February 28, 2025
Nasser Kandil
• The announcement by the Occupying Entity’s Minister of War, Israel Katz, that the U.S. had granted Israel permission for an indefinite stay in the occupied Lebanese territories came as a shock to the Lebanese people and their government. This came just as Prime Minister Nawaf Salam’s government secured a vote of confidence, building hopes, expressed by the prime minister, the foreign, and previously by the president, that diplomatic pressure and solutions could compel the occupying entity to withdraw from the Lebanese points occupied within the Blue Line. This, they envisioned, would set the stage for withdrawing from the Lebanese side of Ghajar, also within the Blue Line, and eventually resolving the status of the areas over which Lebanon harbours reservations, foremost among them the occupied Shebaa Farms. Both the ceasefire agreement and Resolution 1701, guaranteed by the Americans, stipulated this withdrawal. Lebanon’s official discourse on diplomacy and pressure is, in essence, a polite way of describing what it expects from Washington, whose role in shaping Lebanon’s new political order is evident to all.
• Washington ignored its responsibility to refute Katz’s statement, and Lebanon, in an official capacity, remained silent in the face of both Washington’s silence and Katz’s words, finding itself in an awkward and embarrassing position. Unlike some Lebanese voices, the government cannot attribute Israeli actions to pretexts or justifications, it knows the agreement is clear. Lebanon’s commitments are unambiguous, limited to a single clause: Hezbollah’s withdrawal beyond the Litani River. Lebanon’s official stance has been content with Hezbollah’s coordination with the Lebanese Army on this matter, consistently affirming that there is no Lebanese breach justifying an Israeli violation. Meanwhile, Israel repeatedly claimed that its violations stemmed from the condition in the agreement, that the Lebanese Army deploys and Hezbollah withdraws beyond the Litani. This was the argument put forth by Benjamin Netanyahu on the eve of the 60-day deadline for full Israeli withdrawal beyond the Blue Line.
• Two key scenarios are unfolding- one on the battlefield and the other in politics. Militarily, the occupation failed to seize Lebanese towns and villages throughout the battles from September 27 to November 27, 2024. However, during the agreement’s implementation, it entered 47 towns and villages, laying them to waste, destroying homes and infrastructure. The security of southern Lebanon was now placed in the hands of the Lebanese state and the so-called diplomatic solution. Israel’s failure to occupy these areas in combat had forced it to accept the agreement, which mandated full withdrawal. Yet, its ability to roam freely and wreak destruction during the implementation phase emboldened it to seek an extension.
Politically, throughout both phases, Netanyahu’s government consistently framed the agreement as merely requiring Hezbollah’s withdrawal beyond the Litani. Meanwhile, the American oversight committee overseeing the agreement acknowledged Israeli violations, calling for them to cease.
• If diplomacy gave Israel the confidence to enter areas it had failed to reach by force, and if it sought to extend the deadline to February 18 before reneging and deciding to stay indefinitely, the question is: What changed? Why did Israel’s rhetoric shift, now linking its withdrawal to conditions beyond Hezbollah’s withdrawal? And why did the U.S. move from deeming Israel’s delays a violation of the agreement to effectively granting an open-ended license to stay, as Katz claimed?
• The painful truth is that the internal Lebanese opposition to the resistance is to blame. This faction has long claimed that no full Israeli withdrawal would occur without dismantling Hezbollah’s weapons, nor would reconstruction funds flow without disarming the resistance. However, this narrative was losing credibility, rising to the point where its proponents were being seen as hostile and more Israeli than the Israelis themselves. This reached its climax with the funeral of Hezbollah Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, where these figures blamed what they refer to as Hezbollah’s recovery and resurgence within its popular base on the “leniency” of the U.S. and Israel. The result? Katz’s statement, left unchallenged by Washington, served as a trial balloon, handed to the anti-resistance camp in Lebanon as leverage. They hoped to use it to pressure the resistance, or perhaps even push the issue of its disarmament further up the political agenda.
• If it is now settled that Lebanon’s government is bound by Resolution 1701, not Resolution 1559, what remains unclear is whether 1701 serves as a stepping stone toward 1559 or toward 425?
• If the presidential inaugural speech reaffirmed the state’s exclusive right to bear arms and extend its authority across all Lebanese territory, echoing the Taif Accord, then it is worth recalling that Taif itself was accompanied by similar diplomatic illusions. Back then, Lebanese leaders pinned their hopes on the Madrid process and the promised implementation of Resolution 425. Today, they cling to American assurances that Lebanon will be spared from regional conflicts. But Taif’s promises were made before Rabin’s assassination, and today’s American promises came before the announcement of the forced displacement of Gaza.
• U.S.-Israeli power, that is propped on internal Lebanese divisions, collapses when the so-called diplomatic solution to the occupation falls apart, just as some within Lebanon’s political sphere bet on American and Israeli presence to advance their own agendas.
