The 14-point Trilateral Framework agreement signed this week by Israel, Lebanon and the United States represents a notable diplomatic achievement. This is so not because it paves the way toward full diplomatic relations or towards normalisation between Beirut and Jerusalem. It doesn’t. The formidable obstacles to this goal remain in place. Indeed, beyond the world of declarations they are hardly impacted by the agreement.
The signing of the framework is nevertheless important because it provides diplomatic and strategic breathing space for Israel to continue to act in Lebanon where necessary against the Iranian proxy Hezbollah organisation, which intends to continue its war against the Jewish state. In the wake of the recent US Memorandum of Understanding with Iran, this is no small achievement. Indeed, the very different nature of these two documents seems to be an indicator of widely differing perspectives toward both Israel and the broader Middle East at the top level of the US administration.
The Trilateral Framework calls in its second clause on the government of Lebanon to “commit to a reciprocal, sequenced process, with clear conditions, whereby the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) will restore effective sovereign authority over all Lebanese territory, pending the verified disarmament of non-state armed groups and dismantlement of associated infrastructure, enabling the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to progressively redeploy out of the Lebanese territory.”
The agreement envisages the creation of two “pilot zones” where this process will commence. No time line is set for the completion of the process whereby the LAF achieves “full military and security control within Lebanon in accordance with security arrangements, agreed upon within the framework of negotiations,” and implements “the disarmament of all non-state armed groups and exercise effective authority across Lebanon.” Similarly, no time line is set by which Israel must withdraw from the areas it has recently conquered in Lebanon. Rather, the document conditions Israeli withdrawals on the Lebanese government achieving this goal, while setting no deadline by which time it must do so.
In practice, what this means is that if the Lebanese government and armed forces fail to achieve this goal, the US commits by the framework agreement not to pressure Israel to withdraw.
This suits Israel’s purposes well, and this is the agreement’s bottom line. What the agreement does effectively is to deem the Israeli military presence on Lebanese soil permissible and legitimate, for as long as non-state armed groups are also present in Lebanon.
The Hezbollah leadership has grasped the implications – and bitterly opposes it. One of the organisation’s representatives in parliament, Hussein al-Haj Hassan, declared that “This is not an agreement. This is a surrender. We do not recognise the agreement. It will not be implemented.”
Hezbollah’s chief theorist turned leader Sheikh Naim Qassem was equally scathing, declaring that the government had “stabbed the resistance in the back,” and the agreement was therefore “null and void.”
The Framework Agreement contains a “security annex” intended to be secret. Israeli Channel 12 News claimed this week to have received leaked details of this annex. According to these details, the IDF will be able to physically verify if the LAF has indeed dismantled Hizballah infrastructure in the “pilot zones’”, before further withdrawals become relevant.
This represents a significant concession by the government of Lebanon, as Hezbollah have noted. As to why Beirut might have acceded to such conditions, one should pay attention to clause 10, according to which “the United States will rally international partners to actively support the Government of Lebanon in rebuilding the country, repairing infrastructure, restoring the economy, and creating opportunities for prosperity. This is expected to include mobilising substantial reconstruction and humanitarian assistance for Lebanon, economic recovery programmes, and investment initiatives so that Lebanon can recover from years of conflict and provide a better future for all its citizens.”
In other words, the government of Lebanon is acceding to continued Israeli military activities to defend Israeli communities from Hezbollah attacks, in return for US agreement not to condition financial assistance to Lebanon on effective action against Hezbollah.
It is noteworthy that the agreement is the product of a negotiation conducted under the auspices of the US State Department and of Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Israel had been deeply concerned by the Memorandum of Understanding between the US and Iran, and in particular by the way in which that document makes no reference to Iran’s employment of proxy political/military groups such as Hezbollah, while seeming to offer Iran financial benefits in return for opening the Strait of Hormuz. The Framework Agreement will go some way toward assuaging Israeli concerns in this regard.
In some ways, this latest agreement somewhat resembles President Trump’s 20 point plan which brought about the ceasefire in Gaza. While the Framework Agreement’s preamble seems to reach for highly ambitious goals, laudable but not entirely realistic – “Israel and Lebanon affirm the right of each state to exist in peace, and their mutual desire to live in security as neighbouring sovereign states” – in reality, its content is firmly fixed to the ground.
It preserves Israel’s freedom of action in Lebanon, for as long as the latter country’s sovereignty remains fictitious, and the Iranian proxy Hezbollah remains the strongest force there. Since there are no realistic prospects of Hezbollah’s domination of Lebanon ending any time soon, the agreement looks set to provide Israel with valuable room to manoeuvre on its northern front, in the still deeply ambiguous strategic moment in which the Middle East is currently located.
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