Israel’s government, often bellicose and wrong, is reasonable and right on Hezbollah. The world must help Lebanon rid itself of these criminals.
The Israeli airstrike on a Beirut suburb this week — the first since the November ceasefire — marked an escalation, but not an irrational one. While the justification was the firing of two rockets from Lebanese territory — one of which fell short, the other intercepted — this was not about retaliation but about sending a strategic message: Lebanon must get serious about disarming the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia. Its people deserve this.
It is often said that Israel and Hezbollah, which until last year was the largest non-state army in the world, are locked in a cycle of violence. But this framing is misleading. The deeper reality is that Hezbollah is not just a homegrown militant group defending Lebanese interests — it is an Iranian proxy that has held sway over Lebanon’s political and military landscape for decades. Having occupied Lebanon’s south, it has dragged the long-suffering country into wars it did not choose, wages conflict from within civilian areas, and undermines the legitimacy of the Lebanese state.
In Oct. 2023 Hezbollah decided to attack Israel in the wake of Hamas’s own brutal assault and massacre, and over the course of the following year, it launched near-daily attacks on northern Israel, including anti-tank missiles, drones, and rocket fire, often resulting in casualties and sparking a mass civilian evacuation. I was frankly amazed that Israel put up with it for almost a year, but that ended last summer. After intense fighting the ceasefire ended with Hezbollah much degraded and Lebanon agreeing to take control of its south, in line with UN Security Council Resolution 1701 from 2006.
Lebanon has perhaps done its best to comply, but has not exactly succeeded, even though the government, under new president Joseph Aoun, appears to be a good-faith player. What we’re seeing now is pressure by Israel to compel them to act decisively – and disarm what’s left of Hezbollah (which is still tens of thousands of militiamen and quite an arsenal of remaining rockets).
That is a tall order, no doubt, and pressuring a fragile government carries real risks. But there is also a rare and critical opportunity. Hezbollah is weaker than it has been in years — battered by Israel and its own overreach in the lost cause of propping up the former Assad regime Syria, constrained by Lebanon’s economic collapse, and isolated in an increasingly unstable region. Syria is no longer functioning as a highway for weapons from Iran. And Iran, its patron, is in any case distracted by internal unrest and overstretched across the region.
Lebanon’s new government inspires a measure of public hope and much international support. New Prime Minister Nawaf Salam has explicitly declared his support for disarming Hezbollah (but has done nothing). Now comes Israel’s action.
This confluence of circumstances is unique — and fleeting. If the international community genuinely wants to help Lebanon, it should not waste time issuing generic calls for de-escalation or condemning Israel’s tactics. Instead, it should assist Lebanon in reclaiming its sovereignty by helping it do the obviously needed thing. Again, in case anyone has somehow missed the point: That is to disarm Hezbollah.
Donald Trump, so often ridiculous, seems to get this – but the administration is yet to take action. Europe, which has a legitimate beef with Trump at present, still seems quite confused about the reality in Lebanon. Emanuel Macron, who seems to have global ambitions and enjoys some sway over Lebanon due to France’s colonial past there, should read some history and get with the program. Instead he’s pointlessly wagging his finger at Israel.
During today’s panel on Al Jazeera, I argued that now is the moment for such a global effort. Unfortunately, time ran out before I could respond to a central point made by my counterpart, Doha-based Professor Sultan Barakat. He claimed that UN Security Council Resolution 1701, from after the 2006 war, calls only for Hezbollah’s redeployment away from the border — not for its disarmament. That’s not exactly true. Resolution 1701 explicitly references Resolution 1559, which unambiguously calls for “the disbanding and disarmament” of all militias in Lebanon. Hezbollah was the primary target of that provision. The international community made a promise — to Lebanon and to its neighbors — that armed militias would not be allowed to dominate Lebanese soil. That promise has gone unfulfilled.
Barakat also warned that Israel’s aggressive posture risks weakening the very government it seeks to strengthen. That’s a valid concern. But it only reinforces the urgency of international involvement. Lebanon quite clearly cannot do this on its own. Its institutions are too fragile, its army too outgunned, its political consensus too fractured. What’s needed is a robust diplomatic and economic package, coupled with direct assistance and political pressure, that empowers the Lebanese state to finally assert control over its territory.
Because the truth is, Lebanon has not been a truly sovereign nation in over half a century. First came the PLO in the 1970s, operating with impunity there after it was kicked out of Jordan. Then Syrian occupation. Then, for a time, an Israeli presence in the south. And for the last 40 years, Hezbollah — backed by Tehran — has operated as a state within a state, making war and peace decisions on behalf of the Lebanese people without their consent.
This is not normal. And more importantly, it is not inevitable. Lebanon deserves to be free. Free from foreign proxies. Free from internal militias. Free to govern itself as a unified state, with one army, one authority, and one future. Israel is not what stands in the way of any of that.
Demanding the disarming Hezbollah is not an affront against Lebanon. It is the key to saving it. If the world wants to prevent another devastating war — one that neither the Lebanese nor the Israelis want, and that will only please the Iranian dictatorship and its vile servants — it should help Lebanon take back what has been denied for far too long: its full and genuine sovereignty.
HERE’S THE AL JAZEERA PANEL:
Host Sara Khairat: Joining me now here is Sultan Barakat, Professor of Public Policy at Hamad Bin Khalifa University, and also we have Dan Perry, who’s an Israeli affairs analyst and the former regional editor of the Associated Press in the Middle East, joining us live from Tel Aviv. Thank you both very much for your time. Sultan, I’ll start with you. Obviously, we’ve seen these airstrikes that were carried out by Israel on Lebanon, specifically targeting Beirut yesterday. Do you think that’s a proportionate response to the rockets that were fired from Lebanon this week?
Prof. Sultan Barakat: It’s totally disproportionate and has nothing to do with the rockets, in fact, because these two rockets that were fired, neither of them made it actually to Israel. One landed in Lebanon and the other was intercepted and Hezbollah denied any association with those two rockets. Even Macron, earlier today, denounced the attack and he said it was unprovoked and Israel should actually respect better the ceasefire.
SK: There was a response from the US on this. They actually said that they support the Israeli response, adding that they urged the Lebanese government to ensure that there’s a disarmament. This is also what Israel is saying, but we are seeing a weaker Hezbollah at the moment, it’s very clear, and also a new Lebanese government that says it’s trying to do what it can, given its limited resources. Is Israel’s expectation realistic here?
Dan Perry: It’s expectations that the US supports, as you say, and I suspect it’s expectations that the majority of the population of Lebanon supports. It is undoubtedly also difficult. I disagree with Dr. Barakat that Israel is seeking to prolong the war and wants to eternally target Beirut. I think we need not overcomplicate. Israel wishes the state of Lebanon to deploy the army as was promised along the south and prevent any and all attacks upon Israel. Israel also wishes Hezbollah to be disarmed. Those two desires are not going to go away and they have fairly widespread support around the world. No matter what people say about particular events on the ground in a particular village, this bigger picture is going to remain. The big question, as you suggest, is whether the new government of President Aoun is able to actually do what they’ve promised.
SK: But Dan, there seems to be an inequality here because Israel is still positioning its troops in five different locations in Lebanon. Are they still there? And that is a breach of the ceasefire agreement.
DP: Israel argues, of course, that Lebanon’s in breach by not having fully deployed in south Lebanon its military and by doing nothing so far to actually initiate the disarming of Hezbollah. But look, who’s in breach and who’s not in breach is, I think, rather secondary. For example, in Gaza, Israel is undoubtedly in breach.
Israel walked away from the ceasefire unknowingly because it has a strategy that was not fulfilled by the ceasefire, which is the eradication of Hamas as a governing force in Gaza. It’s different in Lebanon. Israel has no actual conflict with Lebanon. In fact, I assess that the unspoken goal of all this pressure on the government of Lebanon is indeed not only to implement the ceasefire on Israel’s terms, but to move towards a normalization deal, basically a peace treaty between Israel and Lebanon.
SK: Dan, Sultan just wanted to respond to something you just said there.
SB: Well, it’s very important to realize that the agreement talks about 1701, United Nations Resolution 1701, which called on Hezbollah to draw up to the Litani River. It does not talk about Hezbollah disarming or marginalizing Hezbollah as a political group, etc. These are issues that have developed afterwards. The real difficulty here is as long as Israel continues to not respect the ceasefire, breach Lebanon’s security so regularly and so casually, it undermines the very legitimacy of the Lebanese government that needs to build in order to have full sovereignty on its ground.
SK: Thank you very much, because we’re running out of time. Soltan Barakat and Dan Perry, of course, so much to unpick here, but we will need to leave it here.
(AND SUBSEQUENT INTERVIEW)
SK: Thank you very much, Dan, once again for your time. Is all of this an indication of whether the ceasefire is likely to hold or not?
DP: Hard to say, but it certainly is an indication that Israel has reached the point of zero tolerance for any further rocket attacks coming at it from Lebanon and is compelled to take some drastic measures to force the Lebanese government to own the issue. I think we see clearly that the decades of Lebanon washing its hands of a situation where an Iran-backed and Iran-guided militia occupies the south and attacks Israel at will is basically over, and what to do about that is a big question for the region, for Lebanon and for the world.
SK: You say a big question for the region, for Lebanon and the world, and yet Israel does play a role in this because it still has its troops positioned in Lebanon, and that is a violation of the ceasefire agreement.
DP: Look, Sara, I think that’s a non-issue. You know, for years we heard Hezbollah using the Sheba Farms, which is like a square kilometer, as an excuse for its aggression against Israel. Israel does not seek to occupy any part of Lebanon. I know they’re in five locations that they use as reconnaissance, essentially, and their excuse for this is because the Lebanese military has not yet fully deployed in Lebanon’s south, and of course the issue of disarming Hezbollah hasn’t yet begun. These, I think, are tactical. The strategic issue is for real. Israel does not have any irredentism towards Lebanon. I know this well. I live in Israel. No one here that I’ve met yet has enmity towards Lebanon.
They want the outrage from their perspective of Lebanon allowing Hezbollah to attack Israel from its territory … they want that over, and I realize very well that the Lebanese armed forces perhaps historically have not been powerful enough to actually control their own territory, and that has to do with their ability to impose their sovereignty on their own territory, and I think, you know, if they wanted Israel’s help, they’d get it. If they want Western help, they might get it. I suspect if they wanted Arab League help, they might get it, but I think the game is over when it comes to Israel tolerating Hezbollah. It’s as simple as that.
SK: You say the game is over for tolerating Hezbollah, and yet there are indications that Hezbollah has somewhat lost some of its power. Certainly there’s a new Lebanese government at the moment and(Hezbollah) doesn’t have as much power in the government. There is obviously a call for disarmament, but ceasefires are also based on trust, and shouldn’t Israel give them more time to be able to implement this disarmament? Some have criticized Israel for its heavy-handed tactics, including the French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday saying that this is a ceasefire breach.
DP: I agree with you. Of course, on the other hand, the Americans have supported it, but that’s the Trump administration. Look, it’s a delicate balance because, of course, for Israel to compel Lebanon too brutally to take control of its own sovereign territory risks undermining the government of Aoun, who they would like to be a friend with. I agree with you that the current Israeli government in general has difficulty fostering trust for all the reasons that we know, and risks appearing too bellicose at times. All of that is true, but I think, for example, we need to distinguish between the situation in Gaza, which is horrifically complex, and the situation with Lebanon, where Israel desires peace and wants Hezbollah gone. I can hardly imagine an argument for not having Hezbollah gone. I can’t think of too many examples in history where a rogue militia with aggressive intent towards neighbors was allowed to prosper in a country, and that country did well from this. So, delicate, complex, and I very much am worried about a resumption of hostilities. I am afraid for my friends in Lebanon, and I hope a way is found to avoid a resumption of full-scale hostility. But I don’t think … Israel is going to tolerate Hezbollah anymore
