Ben Fishman is the Steven D. Levy Senior Fellow in the Linda and Tony Rubin Program on Arab Politics at The Washington Institute, where he focuses on North Africa.
Articles & Testimony
The upcoming Palermo conference should be used to facilitate UN-led dialogue between Libyan groups, not to score points in a European diplomatic spat.
Since the 2011 revolution, Libyans have often blamed outside actors for their continuing woes. Too frequently, this grievance has been overstated and used as an excuse to minimize the hard compromises that Libyans themselves need to undertake to achieve a durable peace. Over the last year, however, France and Italy have played a more intrusive role in Libyan politics, undermining rather than supporting the UN-led peace initiative...
