Israel's emerging deal with Lebanon: Lessons learned or history repeated? – analysis

The emerging ceasefire agreement with Lebanon will be a critical test of whether Israel has learned a key lesson of October 7: Never ignore what is happening on the other side of the border.

That lesson seems self-evident, but it isn’t.

The current war in Gaza is not the first military engagement Israel has had with Hamas in the area from which it withdrew in 2005. There were several large-scale campaigns – Cast Lead, Pillar of Defense, Protective Edge, Guardian of the Walls – and several smaller ones. None of them, however, reached the intensity of the current war.

After each of these operations – large and small – Israel committed the same mistake. It withdrew behind its border – a hi-tech border it thought was impenetrable – and essentially handed Hamas the keys, saying: “This is your territory; do with it what you want. But know this: If things get out of control, we’ll be back.”

In other words, after cleaning out Gaza a bit – after “mowing the lawn” in IDF parlance generally reserved for operations in the West Bank – the IDF would withdraw, allowing Hamas to regroup, rebuild, rearm, and dig new tunnels.

Failures of resolution 1701

With this modus operandi, Hamas was simply taking a page out of Hezbollah’s playbook. Indeed, after the 2006 Second Lebanon War, Hezbollah perfected this paradigm.

The Second Lebanon War ended with the adoption of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which called for Hezbollah to disarm, move north of the Litani River, and for the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) and UNIFIL to move into southern Lebanon to prevent Hezbollah from returning.

Then-foreign minister Tzipi Livni took credit for this resolution. In 2008, as the political rivalry heated up between her and then-defense minister Ehud Barak over who would succeed Ehud Olmert as prime minister, Livni boasted that 1701 was her top achievement as foreign minister. Barak said such a boast raised questions about her judgment because it was clear to the security establishment that this resolution was a failure.

Why was it a failure? Because there was no effective implementation mechanism.

Who was going to ensure that Hezbollah disarmed, moved north of the Litani, and would not come back or did not rearm? The Lebanese Army? Hezbollah was stronger than that army.

UNIFIL? Their role was to monitor, not disarm. And it did not even effectively carry out this mission – witness the miles of tunnels Hezbollah built along the border with Israel as a launching pad for an October 7-style attack.

Israel saw it all: the rearming, the building of tunnels, and the transformation of Lebanese villages along the border into veritable fortifications for Hezbollah. Yet it didn’t act.

Why not? Because for the 15 years prior to October 7, it sanctified quiet. Life in the Start-Up Nation was good; the economy was booming, investors were lining up, and diplomatic relations were flourishing all around the world – in Asia, Latin America, and Africa.

The communities in the North – all those communities now suffering so terribly under Hezbollah’s barrage of rockets – were also benefiting from the quiet. While every third house in the villages directly over the Lebanese side of the border served as a storehouse for Hezbollah arms (as Netanyahu said in 2018), every third house on the Israeli side had a zimmer (guest house).

Israel saw what was going on across the border but did not act. Who wants to disrupt the apple cart? Though it acted continuously in Syria to prevent Iran from turning Syria into yet another proxy in the “ring of fire” it was surrounding Israel with, and though it did take action from time to time to prevent Hezbollah from acquiring game-changing weapons, Israel did not act to prevent the rearming of Hezbollah in Lebanon nor Hamas in Gaza.

And that was a fatal error, a terrible mistake.

History is now giving Israel a do-over.

Once again, an agreement will terminate a war with Hezbollah. And – somewhat problematically – the terms of the agreement appear similar to those spelled out in UNSC 1701. Hezbollah will move north of the Litani; the LAF will deploy along the border and prevent them from returning; UNIFIL will have a monitoring role, and on and on and on.

Understandably, many Israelis, especially those forced to evacuate their homes under the threat of Hezbollah rockets, ask: What makes this agreement different?

Two things – one minor, the other major.

The minor change is the monitoring. A mechanism is being developed to detect when Hezbollah infringes on the agreement. But this time, it will not be in the hands of UNIFIL – which itself includes troops from countries downright hostile to Israel who should not be trusted with such a task – Indonesia, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Turkey, Ireland, and Spain.

The composition of this monitoring mechanism is still being worked out, but the United States will play the dominant role. France, the colonial power in Lebanon prior to statehood, also wants a role, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has objected, noting Paris’s animosity, illustrated by its announcement that it will honor the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrants against him and former defense minister Yoav Gallant.

It remains to be seen which countries will be involved.

However, this mechanism is less important than the implementation mechanism.

Who is going to ensure that Hezbollah does not move back to the villages around the border that have been destroyed over the last two months, where enormous quantities of high-quality Russian and Iranian weapons that would do any army proud were found?

Who is going to act against the terrorist organization if it tries to replenish its now-depleted arsenal of short-, medium-, and long-range rockets?

The answer is, unfortunately, no one. Which means Israel will need to retain the right to do the job itself. In other words, if it sees Hezbollah rebuilding – just as it did after the Second Lebanon War – this time, it will have to take action.

Negotiations bogged down over this matter, with the Lebanese government claiming they cannot agree to such a situation since it violates Lebanese sovereignty. This is a cruel joke since Hezbollah – with its small army of terrorists – long ago robbed the Lebanese government of sovereignty over the country.

The only body that will be able and willing to enforce any agreement is Israel. The only country that can prevent the smuggling of arms into Lebanon is Israel. The only force that can stop Hezbollah from once again deploying directly on its border is Israel.

It is in an effort to secure legitimacy from the US to make sure Hezbollah abides by the terms of the deal that Israel is trying to obtain a side letter from the US granting it freedom to act if Hezbollah violates the agreement.

Theoretically, Israel could act without such a side letter, just as it acts in Syria now or in the West Bank when it sees threats – or as it will act in Gaza after the war to prevent Hamas from metastasizing into the threat it was before October 7.

Then why seek a nod from the US? Because it will provide legitimacy.

That is the best-case scenario.

But there is a worst-case scenario as well. What happens when there is a different interpretation of the facts on the ground – when Israel thinks Hezbollah is in violation, but the US doesn’t?

The setup being discussed – in that it allows Israel to act when it sees violations – has advantages over 1701, which was worthless because no one implemented its clauses.

However, there are also some pitfalls, the biggest one being that it creates a potential recurring source of friction with the US.

Some may say this scenario is unlikely under the incoming Trump administration, whose national security team understands the threat Hezbollah poses. And indeed, that might be the case. But what about when the Trump administration, as is inevitable, will be replaced by another administration – perhaps one less aligned with Israel on security matters?

Israel has traveled a similar road in the past. During Ariel Sharon’s premiership, Israel and the Bush Administration exchanged letters leading up to the withdrawal from Gaza that Israel maintained, allowing for settlement growth within the existing construction lines in the settlements. 

When Barack Obama became president in 2009,  he immediately called for a complete settlement freeze, and his administration denied that any of these letters were formally binding.  In other words, an agreement Israel thought it had with one administration, was not honored by the next.  

The emerging ceasefire agreement addresses some of the failures of UNSC 1701. At the same time, however, it also creates some new ones of its own.