It will be a long time before Lebanon regains its political, economic, and social health. The latest war it was dragged into, and Israel’s vindictive and disproportionate response, deepened Lebanon’s divisions. They have gone from traditional disagreements to a major rupture that will not be easy to mend or simply leap over.
Before testing the seriousness of the ceasefire agreement between the United States and Iran, and the extent to which it applies to Lebanon, the newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth quoted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as confirming to US President Donald Trump that “linking the various arenas together is unacceptable,” and that Israel “will not accept any Iranian dictates regarding Lebanon.”
Accordingly, Israel is not expected to take the initiative and withdraw from the territory it has occupied in southern Lebanon, or even to stop its daily strikes and attacks. It wants to translate this invasion into some arrangement with the state of Lebanon, which continues to cling to political negotiations as the only option for stopping the war. If some within the Iranian axis, formerly known as the Axis of Resistance, boast that Tehran secured an end to the war in Lebanon, they will, of course, turn a blind eye to the absence of demands for withdrawal from Lebanese territory.
In any case, there is an urgent need to quickly “pull everyone together” in Lebanon, curbing the tendency of the pro-Iranian camp toward “revenge” against Lebanese opponents after the end of the war, as has been repeatedly threatened, and also limits the opposing camp’s rush toward “normalization” with Israel, to the point of absolving it of everything it has done and continues to do daily: violating Lebanese sovereignty and killing nearly three thousand Lebanese.
If some Lebanese ought to avoid being taken by illusions of a peace that will not come, others must show the courage to redefine the concept of victory in a way that corresponds to actual reality, not fantasies or wishes. Several former Arab dictatorial regimes were notorious for boasting of their survival even after land had been occupied. The same thing is perhaps being repeated here: homes have burned and destroyed, vast swaths of the south have been occupied, thousands of innocent victims have fallen, and yet the slogan of victory is raised.
While the significance of steadfastness must be affirmed, steadfastness alone cannot build a strong future or develop formulas that preserve stability. Indeed, the nation of a “balance of deterrence,” which had been boasted of since 2006, collapsed after the first war of support that began in October 2023, with the assassination of senior Hezbollah leaders, foremost among them the two secretaries-general Hassan Nasrallah and Hashem Safieddine, the pager-explosion operation, and the occupation and razing of more land and villages.
It seems necessary, here, to recall that Lebanon has gone from fully liberated land, without conditions, a peace agreement, or security arrangements, to the occupation of five points in southern Lebanon, and then to a broad occupation reaching the Litani River. Therefore, whatever the calculations and considerations - whether ideological, political, or otherwise - these successive losses cannot be called “victories.”
From here, apart from the conflict with Israel, which is clearly likely to continue for some time in different forms, Lebanon needs to return to the logic of the state and statehood: a state that does not share its sovereign functions with any of its components, and that exercises them exclusively, without partnership. This is the path taken by all states without exception.
The real fear is that a new regional course may begin. Amid de-escalation on the Iranian-Israeli track under American sponsorship and pressure, Lebanon could turn into the backyard of the conflict and of explosive messages, serving the interests of all concerned parties except Lebanon itself. At that point, the region would move neither toward full stability nor full explosion, while the bleeding would continue in southern Lebanon alone. This would deepen Lebanon’s divisions and further widen social fractures.
