Israel–Libya relations

Israel–Libya relations

Libya	Israel

Israel–Libya relations describe the relations between Israel and Libya. There have been no diplomatic relations between Israel and Libya since Libya's independence.

History[]

In the years before the declaration of Libya's independence (in 1951), there was an extensive operation to bring Libyan Jews to Israel, Israeli representatives stayed in Tripoli and conducted aliyah operations there, aliyah activists obtained the consent of the country's leaders to continue their activities provided they served as Jewish Agency emissaries. The Israeli government, however, after Libya's independence, closed the Ministry of Aliyah, expelled the activists and did not allow Israeli ships to visit its ports.^[1]

In a 1951 vote at the United Nations on the accession of Libya to the Organization, Israel voted in favor and thus decided in favor of its admission to the United Nations,^[2] but a few years later Libya joined the Arab League and the Arab boycott of Israel and was among the leaders of the opposing Israeli voice.^[3] After the Six-Day War, France imposed an embargo on Israel, thus supplying 50 Mirage 5 aircraft, developed in cooperation with Israel, to Libya instead of to Israel.

In February 1973, the Israeli Air Force shot down a passenger plane Libyan Arab Airlines Flight 114 in the lobby. The plane's interception occurred after it accidentally penetrated Israeli airspace over northern Sinai Peninsula, an area that was under Israeli control at the time. As a result of the plane crash, 108 passengers and crew were killed.

During the Yom Kippur War, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi sent a large sending force to Egypt in order to assist it in its war against Israel. The Expeditionary Force included armored forces, artillery and 2 Mirage 5 squadrons that took an active part in the fighting on the southern front. When Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi realized that King Hussein of Jordan had rejected requests by Arab leaders to join the war and attack Israel from the east, he began to insult him and called on the Jordanian people to revolt and join the war on their own.

In 1976, Libya assisted in the hijacking of an Air France passenger plane by allowing the aircraft to refuel in Benghazi. The hijackers were eliminated and the passengers of the plane were released in Operation Entebbe. In 1977, Gaddafi sharply attacked Egypt, which was then in talks with Israel for a possible peace agreement, and saw it as an Egyptian violation of the Khartoum Conference Declaration. Against the background of the developing relationship with Israel, Libya initiated hostilities with the aim of undermining the rule of Egypt, which escalated into a war between Libya and Egypt.

In May 2011, during the First Libyan Civil War, the Gaddafi government allegedly offered Israel to open an embassy and maintain diplomatic relations between the two countries, but Israel refused the offer, arguing that it preferred "not to have relations with an outcast state."^[4]

In December 2019, during the Second Libyan Civil War, Libyan Foreign Minister Khalifa Hafter said he expressed hope for a normalization of Israel-Libya relations.^[5] In June 2020, Libyan Deputy Prime Minister Abdul Salam al-Badri said that his country was not an enemy of Israel, and never had been.^[6][7]

References[]