There should be “no more attacks by Israel anywhere in Lebanon”, Donald Trump blasted on social media, annoyed that his increasingly troublesome ally had once again bombed Lebanon’s capital, Beirut.
He is worried it might scupper the Great Deal with Iran (as he likes to capitalise it). It is set to be formally signed in Switzerland on Friday, and will hopefully bring an end to a war that killed thousands of people, caused the worst disruption to energy supply lines in history and pushed the world towards a multi-front conflict.
The deal, which has been yo-yoing for months, will bring “peace to the region including Lebanon”, Trump doubled down on Truth Social. “All sides should stand down.... Let’s not blow it!”
This was echoed by everyone involved, from mediator Pakistan to Iran’s foreign ministry, which called Lebanon “integral” to the truce.
Everyone except, notably, Israel. And this puts Benjamin Netanyahu in a highly precarious position.
Far from toeing the line, Netanyahu gave a press conference on Monday night in which not only did he insist Israeli troops would stay in Lebanon as long as they need to, but added: “We will continue to thwart threats in the region.”
And there’s the rub. Will the Great Deal last if Israel insists on going rogue? And what is in store for Israel if it continues to act – apparently unilaterally – against the US’s wishes in Lebanon? Will Netanyahu, who is facing an imminent election, be able to appease his population with no action?
It is clear that the Israeli government, backed by a majority of the public, does not want Lebanon to be included in the ceasefire. Polls in Israel have repeatedly showed a larger truce with Iran under these terms isn’t popular either.
Netanyahu’s defence minister, Israel Katz, insisted on Monday that Israeli troops would remain “indefinitely” deployed in the land it is occupying in Lebanon, to eliminate what it says are militant threats.
He added that if Iran attacked Israel because of events in Lebanon, it would retaliate, casting a shadow over the deal.
Pouring further fuel on the fire, Katz also said that the “security zone” in Lebanese sovereign territory would be cleared of local residents and "all terrorist infrastructure, including houses in contact villages”, a reference to Lebanese militant Hezbollah.
“We must not compromise on anything less than the dismantling of Hezbollah,” Israel’s ultranationalist national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, added on X.
Ehud Barak, former prime minister and Netanyahu rival, went further: “Israel is paying the price of Netanyahu’s hubris and blindness, and the price of the manipulations that he tried to pull on Trump.
“Iran emerged stronger; Israel emerged weaker. That is Netanyahu’s strategic responsibility. He failed.”
Right now, Israeli troops either occupy or have evacuation orders over more than a fifth of Lebanon, displacing more than 1.2 million people.
Despite the fact that a “truce” with Hezbollah has been in place since April, Israel has continued to bomb swathes of the country and push deeper into Lebanese territory. Hezbollah has also pounded multiple parts of Israel.
The Israeli military has been razing villages in the south of the war-ravaged country for weeks, and many in Lebanon fear Israel is following a “Gaza playbook”: creating a permanently occupied no man’s land.
Hezbollah, in a written statement released to mark the Iran deal, said that the truce was “a prelude to completing the path toward the full liberation of our land”.
None of this sounds like a comprehensive, workable peace deal.
And so not supporting the ceasefire in Lebanon, and continuing to push deeper into the country, sets Netanyahu on an increasingly fraught collision course with Trump, who is busy on social media congratulating himself on being the only president to make peace with Iran, and the first US leader to make “real peace” in the region.
At the start of the month, Trump reportedly already described Netanyahu as “f***ing crazy” in an angry phone call, ordering him once again not to strike Beirut while the US was seeking a deal with Iran.
Netanyahu has apparently decided to ignore Trump once again, prompting another firm, albeit more polite, social media jab from the US president.
Even after the latest deal was announced, Lebanese media reported a drone strike on two locations in southern Israel, although local and foreign security sources have said Israeli strikes have reduced.
Much of the detail has still to be bashed out over the coming months for the region-wide Great Deal to hold.
And with Netanyahu caught in the middle, a blistering war between Israel and Lebanon will only scupper that.
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