Afrasianet - Oraib Al Rantawi - There are no easy options waiting for Lebanon.. Neither the state enjoys the luxury of choosing from multiple options and scenarios, nor does Hezbollah have better alternatives than the ones it is testing with blood and fire these days.
On the eve of the start of the third round of "preliminary talks in Washington" between the Israeli and Lebanese sides under the sole auspices of the United States, the Israeli army escalated the war of extermination and the systematic destruction of villages and towns along the southern Litani River.
It expanded its targeting circle to include the north of the river and areas in the Bekaa, after striking the heart of the southern suburbs, violating understandings previously concluded between the two sides several weeks ago.
This puts the government and the presidency in a crisis and an awkward situation, and also puts the party in a difficult position in the face of its social environment, which is engulfed in flames by the "Rafah and Beit Hanoun scenario", the chapters of which are being translated in the south of the Litani, in a more brutal and barbaric manner.
The Lebanese state cannot turn its back on the option of diplomacy and negotiations, while the warring international and regional parties (Iran and the United States) resort to the "Islamabad track" and its direct and indirect negotiations.
Wars of all magnitude often end at the negotiating tables. I do not think that Hezbollah and the "Shiite duo" – or others in Lebanon – are opposed in principle to engage in negotiations with Israel, even if they want indirect negotiations, nor are they naïve enough to demand the exclusion of the American "mediator", although they demand the expansion of the mediator and the inclusion of regional and international parties that are more balanced and balanced in their approaches to the Lebanese crisis, both in its internal dimension and most importantly in its dimension related to the need to curb Israeli aggression that is unleashed from all Chains and headbands.
In the wake of the intensification of the aggression on the eve of the latest round of talks, it seemed that the two Lebanese parties, the PA and the party, had decided to take a small step back to avoid slipping to the bottom of the abyss of internal clashes.
The positions issued by the government and the presidency emphasize the constants of the Lebanese national position, and exclude the option of normalization and the method of "handshakes", which Hezbollah met with a cautious and conditional response, considering that the "authority" has begun to "return to its national sense", pointing in particular to leaks attributed to the first presidency, that the disarming of the party is not an administrative or security decision to be taken, but rather a security, political, economic, and social path that ends with the enforcement of the " Exclusivity of arms", coinciding with corresponding Israeli steps, starting with stopping the war and violations, and not ending with stopping the war and forcibly returning the displaced from their towns and villages in the south, through the release of prisoners, and the start of reconstruction.
Poisoned handshake
The American insistence on President Joseph Aoun to shake hands with Netanyahu at the White House, even before the negotiating table was convened, reflects two things: American indifference to the interests and sensitivities of the Lebanese, and their unbridled eagerness to "float" Benjamin Netanyahu, whom Trump has been giving his support and embrace, while the fate of Lebanon and the fate of the Lebanese is less important from the perspective of the occupant of the White House, compared to the "image of victory" he makes for himself and presents it on a silver platter to his "wonderful" partner in his war on Iran.
President Aoun did well when he listened to the advice of some Lebanese and some Arab mediators, and expressed his refusal to participate in the "photo session" at the White House.
However, this development, as important as it is, remains an "incomplete step" unless it is complemented by a position that places Hezbollah's weapons in an internal Lebanese context, which does not allow the American-Israeli narrative that promotes the presentation of the party as a "common enemy" to Lebanon, Israel, the region, and the world, to control the negotiations and decide their results in advance, before they begin.
This is a false, if not catastrophic, start to any negotiation process between the Lebanese and the Israelis, especially since there are those in Tel Aviv who are betting that it may open a door for the "legitimization" of the Israeli aggression against Lebanon, and are even desperately waiting for the moment when Lebanese parties, preferably officially, call for "Israeli protection" in an abhorrent restoration of what happened in the years of the civil war, leading up to the invasion of 1982 and the occupation of Beirut, a "bet" that seems impossible in the foreseeable future anyway, in light of The constraints of the two situations, internal and regional, surrounding Lebanon.
Lebanon can begin to correct the course and return to the idea of "indirect negotiations", but if direct negotiations are necessary, let them be at a limited military, technical, and diplomatic level, which may develop and improve the development of the negotiations, once they reach results that preserve Lebanon's rights and sovereign interests, on which the Lebanese from all parties are almost unanimous.
Lebanon can intensify its efforts on many parallel and simultaneous tracks, and not be satisfied with putting 99.9% of the solution papers in the hands of Washington, as the latter is part of the problem and not part of the solution, and Lebanese diplomacy is required to think about how to benefit from the "Islamabad process", not in terms of putting the Lebanese file in the hands of the Iranian negotiator, this is a kind of fantasy.
I do not think that a sane person in Tehran would expect such an outcome, and that Lebanese diplomacy should seek to invoke and activate the Arab-Islamic mediation triad that "worked" on the Gaza file, and that European parties that are friendly to Lebanon and understand the realities of the very complex Lebanese scene should be brought in.
Most importantly, the manifestations of internal polarization should be dissipated and the channels of national dialogue should be opened, so that no one will go to a confrontation front with the enemy, militarily or diplomatically, with an internal front divided against itself and standing on the brink of a pit of civil war.
Weapons in its national context
On the other hand, the party, as it is fighting one of its fiercest battles with the occupation, must realize that strengthening the Islamabad track may be beneficial for it and Lebanon, but it is not a substitute for the path of "regaining the initiative" that the PA is talking about, and to put its weapons at the service of the four major goals on which most Lebanese agree.
Hezbollah is undoubtedly aware that with the exception of Iran, and less than half of the Lebanese, the rest of the local, regional, and international parties will not be satisfied with a return to the pre-October 7 eradication, and that their positions range from uprooting the party from its roots (Israel and the United States) to seeking "political solutions" to its weapons through the revival of the armistice agreements (albeit somewhat modified), and its greater integration into the Lebanese system, under the roof of the Taif Agreement, and after its implementation in its various stages.
The party is still fighting to prove the seriousness and feasibility of its weapon and its ability to achieve its three historic functions: protection, deterrence and liberation, but it is doing so on much more difficult terms than those it has lived through over the past four decades.
While it is doing well, and even surprisingly, in the fields of confrontation with the occupation army, it stands on the threshold of a decisive regional crossroads: what if Iran concludes an agreement with Washington to end the war on it?
What if it succeeds in generalizing this agreement to the various "conjunctive tracks", foremost of which is Lebanon, as it officially and publicly demands? What role will the Lebanese armament remain, if the four objectives that are agreed upon can be achieved, especially after the regional role of this weapon has disappeared or is almost gone?
It is the right of the party, and the duty of the state, to look with caution and skepticism at what is contained in the Israeli strategy for Lebanon, and it is the right and duty of the state not to rely on loose promises and pledges that expire before their ink dries.
It is the duty of the state to mobilize its diplomacy to be a "state" diplomacy and not a team that holds the foreign ministry, and it is its duty to activate the paths of action on the Cairo-Riyadh-Doha-Ankara-Islamabad-Paris and other lines, and not to rely on the "American mediator" who has almost no separation between him and the Israeli occupier.
It is the duty of the state to avoid slipping into uncalculated gambles, and the lesson of Oslo and before and after it must remain in front of its eyes, and there is much to be learned from the experience of innocent American mediation in Gaza.
There are no easy options for the state and the party, and there is no alternative to a national dialogue that draws the contours of a road map to get out of the intractability, and Lebanon should not miss out on its internal divisions, which could be the beginning of the end of the path of pain that it has been walking for half a century or more.
