Lebanon will hold direct negotiations with Israel at the US State Department on Tuesday amid concerns that they will be a failure with each party clinging to their conditions. The success of the negotiations will also have implications in Lebanon because Hezbollah opposes any agreement that would restrict its movement and demand its disarmament or impose new realities on the ground.
Lebanon is prioritizing a comprehensive ceasefire, Israeli withdrawal from areas it is occupying in the South and the deployment of the Lebanese army. If successful, this will be followed by political talks. Israel is demanding that negotiations be held under fire, starting with Hezbollah’s disarmament, which is an early sign that the talks will fail since the Iran-backed party refuses to lay down its weapons.
Lebanon and Israel are agreeing to hold negotiations for the first time since 1982, meaning since the May 17 agreement. However, this does not mean that Tuesday’s talks will lead to tangible results given that Hezbollah can obstruct them immediately.
Former Minister Rashid Derbas said that Hezbollah may resort to field escalation by launching dozens of rockets and drones at Israel to abort any agreement, forcing Israel to retaliate on a larger scale in Lebanon.
In remarks to Asharq Al-Awsat, he stressed that the Lebanese government, for the first time, is seizing the initiative and trying to take decisions that can be executed.
He called for allowing the government to seize the opportunity, rather than obstruct its efforts. Ironically, Hezbollah is conditioning the handover of its weapons to the rise of the state, while at the same time it is thwarting any attempt by the state to consolidate its authority.
Derbas urged various political powers to “rally around the government to allow it to hold negotiations with Israel and reach decisive results.”
Hezbollah is very wary of the negotiations and is refusing anything that it views as “strategic concessions,” especially over its military wing and disarmament. The party is tying its war with Israel to the US-Iran war.
Regardless, the party’s position should not erase the optimism over the Lebanese state’s decision to turn towards a political process with Israel no matter how complicated it is.
Former MP Fares Soaid told Asharq Al-Awsat that the path of negotiations is tied to two main principles: the first, accepting the idea of negotiations themselves to reach a political solution; and the second, is the mechanism for these negotiations.
For the first time since 1983, the Lebanese state has taken an “advanced position” in that negotiations with Israel are widely accepted among the people and the Arab world, he noted.
The crux lies in the mechanism because Israel wants negotiations to be held under fire, while Lebanon wants to hold them after it withdraws from occupied areas and after a ceasefire is established, he remarked.
Internal hurdles
The issue at hand is not the wide gap between Lebanese and Israeli demands, but inside Lebanon itself where the state effectively does not control the decision of war and peace, but Hezbollah does, which has usurped it given that it is an effective political and military force in the country.
The party is insisting on indirect negotiations that can achieve a permanent ceasefire, Israeli withdrawal, return of the displaced to their homes, release of detainees, demarcation of the border, reconstruction in areas damaged in the war and then the launch of talks over a defense strategy based on the “army, people, resistance” equation – meaning Hezbollah will retain its weapons.
Derbas warned that Hezbollah’s conditions “are impossible to achieve because the balance of power is clearly tipped in Israel’s favor. Israel has free rein over Lebanon’s airspace and territories, meaning it has greater power in any negotiations.”
On whether Hezbollah may resort to street action or try to impose a new political reality by force, Derbas said protests cannot topple an agreement.
“The party can stage rallies and threaten to occupy the Grand Serail and state institutions, but going down that path has its own internal and external risks,” he warned.
He also noted: “Israel, which opposes Hezbollah’s presence in caves and trenches, will in no way accept seeing it at the Grand Serail.”
Hezbollah has accused President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam of succumbing to Israel’s conditions and of seeking a peace treaty with Israel while it is killing the Lebanese people with abandon.
Soaid said negotiations will not necessarily lead to a peace agreement. Rather, they can lead to phased arrangements, such as a security agreement or a return to the truce, or even establishing a framework over ties with Israel.
“The state is demanded to draw the limits of national interest that balances the interest of the majority of the Lebanese people, and Hezbollah’s interest on the other side of the divide,” he explained.
“Efforts to persuade Hezbollah to fully become part of state-building have failed so far because the party sees its weapons and ties with Iran as guarantees for its existence, while the majority of the Lebanese people view the state as a guarantee for them,” he added.
