The Israel-Hezbollah war is not the same as the Iran war. One is about a country, a governing power that needs to be tamed or toppled. The other is about an invading terror group that implanted itself in a sovereign country; maintains its loyalty to a second country; and pursues open, terrorist warfare against a third.
The United States was right to insist that the pursuit of a ceasefire in Iran was separate. France is (not surprisingly) wrong to insist that it be involved in the affairs of its former colony.
The Israel-Lebanon negotiations are, apparently, about to start. The good news is that the two governments share goals. The bad news is that they have just about always shared the goals but never managed to implement the required strategy. A series of government-to-government ceasefires were simply space for Hezbollah to regroup and rearm.
In this situation and understanding that Lebanese civilians are very definitely at risk of death or injury and/or the destruction of their belongings, it is instructive to consider what Lebanese people are saying.
A journalist with 49,000 followers on X (we’ll protect his name) wrote:
Lebanon will announce its agreement to a just peace deal. Israel will withdraw from #theSouth, hand over the prisoners, and Washington will give Lebanon guarantees for preserving Lebanon’s security and safety. In return, #theLebaneseArmy will withdraw the weapons of #Hezbollah and the Palestinians following a decision by the Lebanese government that sets the timeframe for withdrawing weapons across all Lebanese territories. After that, discussions will begin about reconstruction and the manner of the peaceful return of civilian displaced persons to their villages.
He can write whatever he chooses, of course, but the responses are interesting. There were some nasty ones and some snide ones. There were even some funny ones.
Most of the many, many responses reflected the understanding of Lebanese people that a) Hezbollah will not agree to any deal the Israelis and Lebanese government come to; b) the Lebanese government will prove unable to disarm Hezbollah, as they have been unable to do from the time it invaded the south Lebanon in 1982; and c) Israel is not the enemy of the Lebanese people.
In all, he was not supported.
Mona asked, “Are you a journalist or a parrot?” Don said, “Hezbollah is cancer.” The Atheist noted,
The mechanism is supposed to be reversed. The Israeli withdrawal won’t happen except after the withdrawal of Hezbollah’s terrorist weapons, and after considering Iran a terrorist enemy, and pursuing the terrorists legally through the Lebanese judiciary after purging the army and security forces of Iranian remnants. And only then can Israel withdraw.”
Here is the summary response by a guy with 52 X followers (that is 52, not 52,000) with a better political sense than the guy with 49,000,
Even if Israel withdrew and the prisoners were returned, and a peace agreement was reached, these groups wouldn’t surrender their weapons or stop. All their food, drink and livelihood comes from wars. Every few years, they start a war to collect donations and smuggle out those among them who have warrants against them across the borders. Otherwise, you’re cutting off their livelihood. In their view, it’s killing two birds with one stone: They make money, and if they die, they go to paradise.
There, in a nutshell, is the Israel-Lebanon problem. No matter what Israel and Lebanon decide, Hezbollah demands a voice. And its voice is unremittingly terrorist and absolutist.
It has threatened the regime more than once. Mahmoud Qamati, deputy Head of Hezbollah’s Political Council, threatened this week to instigate a civil war. Claiming that Hezbollah is victorious, he demands that the Lebanese government “apologizes ... to the resistance and voids all the negative decisions against it regarding its weapons and anything else and reaches an understanding regarding the ‘defense strategy.’”
“Defense strategy” is a euphemism for war against Israel from Lebanese soil.
As an aside, he also threatened to execute the ministers of the Lebanese government “once the war is over, like de Gaulle did to the ministers of Vichy’s government.”
There is no reason for Lebanon and Israel to be at war. There is a defined border between them and a history that suggests good things can happen: Remember the Good Fence (1975 to 2000)? Israeli farmers actually farmed over the border, and Lebanese people came into Israel to work in Metula, for surgery in Israeli hospitals, and even on honeymoons (I met one such couple in 1982 in a hotel).
In the end, go with Elie:
A peace deal with Israel is not submission. Submission implies we don’t want it and are forced into it. The truth is we want it even more than they do. Therefore, this is an act of courage of finally standing up to do what’s right.
