An agreement signed four days ago between the Israeli and Lebanese governments linking the withdrawal of Israeli troops from southern Lebanon with the disarmament of Hezbollah could actually lead to Israeli troops remaining in the neighboring country indefinitely, analysts say, and that could make it more difficult to reach a final peace deal between the US and Iran.
Hezbollah has so far refused to lay down its arms, and the Lebanese government has proven unable to persuade the well-armed, Iran-backed group to do so.
“This is not an agreement, but an imposed regulation,” a senior Lebanese politician, who did not want to be named, told Reuters. The MP was quoted as saying the Lebanese army was simply unable to force Hezbollah to disarm.
“This agreement has put the entire burden on Lebanon,” Michael Young, a Beirut-based analyst, told Reuters. It “creates a structure that allows the Israelis to remain (in southern Lebanon) indefinitely.”
Fawaz Gerges, a Lebanese scholar at the London School of Economics and Political Science, said the deal was “stillborn.”
Gerges told Reuters the agreement was a “gift” to Israel as it could effectively give Israeli officials a pretext to further consolidate and even expand the occupied “security zone” that stretches six miles into southern Lebanon.
The deal “will take us nowhere except civil war and perhaps an uprising by the Shiite (Muslim) community,” Young said.
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Regional analyst and former Israeli military intelligence officer Danny Citrinowicz told Reuters that Hezbollah’s dissolution was “something that would never happen” and that the deal ultimately legitimized an indefinite Israeli military presence in Lebanon.
He said it was unlikely that an Israeli prime minister would stop fighting Hezbollah while the group still posed a threat. Therefore, “nothing will happen. Israel will not withdraw and Hezbollah will not be disbanded.”
Both Iran and Hezbollah have repeatedly insisted that Israel must withdraw its forces from Lebanon as part of a full peace deal between Washington and Tehran.
