Israel is two weeks away from an election and Lebanon is amid complicated negotiations to disarm Hezbollah and secure an Israeli withdrawal.
But leaders from both countries are focused on the Senate race unfolding thousands of miles away in Michigan, Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) told reporters on Monday.
That question was a surprising focus of meetings in both countries during Lankford’s trip to the Middle East last week, he said.
“I had several meetings with Israeli leaders, and I’ll go ahead and leave names out, but at the end of the meeting, they would quietly say to me, ‘Tell me what’s going to happen in the Michigan Senate race,’” Lankford said.
Lankford did not specify which Israelis brought up the U.S. midterms, but he said his visit included meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Isaac Herzog, Speaker of the Knesset Amir Ohana and Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar.
“Several Israeli leaders were attentively watching that particular Senate race,” he told reporters.
Nabih Berri, speaker of Lebanon’s Parliament and leader of Shiite Amal Movement, asked about the same race, the Oklahoma Republican said.
“Both sides were talking about the Michigan Senate race, the Shia leadership of Lebanon and the Jewish leadership of Israel,” he told reporters.
The Michigan Senate race pits Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee and former Detroit health director, against former Republican congressman Mike Rogers.
El-Sayed, who is Muslim and whose parents emigrated from Egypt, has made his opposition to Israel a focal point of his campaign and was accused by Rogers in their recent debate of having ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, a charge that El-Sayed denies.
The Republican Jewish Coalition has called El-Sayed “the most antisemitic U.S. Senate candidate in America.”
Polls suggest that the Michigan race is close, and the state’s substantial Muslim and Arab populations could tip the balance in the election. Berri told Lankford that the Amal Movement recently founded an affiliate group in Michigan, where the Lebanese leader lived briefly and where some of his children were raised.
“He was very clear with me to say that, ‘Hey, we have an extension of our party in Michigan,’” Lankford said. “He just initiated that.”
“I didn’t press it any farther from there, but quite frankly, myself and my team, when we walked out, we all looked at each other and said, ‘Did I hear that correctly, that he had just said that he had an extension of his party that was also in Michigan?’” the senator told reporters.
The Amal Movement, which is partnered with Hezbollah in Lebanon’s governing coalition, has a Dearborn-based foundation, though it’s unclear whether that’s the entity to which Berri was referring. JNS sought comment from the Amal Movement in Lebanon.
Lankford said that he believes that there is progress in achieving the disarmament of Hezbollah, a U.S.-designated terror organization since 1997, despite the apparent lack of movement on the ground.
“It is a very real challenge, because Hezbollah is an extremely well-armed militia, and the people of Lebanon have gone through a very bloody, difficult civil war in the past, and no one wants to see that,” Lankford told reporters.
“There’s a fine line they’re walking between moving towards disarmament and not moving towards civil war at the same time,” he said.
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun said the Lebanese Armed Forces have, in fact, taken steps to disarm the terrorist group.
“He was very particular on walking through, ‘Here’s a location and a particular house that we found where we removed weapons caches. Here’s a bunker that we found that we actually cleared,’” Lankford said.
According to the senator, the fact that Israel and Lebanon are communicating at all is a measure of improvement.
“At this point in time, there’s a lot of finger pointing, but at least they’re talking to each other while they’re finger pointing,” he told reporters. One open question in Lebanon is what should be done about the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, or UNIFIL, a peacekeeping force that Israel has long accused of failing to uphold its mandate. That mandate expires at the end of the year.
UNIFIL has arguably been rendered moot by both the Israeli military presence in South Lebanon and the trilateral agreement that Israel, Lebanon and the United States signed in June.
Lankford said UNIFIL equipment and bases should be transferred to the Lebanese Armed Forces.
“I would be one of many that would say it is time for the UNIFIL mission to end,” the senator said. “UNIFIL has about 50 different bases of operation. Most of them are very, very small. Some of them are very large, like the one in the far southwest of Lebanon.”
“There’s no reason the Lebanese armed forces shouldn’t take those on,” he said.
“Third-party verification is the challenge, because that’s a country stepping in, saying they want to be able to come through and be able to manage inspecting all of these pilot zones,” he told reporters. “That’s a much tougher task, but that’s not long-term.”
“That’s a short-term third-party verification, but both countries have got to agree on that, and both countries are actively working on identifying some country that is willing to be able to step in and do that,” he said.
