In an opinion article Polyblog published on August 13, we addressed the segment of Israeli public opinion that genuinely seeks peace with Lebanon, asking it to pay close attention to statements made by Israeli leaders explicitly alluding to a permanent or prolonged occupation of South Lebanon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The core message was simple: if Israelis want peace with Lebanon, and if they are asking the Lebanese public to make the difficult decisions required to get there, then they, too, have responsibilities to bear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The reactions we received from Israelis in the plethora of comments we read exposed just how deep the misunderstanding of Lebanon\u2019s situation can be on the Israeli side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And it matters especially because this kind of fundamental misreading does not bring either country closer to peace. It only helps perpetuate the same cycle of hostility that has exhausted both sides for decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One recurring argument appeared again and again: \u201cThe Lebanese should deal with Hezbollah first. Then they can ask Israel to leave.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n It may make sense to you. Believe us, it does not.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n The first problem lies in the extraordinary oversimplification of what it means for the Lebanese to \u201cdeal with Hezbollah\u201d and \u201creclaim their country.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n If what is being suggested is some kind of popular uprising in which Lebanese civilians rise up and disarm Hezbollah through force, then the obvious question is: if the full application of Israeli military force could not make Hezbollah disappear, how exactly are unarmed Lebanese civilians\u2014or a much weaker Lebanese Army\u2014supposed to complete that job?<\/p>\n\n\n\n This isn\u2019t to say that Lebanon should remain cautiously passive, or that it doesn\u2019t have more to do in confronting Hezbollah. But the full weight of that mission can\u2019t rest on Lebanon\u2019s shoulders alone. After all, Hezbollah is a problem for the region as much as it is for Lebanon, and is a product of rigorous Iranian investment rather than a feat of organic Lebanese making.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For memory to serve well, no one should forget that the Lebanese public and political class have confronted Hezbollah before. In 2005, a majority of Lebanese came together to demand Syria\u2019s withdrawal and the end of Assad\u2019s tutelage over Lebanon, confronting Hezbollah\u2019s political project in the process. And again in 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What followed was not a peaceful democratic disagreement. Lebanon entered years marked by political assassinations, intimidation and the unilateral use of armed force whenever the balance of power threatened Hezbollah\u2019s position.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When Israelis casually tell the Lebanese to \u201cdeal with Hezbollah,\u201d they should understand what they are asking for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Any attempt to resolve the Hezbollah question through domestic force risks producing sectarian warfare cutting across towns, neighborhoods and regions. Despite a clear majority of Lebanese opposing Hezbollah, a majority of Shiites who lost their towns, homes and loved ones still see Hezbollah as essential. The recipe for sectarian and geographic fracture is all there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And that would not solve Israel\u2019s security problem. It would create permanent chaos on Israel\u2019s northern border\u2014chaos that Hezbollah would almost certainly know how to exploit better than anyone else\u2014and significantly weaken the position of the Lebanese state, a partner Israel needs to work with rather than against in order to achieve withdrawal and mutual permanent security.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rendering Hezbollah obsolete does not require another foreign invasion, another civil war or a permanent Israeli occupation of South Lebanon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In fact, all three help Hezbollah survive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Militias thrive in war. They grow when their communities feel threatened. And they become much harder to dismantle when they can convince those communities that the alternative to their weapons is abandonment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is why Hezbollah fears the end of hostilities between Lebanon and Israel and the emergence of a capable Lebanese state infinitely more than it fears the prospect of prolonged occupation, war with Israel, or civil strife.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Israel has tried maximum application of military force as a long-term strategy in Lebanon before. In 1982, it invaded Lebanon reaching the outskirts of Beirut, and, eventually, succeeded in pushing the PLO leadership out of Lebanon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But the PLO was a much easier organization to physically remove. It was not indigenous to Lebanon. It did not emerge organically from one of Lebanon\u2019s principal communities, nor could it regenerate itself socially and politically within Lebanese society in the way Hezbollah can.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And even then, if the objective of the 1982 invasion and the occupation that followed was to permanently secure Israel\u2019s northern border, history tells us how that strategy ended.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Israel removed one armed organization. And in the political and security environment that followed, another emerged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When Iran came to Lebanon in 1982, only three years after its revolution, it found two conditions that made its project possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The first was an Israeli occupation. The second was a weak Lebanese state. Those two conditions became the foundations upon which Iran built one of its most successful regional investments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And that is precisely why Israel should think carefully before recreating them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even if the strategic balance with Iran is altered to Israel\u2019s advantage, Iran is not Israel\u2019s only regional rival capable of investing in Lebanon\u2019s crises.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is where the argument that \u201cLebanon should disarm Hezbollah first, then Israel can leave\u201d becomes fundamentally flawed. Because Israeli occupation and Hezbollah\u2019s weapons are not two separate problems waiting in a queue. They reinforce each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If both conditions become absolute prerequisites, nothing moves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Israel stays because Hezbollah refuses to exist. Hezbollah remains relevant because Israel stays. We get stuck in permanent paralysis until a major domestic change in Israeli public opinion leads to another unresolved exit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is why restoring Lebanese sovereignty cannot happen in two separate installments\u2014first against Hezbollah, and then against Israel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The two tracks have to move together. This is also the logic behind the pilot-zone approach currently being pursued.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The purpose of those zones is not simply to get Israel out of a particular area. Nor is it merely to remove Hezbollah from it. The purpose is to have the Lebanese state replace both.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Israeli forces withdraw. The Lebanese Army deploys. Hezbollah\u2019s military infrastructure is removed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The arrangement is verified: residents return, reconstruction begins, and no parallel authority\u2014Israeli or Hezbollah\u2014moves into the vacuum left by the other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That is the difference between a withdrawal and the restoration of sovereignty. And it is also what makes today fundamentally different from 2000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2000, Israel withdrew unilaterally from South Lebanon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There was no coordinated political process capable of ensuring that the Lebanese state would fully inherit the territory, the security decision and the political meaning of the withdrawal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So, Hezbollah did. It claimed the liberation and claimed the victory, and in the doing so inherited the post Israel (and later post Syria) power vacuum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Today, Israel has something it did not have then. It has a Lebanese president, a Lebanese government and a political majority openly committed to restoring the monopoly of arms to the state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It has a Lebanese Army attempting to extend state authority. And it has a Lebanese leadership willing to negotiate the conditions of Israeli withdrawal rather than leave the South to another unilateral power vacuum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For Israel, that should not be seen as a concession to exploit. It is an opportunity that may never respawn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Israel is not only responsible for ending its occupation within the framework currently developing between the two countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It also has a responsibility to stop undermining the very Lebanese state it says it wants to see resolve the challenge of Hezbollah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That includes the language coming from Israeli officials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Every statement suggesting permanent occupation, every threat directed indiscriminately at Lebanon, and every argument implying that Lebanese sovereignty is something the Lebanese must first earn from Israel makes the Lebanese state\u2019s job more difficult.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Because Hezbollah\u2019s entire argument rests on two claims: Israel will always threaten you<\/strong> a<\/strong>nd your state cannot protect you.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Israel cannot keep proving both claims correct and then wonder why Hezbollah continues to find an audience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A stable southern Lebanon, with functioning state institutions, reconstruction, economic activity, security under the Lebanese Army and no Israeli occupation, is infinitely more dangerous to Hezbollah than another decade of military confrontation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That is the environment in which Hezbollah begins losing its raison d\u2019\u00eatre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And this is why Israel\u2019s northern security can ultimately only rest on two conditions:<\/p>\n\n\n\n First, no Israeli occupation and no permanent threat of Israeli hostility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Second, a stable, thriving and non-hostile community in South Lebanon whose security, reconstruction and political future are managed exclusively by the Lebanese state.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The core message was simple: if Israelis want peace with Lebanon, and if they are asking the Lebanese public to make the difficult decisions required to get there, then they, too, have responsibilities to bear.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1288,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[93],"tags":[44,45,46,47],"class_list":["post-1285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion-en","tag-beirut-en","tag-hezbollah-en","tag-israel-en","tag-lebanon-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/polybloglb.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/polybloglb.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/polybloglb.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/polybloglb.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/polybloglb.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1285"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/polybloglb.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1285\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1290,"href":"https:\/\/polybloglb.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1285\/revisions\/1290"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/polybloglb.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/polybloglb.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/polybloglb.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/polybloglb.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}What Does It Mean to \u201cDeal With Hezbollah\u201d?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Chaos is Hezbollah\u2019s preferred outcome<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Occupation Is Part of Hezbollah\u2019s Business Model<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Sovereignty Cannot Be Restored One Side at a Time<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Israel\u2019s Best Security Guarantee Is the Lebanese State<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n