In
October 2022, Amos Hochstein, whose official title is deputy assistant to the
president, senior energy and investment advisor, and US special presidential
coordinator for global infrastructure and energy security, brokered a historic
maritime boundary agreement between Lebanon and Israel. Negotiations took
months and were almost derailed many times. Still, Amos, a dual US-Israeli
citizen, managed to seal the deal, which many thought was impossible to
achieve.
اضافة اعلان
And last
September, less than a month before Hamas launched a deadly attack on Israel’s
southern settlements, he was again in Beirut, this time to undertake an even
bigger task: to demarcate a tricky and treacherous land border between the two
countries.
His
mission never took off. Instead, President Biden dispatched Hochstein to see if
his experience and contacts could be put to use to de-escalate tensions along
the Lebanese-Israeli borders following Israel’s military retaliation against
the Gaza Strip.
Last week, he ended his third trip to Lebanon in as many months without a deal. Israel could not meet Hezbollah’s terms. According to various sources, the Lebanese group insists on two conditions: No truce until Israel’s war on Gaza ends, and Hezbollah will not withdraw its forces from the borders to an agreed-upon point to allow displaced Israelis to return to their homes.
In
response to Israel’s war on Gaza, Hezbollah decided to break the lull on the
shared border and fire rockets at Israeli towns and settlements in northern
Israel in solidarity with the Palestinian resistance in Gaza. Israel responded
by shelling southern Lebanon and targeting Hezbollah assets within the
five-kilometer strip of land under what is vaguely called “rules of
engagement.”
President
Biden was quick to send two US carriers to the Eastern Mediterranean in a stern
message to Iran and its proxies not to open a new front. Hezbollah and Iran
were defiant but also sent messages that they were not seeking a regional war.
Still, Hezbollah and Israel continued to trade blows, resulting in the
evacuation of tens of thousands of Israelis from northern Israel and displacing
tens of thousands of Lebanese in southern Lebanon.
In a
bid to contain tensions between the two sides, Biden dispatched Hochstein again
to Lebanon; this time, his mission was to reach a truce between Hezbollah and
Israel.
Last
week, he ended his third trip to Lebanon in as many months without a deal.
Israel could not meet Hezbollah’s terms. According to various sources, the
Lebanese group insists on two conditions: No truce until Israel’s war on Gaza
ends, and Hezbollah will not withdraw its forces from the borders to an
agreed-upon point to allow displaced Israelis to return to their homes.
Over
the past months, the two sides have broken the rules of engagement. Last
January, Israeli strikes killed a prominent Hamas military leader in Beirut’s
southern district, Hezbollah’s political hub, while the Lebanese militant group
struck Safed in the Upper Galilee a month later. It did so again a few weeks
later in retaliation for a rare Israeli raid on Baalbek, another Hezbollah
stronghold in the Bekaa Valley.
Both
sides have traded threats. Hezbollah’s chief Hassan Nasrallah warned Israel
that the party’s fighters are ready for war and that its aim remains “to wipe
Israel off the map.” Meanwhile, Israel’s war minister, Yoav Gallant, warned
that Israel could turn Beirut into another Gaza.
Hochstein’s
meetings with top Lebanese officials could change little on the ground. Lebanon
has a caretaker government with limited authority and very little influence
over the main political broker, Hezbollah, and its allies in the government.
And Hezbollah is beholden to Iran. The Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein
Amir-Abdollahian visited Beirut several times since October 7 and met with
Nasrallah apparently to coordinate steps and deliver Tehran’s instructions.
Hezbollah’s
engagement with the Israelis is not to be underestimated. While Israel has not
disclosed its casualties in the north, Hezbollah has been posting photos of
“martyred” young fighters almost daily. The number is in the hundreds,
including senior field commanders and, according to Israeli sources, the
grandson of Nasrallah.
Since
Hochstein left Beirut, Hezbollah has increased its daily targeting of Israeli
positions, firing hundreds of rockets and launching multiple drone attacks. The
recent escalation coincided with the advent of the Holy month of Ramadan and
the collapse of ceasefire talks in Gaza.
Israeli
officials have set the beginning of Ramadan as a deadline for a possible ground
offensive on Lebanon. Israeli analysts believe that days separate us from a
major Israeli military operation against Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Hochstein may not be able to bring both sides to agree on a possible truce now. For Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu and his war ministers, the situation in northern Israel is untenable.
Washington
and the Lebanese government want both sides to adhere to the UN Security
Council resolution 1701. Israel claims that Hezbollah violates the resolution,
while the Lebanese group wants to make sure that the UN peacekeeping forces,
UNIFIL, do not hinder its ability to deploy its forces south of the Litani
River. However, it also wants UNIFIL to remain in the region as a possible
buffer.
Hochstein
may not be able to bring both sides to agree on a possible truce now. For
Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu and his war ministers, the situation
in northern Israel is untenable. Even if the Gaza war comes to an end, Israel
needs to neutralize future threats from Hezbollah. This will not happen through
diplomacy, and that is what the US special envoy has come to conclude. For
Nasrallah and Iran, a non-conclusive end to the current showdown is
satisfactory.
The Biden
administration does not want a flare-up on the Lebanese-Israeli borders, not
during an election year and not when ties between Biden and Netanyahu are
strained over the high Palestinian casualties in Gaza.
Tehran
is using its proxies to put pressure on the West without giving it an excuse to
confront Tehran directly. This is what is happening in Yemen through the
Houthis, and this is what it is doing through Hezbollah in Lebanon and Southern
Syria.
And
it has not been without a cost. Israel has continued to target Iranian assets
in Syria, and the US has retaliated against the lethal strike that hit its base
in Jordan last month by an Iraqi pro-Iranian group. But it is a game that
Tehran can still afford to play with patience.
Hochstein
is unlikely to make a breakthrough or prevent a sudden Israel decision to
launch a major attack on Lebanon. Biden needs to make it clear to Netanyahu
that the US opposes a war with Lebanon. Hezbollah is unlikely to risk losing
credibility by delinking its war effort in solidarity with Gaza. And Netanyahu
says he is ready to go into Rafah during Ramadan regardless of Biden’s “red
Lines.”
This
is a recipe for a regional disaster, and the US is the only party that has some
leverage over the Israelis to wind down their war in Gaza to take an
Israel-Hezbollah war out of the equation.
No
one wants to imagine what an Israeli war on Lebanon could lead to. The US knows
that the solution to Lebanon's complex problems lies in Tehran. The US is
trying to take over from the French, who had failed to tackle the Lebanese
conundrum. But Hochstein will not be able to surmount that obstacle, not now.
What
the White House should focus on is to end the war on Gaza, sooner rather than
later. It has to subdue Netanyahu, whose war has crossed all red lines and now
endangers the entire region. That doesn’t seem likely, and the worst possible
scenarios may soon come true.
Osama Al Sharif is a journalist and
political commentator based in Amman.
Disclaimer:
Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not necessarily reflect Jordan News' point of view.
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