The Hizbullah-Israel ceasefire is unlike the 2006 agreement, which fell apart the day after it was signed. In 2006, there was neither oversight nor capable actors to sustain it. Today a new awareness pervades the agreement after the October 7, 2023 massacre. The agreement expresses the end of illusions, yet with an understanding that it is necessary to move forward. The terms were similar back then, under Resolution 1701: Hizbullah was to disarm and retreat beyond the Litani River, and UNIFIL was to monitor, along with the Lebanese Army, ensuring that Nasrallah would not return to southern Lebanon.
It was a failed pact that intimidated the Lebanese population and the army’s Shiites, like UNIFIL, were ineffective and even complicit in opposing Israel. Tzipi Livni, who shepherded that agreement, paid the price with political failure. Taqiyya – a sanctioned falsehood for Islam – enabled the rebuilding of the Radwan forces along the border. The machinery of terrorist aggression stockpiled hundreds of thousands of missiles and drones and secretly dug tunnels near Jewish homes in the Galilee. After October 7, this escalated into a war of invasion alongside Hamas.
Why did the previous agreement fail? It lacked the mechanisms for oversight and intervention. Now Netanyahu is establishing, with U.S. support, an agreement that allows the monitoring of Hizbullah’s actions, and timely intervention if necessary. Radwan must stay far away from the border, be disarmed, and cannot rebuild their sham villages – now destroyed – that were previously filled with weapons and tunnels. For the first time, any truck approaching will be inspected to ensure it does not carry arms.
Israel seeks peace but is free from the illusions that led to the October 7 disaster. Is it possible? Can Hizbullah be kept in check? Why now, when Israel has decimated the terrorist force serving the mullahs, eliminated Nasrallah and his officials, carried out legendary operations like the beeper explosions, and destroyed much of Hizbullah’s positions and military-economic reserves? Hizbullah’s aims are genocidal attacks on Israel and obedience to Iran.
Israel wants to avoid provoking U.S. President Joe Biden into allowing the United Nations Security Council, like President Barack Obama did in 2016, to condemn it. It seeks respite for the reservists who have been fighting for more than a year, yet have been wounded and killed from Gaza to the North, while their families and livelihoods suffer at home. Israel also wants to expedite American arms supplies and compel Hamas, now completely isolated, to negotiate on hostages. Israel, however, has never aimed to eliminate Hizbullah, as doing so would require occupying Lebanon.
The Jewish state understands that continuing to battle Hizbullah diverts time and resources from the primary target: Iran, which is developing a nuclear bomb while reshaping its strategy of encirclement. The mechanism of the agreement builds the capacity – crafted in-depth by Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer – to act swiftly on new arms imports and Hizbullah violations aimed at rebuilding an attack force. Supply routes from Syria, Iran’s highway to Beirut, will be shut down; on the ground, Israel, the Americans, CENTCOM, and some Arab countries will also create new prospects for Gaza.
France, which initially signaled its intent to arrest Netanyahu after the ICC decision to issue his arrest warrant for “war crimes,” naturally lacks Israel’s trust. When the matter falls into the hands of the new American administration in two months, it will become clear whether Hizbullah terrorism – a child of the mullahs – persists. If so, one can logically expect a broad “go” rather than a “don’t.”
