The Lebanese are in between two dramatically different states: a restrained war is raging on the southern front, while things are normal in other areas of the country. We see the villages on the border paying dearly on behalf of the entire country. The residents are being killed and their homes and infrastructure are being destroyed, bringing to mind the scenes we had seen before the Lebanese Civil War (1975 - 1990), when Israel assaulted South Lebanon at will, creating a very perilous situation.
The difference is that the Lebanese parties (with Hezbollah at the forefront, naturally) now have the capacity to retaliate and create damage across the many settlements scattered in the north of the occupied territories. They pose enough of a threat that the inhabitants of these settlements, who had been living in peace and stability have had to flee the territory that has been occupied since the 1948 Nakba. These residents have exerted significant pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to do something so that they can return to "their homes."
We cannot allow the Israeli occupation forces to continue violating Arab territory like they have been violating Palestinian territory since the Nakba and the establishment of the Israeli state, hosting settlers from across the globe at the expense of the native population. In this regard, successive Israeli governments have refused to drop the country’s grandiose schemes and continue to seek political or military opportunities to achieve this objective. The plan to deport Palestinians from Gaza that was put forward at the beginning of the war is just one "manifestation" of this dangerous project that will remain in force so long as the Israeli government does not abandon its old-new expansionist projects.
We have heard calls on Lebanon to adhere to UN Resolution 1701, which was issued in 2006 following the 33-day July War that devastated the country but failed to achieve Tel Aviv’s declared objectives. Although the war destroyed much in Lebanon, including bridges, infrastructure, power grids, and more, it failed to eliminate Hezbollah. The same is true for this war in the Gaza Strip, which has been almost completely destroyed. The goal of eliminating Hamas has not and will not be achieved, despite the massive destruction and killing that has left accusations of genocide leveled at Israel by the UN’s highest judicial authority, the International Court of Justice.
In light of the current circumstances, more than three months into Israel’s war on Gaza, the best course of action for Lebanon might be a return to UN Resolution 1701 and its implementation in full. That would restore the status quo that had been in place before October 7, 2023 and that allowed stability and relative calm to prevail for years. Indeed, it was only interrupted by Israeli violations of Lebanese airspace, territory, and waters, which were only suspended for brief periods over the past few decades.
If there is a "consensus" in Lebanon that starting a wide-scale war with the Israeli occupation forces does not align with our national interest - not because of opposition to solidarity with Gaza and the Palestinian people, but because Lebanon cannot bear its grave repercussions - it should also apply to Israeli attacks and bombardments in Lebanon. These assaults cannot be stopped without significant American pressure on Israel. US pressure has already succeeded in preventing the expansion of the war in several directions, primarily from the Lebanese side.
In these difficult and critical times, anything can happen in the miserable domestic Lebanese scene, with the stagnation that has paralyzed the country for over a year and a half is likely to continue after the country failed to fill the presidential vacuum since President Michel Aoun's term ended on October 31, 2022.
It is incumbent on all Lebanese parties to set aside their differences and agree on electing a credible and respectable president who enjoys the local and international backing needed to help the country overcome its aggravating crises. The challenges to electing a president are not insurmountable and everyone bears some responsibility for this failure: both the parties insisting on a single candidate and excluding all others and the parties that have yet to propose a serious alternative, content with the "intersection" around a particular candidate at an earlier stage, which is probably behind us at this point. Amid the intransigence of both sides, the presidential vacuum will remain, as will the country's crises.
