Peace between Israel and Lebanon: On whose terms?

Lebanon did not start this war. It may not survive the peace. That was the bitter paradox facing Beirut as Israeli and Lebanese envoys prepared to meet in Washington on Tuesday for the first direct talks between the two countries in more than four decades. The meeting — convened under American auspices in the shadow of the 40-day US-Israeli war on Iran — was billed by Benjamin Netanyahu as the opening of a full peace negotiation. In Beirut, it looked more like an ultimatum than an opportunity.

The sequence of events that brought Lebanon to this point was not of its choosing. When a US-Israeli raid on Tehran killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and senior officials, Hezbollah — the pro-Iran militia — fired rockets at Israel in solidarity with its patron. Israel’s response was swift and severe: strikes on Beirut’s southern district and villages across southern Lebanon, with orders for residents to evacuate north of the Litani River. More than a million Lebanese have since been displaced and 2,000-plus have been killed.

Israel sought to use the fighting to establish a buffer zone extending to the Litani, but it met fierce resistance that blunted its armored advance. Its forces have managed to hold only a narrow strip 8km to 10km north of the border. As of Monday, they were still battling for Bint Jbeil, a traditional Hezbollah stronghold. This stands in contrast to last June’s 12-day war, when Israel inflicted heavier damage on Hezbollah in far less time, securing five positions inside Lebanese territory and destroying border villages.

Iran and Pakistan both claimed that the ceasefire brokered between Tehran and Washington covered Lebanon. Israel rejected that interpretation and Washington backed Netanyahu — until Iran threatened to walk away from the Islamabad negotiations entirely. Only then did Donald Trump press Netanyahu to stop bombing Beirut and limit ground operations to the south.

The war has exposed and aggravated Lebanon’s internal fractures. President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam have publicly accused Hezbollah of endangering Lebanese sovereignty and acting outside the law — a remarkable stance that would have been politically unthinkable just a year ago. After last June’s war, both men moved to expand army deployments south of the Litani and begin the process of disarming Hezbollah. Netanyahu dismissed those efforts as insufficient and declared that Israel would finish the job itself.

Israel’s central demand — the full disarmament of Hezbollah — is something the Lebanese state cannot deliver.

Osama Al-Sharif

 

Salam’s expulsion of the Iranian ambassador last month and his categorical rejection of any Iranian role in Lebanese affairs opened the door to indirect contacts with Israel. Netanyahu seized on this, announcing not merely a ceasefire but a full peace treaty as his objective — while making clear he had no intention of halting the bombardment in the meantime.

The announcement stunned Hezbollah. Secretary-General Naim Qassem called the talks futile and urged officials to abandon them. A Hezbollah parliamentary representative described the negotiations as a violation of the constitution and a threat to civil peace — a thinly veiled warning of what the party might do if the government pressed forward.

The core problem is this: Israel’s central demand — the full disarmament of Hezbollah — is something the Lebanese state cannot deliver. The army lacks the capacity to impose it by force. More dangerously, Hezbollah has the street muscle and the armed cadres to make any government that tried to enforce disarmament pay a severe political price. The specter of civil war is not rhetorical. It is a live possibility that haunts every calculation in Beirut.

Israel and Lebanon have been here before. They reached a peace agreement in May 1983. It was ratified by the Lebanese parliament but killed off before implementation by Syrian pressure and threats. Subsequent direct contacts were limited to narrower issues: maritime boundaries and the mandate of the UN’s peacekeeping force in Lebanon. The distance between those technical arrangements and a full peace treaty is enormous and Tuesday’s meeting does not change that.

With Trump’s full backing behind Israel, Beirut entered the talks from a position of near-total weakness.

Osama Al-Sharif

 

Meanwhile, Netanyahu is facing pressure from his own far-right flank to make the occupation permanent — to hold the south all the way to the Litani, and beyond, and finish Hezbollah once and for all. That he has chosen the language of peace talks rather than annexation is, at this stage, a tactical posture more than a strategic commitment.

What is unfolding in Lebanon increasingly echoes what happened in Gaza. Defense Minister Israel Katz has threatened to turn Lebanese villages into another Beit Hanoun — a reference to the complete destruction of towns in the Strip. Beirut and human rights organizations have not been slow to draw that parallel.

Netanyahu’s calculation appears to be this: use the cover of negotiations to continue razing towns in the south, consolidate a buffer zone as a physical fact, and ensure that the hundreds of thousands of displaced Lebanese cannot return. That buffer zone has effectively already been created. Whether Lebanon can ever reclaim that territory is, at this point, doubtful.

With Trump’s full backing behind Israel, Beirut entered Tuesday’s talks from a position of near-total weakness. The choice on offer is not between war and a just peace. It is between continued bombardment and a peace settlement whose terms — including Hezbollah’s disarmament, a permanent buffer zone and a bilateral treaty that isolates Lebanon from its regional patrons — no Lebanese government could ever accept and survive.

Lebanon did not start this war. It may not survive peace on Netanyahu’s terms.

• Osama Al-Sharif is a journalist and political commentator based in Amman. X: @plato010