Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun said on Monday that he wants negotiations with Israel, mediated by President Donald Trump, to bring an end to Israeli airstrikes against the Hezbollah terrorist group.
“Lebanon negotiated in the past with Israel with mediation by the United States and the United Nations,” Aoun noted, referring to negotiations in 2022 over the maritime border between Lebanon and Israel.
Israel and Lebanon did not actually have an official maritime border until the deal reached in 2022. The negotiations became more urgent after valuable gas deposits were discovered in the waters between the two countries. As President Aoun said, the United States and the United Nations helped to draw a border that left Israel and Lebanon with a mutually agreeable distribution of those offshore resources.
“What prevents repeating the same thing to find solutions to pending matters, especially [given] that war did not lead to results?” Aoun asked on Monday.
The Lebanese president was talking about the Gaza war, which began when Hamas murdered, raped, and kidnapped Israeli civilians on October 7, 2023, and provisionally ended this week, when Israel and Hamas signed the peace deal brokered by President Trump.
Hezbollah threw in its lot with Hamas by launching missiles against Israel from Lebanese territory, describing the expanded conflict as an “open-ended battle of reckoning” with Israel. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) responded with devastating effect, killing much of Hezbollah’s leadership and bombing Hezbollah positions near the Israeli border.
Israeli strikes against Hezbollah continued after the Gaza peace deal was signed, and even intensified last week.
Aoun hoped to bring an end to hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel, as part of a general atmosphere of “deals and agreements” spreading across the Middle East.
“Conditions are moving toward negotiations to achieve peace and stability. Therefore, we say that through dialogue and negotiations solutions can be reached. We cannot be outside the ongoing track in the region,” he said.
Aoun might have a little trouble getting Hezbollah to board the peace train. The terrorist group, which is also one of the most powerful political parties in Lebanon, has refused to disarm. If anything, the Gaza peace deal made Hezbollah less willing to give up its weapons.
“When we look at what happened in Gaza and its reflection on Lebanon, any rational observer would see that maintaining our weapons remains a vital source of strength for the Lebanese in reclaiming their rights,” Hezbollah media chief Youssef al-Zein told The National on Monday.
Al-Zein said the weapons of Hamas were the only leverage it had in peace negotiations with Israel and Trump, so Hezbollah would be foolish to give up its own missiles.
“Gaza’s armed resistance ultimately forced Israel to back down and accept these terms. Lebanon should draw strength from that experience, which showed that armed resistance can lead to what would have been unimaginable otherwise,” he said, an argument that might not be very persuasive to the residents of Gaza neighborhoods devastated by the war.
Al-Zein rattled of a list of demands from Hezbollah before any negotiations with Israel could take place, including a unilateral halt to Israeli airstrikes, the release of Lebanese prisoners, guarantees of reconstruction funding for southern Lebanon, and Israel withdrawing its forces from five positions it currently holds on Lebanese soil.
Aoun also wanted Israel to discontinue strikes on Lebanese territory as a condition for negotiations to begin, arguing that Hezbollah has suspended attacks against Israeli targets, and the Lebanese Army now controls most of the territory Hezbollah attacked from.
“Weapons are not the main issue; it is the intention to use them that matters. What’s important is to neutralize the function of the weapon, and this is a matter that takes time. It cannot happen overnight,” he argued.
Read the full article here