplectic, and understandably so. An unidentified Mossad source said that the damage done to any nascent Israel-Libyan relations is irreparable.

Speaking earlier this week with Jason Greenblatt, former Assistant to the President and Special Representative for International Negotiations in the Trump Administration, I asked him whether this assessment might be exaggerated. His reply was swift and terse. “Absolutely not.” Having been in the thick of preparations and negotiations of the Abraham Accords, this is treacherous terrain which Greenblatt knows well.

For a nation like Libya, ravaged by decades of war and extremism, its emerging government is exceedingly fragile. Exposure of such a foray by a female Minister in a deeply traditional, Muslim country, well, it would be difficult to mix a more toxic brew.

Greenblatt confirmed my supposition – based on our knowledge of events reported in the media – that the delicate, early trust that was being established will now be pulverized.

And, forgotten in all the intrigue and drama is the fact that the life of Najla al-Mangoush is forever changed. She will likely be in hiding and unable to return to Libya, ever.

II. “Sorry, Mohammed.”

The First Time

Sitting in Israel’s channel 12 news TV studio on Wednesday, August 23, Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben Gvir, glanced at Mohammad Magadli, a senior and highly-regarded reporter and political analyst and said, in Hebrew: “Sorry, Mohammad.”

He then proceeded to yell – because Ben Gvir seems incapable of speaking with an “inside voice” – that the right of his wife and children to travel freely on the roads of Judea and Samara without fearing murder is more important than the unfettered movement of Arabs.

The the right to life, he said, trumps the right to freedom of movement.

Ben Gvir’s comments were made following the murder of Batsheva Nigri, a passenger in a car with her 12-year-old daughter and a third person driving. The three travelers were ambushed by a Palestinian gunman whose bullets killed the 40-year-old year old mother of three instantly and left the driver seriously injured. Her daughter, miraculously, was unharmed.

The cycle of violence in the West Bank has been heightened for the past year and shows no signs of abating. The murder of Nigri, and dozens of innocents in the preceding year, is horrific. Not since the Second Intifada has Israel sustained such a brutal pace of random murder.

Throughout the brief life of the Unity government led by rotating Prime Ministers Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid, then leader of the Opposition, Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as Ben Gvir and Religious Zionist leader Bezalel Smotrich, harped constantly on the absence of principle in the government. Senior officials were mocked for encouraging terrorism and bringing “the enemy”, in the person of Mansour Abbas – leader of the Arab Ra’am party (aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood movement) - into the inner sanctum of power and decision making. And yet, domestic security was far more controlled throughout the Unity Government’s tenure.

That irony aside, Itamar Ben Gvir is correct: the right to life prevails over freedom of movement, particularly when the latter, secondary liberty may create circumstances and opportunities for the commission of crimes. Democracies everywhere curtail free movement in many ways in order to ensure that public safety is maintained. Measures taken to balance collective and individual interests prevail in every society.

But that is only part of the context in this instance.

What Itamar Ben Gvir wants us to forget is that in past months, and years, he has indulged in incendiary conduct, encouraging what many consider to be national terrorism. Following a spate of brutal murders of civilians in Israel and the West Bank, for example, extremist Jewish settlers went on a week-long rampage in late February burning villages, vehicles and agricultural fields.

Minister of Finance and Religious Zionism party leader Bezalel Smotrich said at the time that Huwara – the initial target village - should be burned to the ground. All of it. After being pummeled relentlessly by the domestic and international media, he walked back that comment a teeny bit, saying that he misspoke in the heat of the moment. Emotions and all. What he meant to say was that the state should take charge and destroy Huwara, not individual citizens. As if that was, somehow, a more acceptable position for a senior government minister to hold and express.

Ben Gvir and Smotrich further urged all Jewish settlers to occupy hilltops and establish new settlements everywhere possible. And when the IDF published a tweet condemning such acts as national terrorism, the Ministers went berserk.

The Interlude

Following the first “Sorry, Mohammed” moment, Ben Gvir doubled down and stood by his words. PM Benjamin Netanyahu backed him up.

As Ben Gvir tends to do, he set off a firestorm, accused of valuing Jewish life over Arabs and, furthermore, advocating apartheid. Perhaps that is the case, but it sure isn’t reflected in what he said.

Several days after the controversy was set off, Ben Gvir embellished his previous comments in a video posted on “X” by his international spokesman, Yishai Fleisher.

Cuz. Why not throw oil on fire if you can?

Even before Ben Gvir’s follow-up salvo, the White House and State Department made clear their extreme displeasure with the Minister’s comments, which just elicited more fire and brimstone; this time, from his fellow messianist in government, Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich. Speaking on a popular Israeli radio station, Smotrich blasted the United States for its conduct in Afghanistan and Iraq. Anyone who attacks Israel – the “most moral country in the world” – he added, is a “hypocrite.”

That, of course, appears to include America. You can imagine how well-received that was in Washington.

Earlier this week I interviewed Jason Greenblatt – Special Representative for International Negotiations in the Trump Administration – for an upcoming State of Tel Aviv and Beyond podcast episode. We discussed a number of current snafus, among them the comments made by Minister Ben Gvir and others. Greenblatt was assiduous in noting that he was uncertain as to what exactly was said when and by whom, so I cleared that up for him. His overarching comment, derived from years of intense media scrutiny, was that as a general matter, there can be a lack of appreciation for the power of comment by senior government officials. He was careful to defer to Israel being independent and not taking its marching orders from America, but qualified that statement with this caution:

“I get it. But I think Ministers should be more responsible. They don’t realize the negative impact they [can] have on the rest of the world, including the Gulf.”

Smotrich’s berating of President Biden and the United States was, in his view, imprudent, at best.

Whereas Greenblatt may be charitable in allowing that perhaps Ben Gvir and Smotrich did not intend any offense to America or others, I am less forgiving. I believe that they don’t care if their truth offends America. Their comments are consistent and very much reflect their unvarnished views. Perhaps, then, it is time for a little sanding and shellacking.

The Second Time

Just when it seemed that this incident would blend into the non-stop turbo-torqued commotion that passes for daily life in Israel these days, Ben Gvir did it again. Last week, the Minister made a point of attending when illegally built Bedouin housing in the Negev desert was destroyed. An aide photographed him from behind and the Minister tweeted the photo later with this message:

“This morning I attended the demolition of illegal housing in the Negev. Sorry, Mohammed Mujadia, this is a right wing government.”

The home demolitions have absolutely nothing to do with the sanctity of life or freedom of movement. This is a straight up taunt.

In a joint statement issued by Ben Gvir and Minister of Housing, Yitzhak Goldknopf, the Ministers referred to the demolitions as being “holy work.” And, for good measure, Ben Gvir confirmed his intention to continue to be present personally at future demolitions, “until the invaders realize that the owner of this country is here.”

Throughout the last election campaign, Minister Ben Gvir had a predilection for reminding West Bank Palestinians that the “landlord” or “owner” was back.

Subtlety is not his forte.

Goldknopf brings a different quality to the mix: rank hypocrisy. In December 2022 he was reported to be the registered owner of a Jerusalem apartment that had been divided into five separate units illegally, without having obtained any required permits from government authorities. But, in the semi-autonomous haredi communities, adhering to law is often optional. To date, it appears that there has been no action taken against Minister Goldknopf by the appropriate authorities.

It is unclear that Goldknopf understands or cares about his elastic ethics. He invokes God when he oversees the destruction of other illegal housing.

Ministers’ values aside, house demolitions are controversial as the deterrent value of such actions is highly questionable. Which means they are about punishment. Retribution.

Which also means that they are about demonstrating power. And Ben Gvir revels in that. Power.

Jewish Power, after all, is the name of his political party. His core ideology references the messianist determination to reclaim all of the ancient Kingdom of Israel with no apology, nor, it seems, any recognition of the fact that two thousand years of civilization and life have transpired in the meantime. That is it. That is his political platform. Unfettered Jewish power based on biblical claims. And the truth is that he could care less about what Mohammed, or anyone who stands in his way, might think.

Sorry, Mohammed.

Itamar Ben Gvir has God on his side.