Libya and the War on Gaza. Popular Support and Covert Negotiations
Keywords:
Foreign Policy, Libya, Palestine, Pan-Arabism, Armed StruggleCopyright (c) 2024 Álvaro de Argüelles, Ignacio Gutiérrez de Terán Gómez-Benita
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Abstract
Palestine has always played an important role in Libyan foreign policy. During the first years in power of Muammar al-Qaddafi, the struggle for Palestinian emancipation was presented as the synthesis of Arab, Muslim and Third World interests against the threat of imperialism. In the late 1990s, when the collapse of the USSR and the oil price crisis forced Libya to radically transform its foreign policy, the proposal for the creation of an Arab and Jewish ‘Isratine’ served Gaddafi to demonstrate his willingness to reach an agreement with the West, and the first contacts between Libyan and Israeli representatives took place. In the post-civil war scenario, and especially after the arrival of Prime Minister Abdel Hamid Dbaiba in 2021, it has become clear that the elites in both regions of the country wish to normalize relations with Israel at the expense of the popular sentiment. The current conflict in Gaza has put a temporary brake on these rapprochements linked to the energy sector, which, if consolidated, could lead to armed clashes.
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