Afrasianet - Laila Nicolas - The understandings concluded by the Lebanese Authority with Israel establish a transitional phase, based on the postponement of Lebanese sovereign demands and the postponement of the final solution to later stages, which is exactly what happened in Oslo.
The understandings announced between Lebanon and Israel in April and June 2026 pose an analytical problem that goes beyond its direct political content to reach its deep legal structure.
These texts reveal the adoption of a familiar approach to resolving conflicts between Arabs and Israel under American auspices, which is based on security gradualism, control over the sovereignty and scope of the Arab side, while maintaining a wide margin of movement for Israel.
Hence, it is important to compare these understandings with the Oslo Accords between the Palestinian Authority and Israel. We list them below:
Phased and Jumping on Sovereign Matters
In terms of structure, the understandings concluded by the Lebanese Authority with Israel establish a transitional phase, based on the postponement of Lebanese sovereign demands and the postponement of the final solution to later stages, which is exactly what happened in Oslo.
In Oslo, the transition was made from a declaration of principles to detailed arrangements without resolving the core issues (Jerusalem, borders, and the return of refugees). Similarly, in Lebanon, there was talk of launching a ceasefire or a temporary truce, then establishing transitional arrangements, and postponing the final solutions to subsequent negotiations, which means postponing the issue of the Israeli withdrawal from the land, the return of the population, the return of prisoners, and other core Lebanese issues.
Israel's security priority
The decisive element in both cases is the priority of Israeli security. In Oslo, a security coordination system was established, and the Palestinian side was obliged to control the armed factions and prevent them from attacking Israel, and the latter retained the freedom to intervene militarily whenever it wished in the Palestinian territories and the freedom to incur and bombard.
The task of the Palestinian security forces was to maintain internal order, seize weapons, coordinate with Israel and arrest the resisters, or prevent them from carrying out operations against Israel, and Israel can do this on its own if it sees a threat, but it is not allowed to defend itself against the Israeli army, or to act as a sovereign army (when the Israeli incursions, it either withdraws from the streets or returns to its headquarters).
In the current Lebanese understandings, there is a Lebanese obligation that the Lebanese army will prevent any operations against Israel and dismantle armed groups, in exchange for Israel retaining the right to "freedom of movement within Lebanon" and "self-defense at any time" (as stated in the April Declaration).
The April statement shows only the obligations imposed on the Lebanese side, and this is accompanied by an explicit text that gives Israel the right to take "all necessary measures for self-defense," including "planned, imminent, or ongoing situations." This phrase, in its broadest form, constitutes an open legal rule that allows the Israeli side to kill and bomb Lebanon even preemptively and without an apparent threat.
Since the June Communiqué did not contain any explicit provision that nullifies or restricts Israel's "right to self-defense" as stated in the April Communiqué (it did not give Lebanon the same right) and did not create a clear legal conflict with it, this means that the previous text will continue to apply.
This rule is known in jurisprudence as the principle of "continuity of obligations," in which successive texts are read as an integrated unit, rather than as a broken chain. Thus, the silence in the subsequent text is not considered nullification, but is interpreted as an implicit retention of the previous arrangements, unless otherwise stated.
This makes Israel's right to attack Lebanon at will, even if it is not mentioned in the June Statement, legally existing and integrated into the structure of the agreement as a whole.
The geographical division that perpetuates the occupation
The "pilot zones" formula in the June Communiqué shows a clear functional similarity to the logic of geographic division adopted by the Oslo Accords through Areas A, B, and C. In the Palestinian experience, this division was presented as a temporary arrangement aimed at gradually transferring power to the Palestinian side, but the implementation on the ground produced a very different reality from what the agreements stipulated.
In Area A, which was supposed to be under full Palestinian civilian and security control, day-to-day administration remained in the hands of the PA, but this did not prevent the Israeli army's repeated intervention through incursions and arrests, which emptied the concept of "full control" of its actual security content.
Area B, which was allocated to a Palestinian civil administration with joint security coordination, witnessed in practice a clear superiority of the Israeli side in the security field, as Israel retained freedom of entry and control when needed, which greatly limited Palestinian effectiveness.
In Area C, which was supposed to gradually transition to Palestinian control, a full Israeli presence, both civilian and security, continued, with significant settlement expansion and the imposition of severe restrictions on Palestinian construction and use of land, including the demolition of structures under the pretext of lack of permits, which led to the establishment of direct Israeli control over much of the West Bank.
This experience shows how a geographical division of a transitional nature can turn into a permanent structure that reproduces the balance of power instead of adjusting it, which makes the concept of "experimental zones" in the Lebanese context similar to the reality of the West Bank, which the occupation is gnawing on day by day, and paves the way for its total annexation, which means that Israel seeks to annex southern Lebanon completely by gnawing.
