Libya, The North African Country Wanting Nothing To Do With Israel

 Nadene Goldfoot                                         

       Foreign Minister of Israel   Eli Cohen and  Foreign Minister Najla Mangoush of Libya

Libya's internationally recognized government dismissed Foreign Minister Najla Mangoush on Sunday after a meeting she held with her Israeli counterpart sparked an uproar in the country. Israel's foreign ministry announced on Sunday night that the meeting had taken place in Rome last week. Libya denied it all, saying it was just an accidental meeting, and now Najla has fled for her life to Turkey. She's been fired.  

Evidently Libya hasn't heard of the Abraham Accords.  If they have, they'll have no part of it, and who would want them?  Libya has a terrible reputation with the terrible President Gadafi, especially with Entebbe .  

Libya has fallen into chaos since a NATO-backed uprising overthrew former ruler Moammar Gadhafi in 2011. The country has been split into two rival governments, one in Tripoli and one in Benghazi, since 2014.The parliament backing the eastern-based government denounced Mangoush’s meeting with Cohen and called for a “harsh punishment.” Mangoush was Libya’s first female foreign minister-possibly the last, now.  Libya has no diplomatic relations with Israel. 

In ancient history, Jews lived in the land that is Libya when it was called Cyrenaica and Tripolitania. The Berbers were the earliest recorded inhabitants of Cyrenaica. Remnants of the Berber languages spoken by their ancestors are still found in the Awjila language of the oasis of Awjila. The ancient Berbers founded a number of cities and settlements, both on the coast and in the inland oases. The native Berbers, who had inhabited the area locally for centuries before the arrival of the Arabs, established their own native Hafsid dynasty over Ifriqiya in the 13th century, and would control the region until it was conquered by the Ottoman Empire in the 15th century, who established Ottoman Tripolitania as a distinct province. Tripolitania became an Italian colony in 1911.

The history of the Jews in Libya stretches back to the 3rd century BCE, when Cyrenaica was under Greek rule. The Jewish population of Libya, a part of the Sephardi-Maghrebi Jewish community continued to populate the area continuously until the modern times. During World War II, Libya's Jewish population was subjected to antisemitic laws by the Fascist Italian regime and deportations by Nazi German troops.

 After 1948 when Israel was re-born, over 30,000 Jews left Libya for Israel.  At the time of the Six-Day War in 1967, there were demonstrations against the country's 6,000 remaining Jews who all left shortly thereafter. 

Muammar Gaddafi ((c. 7 June 1942 – 20 October 2011) was president and prime minister of Libya.  

In Uganda 47 years ago,  is the airport that was the scene of Operation Entebbe, a hostage rescue on 4 July 1976, when soldiers from the Sayeret Matkal, Paratroopers Brigade and Golani Brigade units of the Israeli Army freed over 100 hostages following a hijacking by a group of Palestinian and German militia.   Entebbe was an operation to rescue hostages held at Entebbe Airport in Uganda in 1976. 102 of the 106 hostages were rescued, but Yonatan Netanyahu, the leader, was killed in action—the only IDF fatality during the operation. He was Benjamin Netanyahu's older brother.  He was the only Israeli soldier killed during the raid (along with three hostages, all of the Revolutionary Cells members, all of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine members, and dozens of Ugandan soldiers). The commonly accepted version of his death is that Netanyahu fired on Ugandan soldiers, and was shot in response by a Ugandan soldier from the airport's control tower. The family refused to accept this verdict, and insisted instead that he was killed by the German commanding the hijackers. Netanyahu was shot outside the building being stormed, and would soon die in the arms of Efraim Sneh, commander of the mission's medical unit. The operation itself was a success, and was renamed as Mivtsa Yonatan ("Operation Jonathan" in English) in his honor.

Israel’s operation was the end of a saga that had started on June 27 with the hijacking of an Air France Airbus A300 en route from Tel Aviv to Paris. Palestinian and German terrorists, exploiting the then-laxer Greek security procedures, boarded the plane during its Athens stopover, and took control of the aircraft shortly thereafter.

The hijackers first diverted the plane to Benghazi, Libya where they were welcomed by Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. From there, the terrorists took the aircraft to Entebbe, where Ugandan strongman Idi Amin likewise offered the hijackers succor, and as was pre-planned, additional terrorists joined the original hijackers.

Entebbe resulted in the 1986 U.S. bombing of Libya and United Nations–imposed economic sanctions. From 1999, Gaddafi shunned pan-Arabism, and encouraged pan-Africanism and rapprochement with Western nations; he was Chairperson of the African Union from 2009 to 2010. Amid the 2011 Arab Spring, protests against widespread corruption and unemployment broke out in eastern Libya. The situation descended into civil war, in which NATO intervened militarily on the side of the anti-Gaddafist National Transitional Council (NTC). Gaddafi's government was overthrown; he retreated to Sirte only to be captured and killed by NTC militants.

Then again, 11 years ago, the 2012 Benghazi attack was a coordinated attack against two United States government facilities in Benghazi, Libya, by members of the Islamic militant group Ansar al-Sharia. On September 11, 2012, at 9:40 pm local time, members of Ansar al-Sharia attacked the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi resulting in the deaths of both United States Ambassador to Libya J. Christopher Stevens and U.S. Foreign Service Information Management Officer Sean Smith.

File: Libyan Prime Minister Abdul Hamid al-Dbeibeh in Rome, Monday, May 31, 2021 (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia, Pool, File) an interim position but elections have been postponed-evidently indefinitely.  He is the cousin and brother in law of Ali Ibrahim Dabaiba, previously the mayor of Misrata and head of state-owned development contractor LIDCO during the Gaddafi era, who was in 2012 on a list of sanctioned officials, subject of an Interpol red notice and arrested in 2014. He is estimated to have embezzled as much as $7 billion at 2011 rates from contracts LIDCO had issued under his leadership, per Suisse secrets.

Do the Abraham Accords need Libya?  They are about the 29th largest Arab population with 6,173,579 in 2011, at that time 97% Sunni Muslims Islam is a state religion with a military power then of 76,000.  

Resource:

https://www.standwithus.tv/videos/jewish-refugees-in-the-middle-east/the-jews-of-libya/

JBS News on YouTube

https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/28/middleeast/israel-libya-minister-dismissed-intl/index.html#:~:text=Libya's%20internationally%20recognized%20government%20dismissed,place%20in%20Rome%20last%20week.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muammar_Gaddafihttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Benghazi_attack

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdul_Hamid_Dbeibeh

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Benghazi_attack

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-711503

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entebbe

Lt.. Col. Yonatan Netanyahu, The Hero of Entebbe, Uganda

 Nadene Goldfoot

                                                                      

Yonatan Netanyahu, b: March 13, 1946, New York, d: July 4, 1976, Entebbe, Uganda:  He died at the age of 30 years 3 months and 21 days.  He was Benjamin Netanyahu's oldest brother;   a Polish-American Israel Defense Forces (IDF) officer who commanded the elite commando unit Sayeret Matkal during Operation Entebbe, an operation to rescue Israeli hostages held at Entebbe Airport in Uganda in 1976. On June 27, Palestinian terrorists had hijacked an air France plane flying from Athens and taken it to Entebbe.  After releasing most of the non-Israelis, they held 102 passengers and crew.  The Israeli planes landed after a journey of 2,500 miles, stormed the airport and released the passengers and crew, taking them back to Israel.  The mission was successful, with 102 of the 106 hostages rescued, but Netanyahu was killed in action—the only IDF fatality during the operation.

                                                

        Entebbe hostages come home, July 4, 1976. (IDF archives)

“Well planned and flash executed impetuous operation of the Antebbe [sic] Airport in Uganda, by the brave Israeli commandos, saved the lives of a number of defenseless people who had been trapped in the grab of Air route bandits, aimed at persuing [sic] their defiled and unhuman goals and ended the adventure, alerting International Terrorism to think about the grievous consequences of their unwise and cruel attempts.”“Kindly convey my sincere greetings and admiration for successful accomplishmont [sic] of this valuable military and intelligence operation along with sympathies and condolences for the loss and martyrdom of the her” – here the letter is severed, perhaps cutting the word heroic – “unit commander dispatched to the scene to your respective chief.”was a letter from  the Mossad station chief in Tehran  from the desk of the Supreme Commander’s Staff of the Imperial Iranian Armed Forces praising the mission and extending condolences for “the loss and martyrdom” of Lt. Col. Yoni Netanyahu, the elder brother of Israel’s current prime minister.

In a small ceremony, the Netanyahu family marked 44 years on June 28, 2020 since March 13, 1946 when  Lt.-Col. Yonatan (Yoni) Netanyahu fell [on the 6th of the Hebrew month of Tammuz, i.e July 4, 1976, ] while leading the soldiers of the IDF General Staff Reconnaissance Unit during Operation Yonatan to free the hostages in Entebbe, Uganda.  Being the leader of his platoon, he was the 1st and only to be picked off.  

Although born in New York in 1946, Netanyahu was raised from age two on in Israel, and his close friends remember him as “Yoni,” a nickname derived from the Hebrew equivalent of his first name.                                                                                                         

 

Yoni on right, Bibi on left in dark sweater, and Iddo in front Netanyahu (Courtesy Netanyahu family)

In the early 1960s Netanyahu returned to the United States as his Polish-born father, a Judaic studies scholar who now heads Cornell’s department of Semitic languages and literature, took a teaching position at Dropsie College in Philadelphia. But after graduating from a high school outside the city in 1964, Netanyahu returned to Israel and entered the Israeli armed forces as a paratrooper.

Yoni Netanyahu was only a flash in Harvard’s pan, an undergraduate for a year and a summer, a hard working student living off campus, remembered by only a handful of people in Cambridge. But for those few, Netanyahu – the sole Israeli commando to die in the July 4 assault on the airport in Entebbe, Uganda – was a man worthy of profound admiration, an extremely intelligent person who, in the words of his one-time adviser, had a “truly unique sense of dedication that you just don’t find in people very often, regardless of their age.”

Also dying was three hostages, all of the Revolutionary Cells members, all of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine members, and dozens of Ugandan soldiers). The commonly accepted version of his death is that Netanyahu fired on Ugandan soldiers, and was shot in response by an African from the airport's control tower. The family refused to accept this verdict, and insisted instead that he was killed by the German commanding the hijackers.  Netanyahu was shot outside the building being stormed, and would soon die in the arms of Efraim Sneh, commander of the mission's medical unit. The operation itself was a success, and was renamed as Mivtsa Yonatan ("Operation Jonathan" in English) in his honor.                                     

                Netanyahu's gravestone (with IDF logo in the upper right corner)

Netanyahu was buried in Jerusalem's Military Cemetery at Mount Herzl on July 6 following a military funeral attended by enormous crowds and top-ranking officials. Shimon Peres, then Defense Minister, said during the eulogy that "a bullet had torn the young heart of one of Israel's finest sons, one of its most courageous warriors, one of its most promising commanders – the magnificent Yonatan Netanyahu."

There are memorial trees that have been planted in his honor in front of his graduating high school, Cheltenham High School, and a memorial plaque is located in the lobby.                                            

Netanyahu married his long-time girlfriend Tirza ("Tuti") on August 17, 1967. Shortly after their wedding, they flew to the U.S., where Yoni enrolled at Harvard University. He took classes in philosophy and mathematics, excelling in both, and was on the Dean's List at the end of his first year. However, feeling restless at being away from Israel, especially with Israel skirmishing against Egypt during the War of Attrition, Yoni transferred to Jerusalem's Hebrew University in 1968. In early 1969, he left his studies and returned to the army. His father described those decisions, saying "He was dreaming of resuming his studies and planned to do so time and again. Yet he always conditioned his return to Harvard on the relaxation of the military tensions."

In 1972, he and Tuti were divorced. Netanyahu was living with his girlfriend of two years, Bruria, at the time of his death.   

                                           

Once at Harvard, Netanyahu devoted most of his energy to studying, “getting his marriage and economics off the ground,” and “brooding” about the war, Entis says. There was no room left for extra-curricular activities, although Netanyahu ran every night and often took weekend trips in Vermont and New Hampshire.

BUT WHAT sticks in everyone’s mind is Netanyahu’s overwhelming concern for Israel. Repeatedly, when he dropped in to chat with Malin, Netanyahu would say, “I just shouldn’t be here. This is a luxury. I should be at home. I should be defending my country.” Thus Malin was not surprised in the spring of 1968 when Netanyahu dropped in to announce his plans to return, explaining that “Harvard is a wonderful place to be, but I just can’t justify being here…” 

That fall, Netanyahu enrolled at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, but soon he was back in the army. He later wrote a friend in Cambridge, “Conditions in Israel at the time, however, were such to make the request for added military service, which was then addressed to former officers, too difficult to ignore.

But Netanyahu had not decided to become an Israeli career officer. To the contrary, according to one of his closest friends at Harvard, Elliot Z. Entis ’67, Netanyahu wanted very much to be a physicist before he came to Harvard… Netanyahu applied here, perhaps because of the presence of Entis, whom he had befriended at camp in New Hampshire during high school. Harvard accepted him enthusiastically; Kaufmann, who worked as an assistant director of admissions in 1967, describes Netanyahu as an “incredibly strong” candidate with a similarly impressive record and set of recommendations.                      

Netanyahu’s smooth transition from solider to academic was destroyed by the June 1967 Six Day War, an experience that “changed Yoni incredibly,” Entis says... Seeing many of his friends die set off a process of inner turmoil that ultimately would lead Netanyahu – who was himself seriously wounded in the left elbow during the fighting – to leave Harvard, to become a career officer, to “resolve that what he believed in he would have to live by,” as Entis says.

Netanyahu’s Harvard friends, like Seamus P. Malin ’62, his adviser in 1967-68 and the current director of financial aid, are wary that their eulogies be mistaken for run-of-the-mill posthumous praise, and they offer eerily similar descriptions of Netanyahu’s extraordinary qualities. 

                                                               

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, "The pain over Yoni's passing has only grown with the years and it is difficult to find comfort."Author Herman Wouk wrote that Netanyahu was already a legend in Israel even before his death at the age of 30. Wouk wrote:  He was a taciturn philosopher-soldier of terrific endurance, a hard-fibered, charismatic young leader, a magnificent fighting man. On the Golan Heights, in the Yom Kippur War, the unit he led was part of the force that held back a sea of Soviet tanks manned by Syrians, in a celebrated stand; and after Entebbe, "Yoni" became in Israel almost a symbol of the nation itself. Today his name is spoken there with somber reverence.                                                               

 Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his own "hard line against all 

terrorists" came as a result of the death of his brother.  

Resource:

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

https://www.gov.il/en/departments/news/event_yoni_netanyahu280620

https://www.jpost.com/features/in-thespotlight/yonatan-netanyahus-odyssey-from-harvard-to-entebbe

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yonatan_Netanyahu