Don’t Get Your Hopes Up About an Israel-Hezbollah Cease-fire

The U.S. and France are pushing a cease-fire proposal between Israel and the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah to avert war at Israel’s northern border with Lebanon. But don’t expect to see Israel agree to a cease-fire with Hezbollah anytime soon.

All indications are that Israel is continuing apace with its strategy of escalating the conflict with the aim of ultimately de-escalating tensions. Israeli Prime Minister BENJAMIN NETANYAHU wrote on X this morning that he “did not even respond” to the U.S. and French-led proposal and that he has “instructed the IDF to continue the fighting with full force.”

Part of the problem, says former Middle East peace negotiator AARON DAVID MILLER, is that the only party that’s in a hurry is the Biden administration, which is eager to avoid a major war, especially ahead of the U.S. election. None of the other key stakeholders — Netanyahu, Hamas leader YAHYA SINWAR and Hezbollah leader HASSAN NASRALLAH — benefit from a deal right now.

Sinwar, he says, wants an expanded conflict to relieve pressure from Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Nasrallah is staring down a major threat from Israel following the pager and walkie-talkie attacks and the wave of Israeli airstrikes against Hezbollah targets and can’t back down. And Netanyahu faces little pressure from an Israeli public that seems supportive of Hezbollah as his poll numbers increase in the wake of tactical successes.

The Biden administration “needed to do something, especially given the focus at UNGA” said Miller, who’s now a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “But tethering the Gaza and Lebanon fronts together is a very heavy lift, and it’s very hard for me to believe that this can succeed.”

A cease-fire also wouldn’t serve Israel’s strategic interests, argued JONATHAN RUHE, who leads foreign policy work at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America. In his view, a cease-fire likely wouldn’t ensure that residents of the country’s north could quickly return to their homes. Ruhe added that “a viable cease-fire isn’t just both sides ceasing fire” and would require a full withdrawal of Hezbollah forces from the Lebanese border consistent with a 2006 U.N. Security Council resolution.

“I haven’t seen realistic public proposals for how that’s going to be accomplished,” Ruhe said.

The worry, both Ruhe and Miller warn, is that Israel could get ensnared in a long-term military conflict in Lebanon like the one it endured between 1982 and 2000. During that war, Israel spent three years actively fighting off insurgencies operating in a security zone it administered in Lebanon’s southern provinces before the conflict morphed into a 15-year guerrilla war between Hezbollah and the Israel Defense Forces.

Israel’s embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment. White House spokesperson KARINE JEAN-PIERRE said at a briefing today that U.S. officials are continuing to discuss the cease-fire proposal with their Israeli counterparts and that the release of the proposal was coordinated with the Israeli government.

Yet the ghosts of the South Lebanon war are clearly on the minds of U.S. policy makers, as they work to avoid an expansion of the conflict days before the election.

On MSNBC’s Morning Joe today, Secretary of State ANTONY BLINKEN argued that the legacy of that conflict should dispel any notion that a full-blown war would allow people to return to their homes faster. He also emphasized that the goal of a cease-fire is to ensure Hezbollah poses less of a threat to Israel’s security going forward.

“If we can get an agreement that at least gets them off the border, people will have more confidence, and they can get about their lives in their own country. I think what you’re hearing clearly is the world wants to see it move in that direction,” Blinken said.

Originally published by POLITICO..