Celebrating Ashura by commemorating the martyrdom of the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson Imam Hussein in 680, Hezbollah Secretary General Sheikh Naim Qassem affirmed that “liberation is a duty, no matter how long it takes... How do you expect us not to stand firm while the enemy continues its occupation, aggression, and killing?”
Qassem’s statement essentially reflects his party’s opposition to surrender its arms to the Lebanese government as stipulated by UNSCR 1701 and 1559, the basis upon which Israel and Lebanon reached a cease fire agreement in November 2024.
In contradistinction to Lebanon’s official statement, as reflected by the presidency and premiership, that all weapons must be limited to the state, Hezbollah has amplified its political rejectionism on the grounds that Israel has not withdrawn from five areas along the border with Israel, continued its violations of the defunct ceasefire, and reaffirmed its colonial and territorial ambitions in Lebanon.
This logic is ahistorical and reckless. Hezbollah’s justifications do not stand the test of Israel-Lebanon’s history. Not only does Israel have no designs in Lebanon; Jerusalem has often prevented the Lebanese state from being swallowed by regional or internal hostile forces. Jerusalem’s policy has by and large been defensive.
The political history of Lebanon's relationship with Israel
During the 1920s, when Lebanon and the Yishuv were under the French and British mandates respectively, Lebanese and Jews shared ideational foundations for coexistence.
During the 1930s, Lebanon’s president Émile Eddé had contacts with the Jewish Agency, culminating with Eddé expressing his support for the Peel Commission, which recommended the partition of Palestine into Jewish and Arab homelands.
Further negotiations were stymied by the emergence of a political constellation, led by president Bechara al-Khoury, who endorsed Lebanon’s political integration in the pan-Arab anti-Zionist camp.
Nevertheless, in the 1940s, fearing Muslim predominance, Maronite patriarch Anthony Arida revived Christian contacts with the Jewish Agency, which climaxed with the 1946 treaty. The treaty reciprocally recognized Jewish aspiration for independence in Palestine and the independent Christian character of Lebanon. Significantly, the treaty reassured the Maronite Church that the Zionist movement had no territorial ambitions in Lebanon.
However, in 1947, the bishop of Beirut Ignatius Mubarak wrote a letter to the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) expressing his support for a Jewish state in Palestine. This provoked an outcry among the Muslims in Lebanon and across the Arab world. Even though Eddé and Arida endorsed secretly the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine, Arida denied publicly his stance and condemned Mubarak.
Such were the vagaries of Lebanon’s confessional politics, which had become a fixture in Lebanon’s relationship with Israel, seeking in secret Israel’s support while in public denying it. This became clear in the 1950s as the Cold War spread to the heartland of the Middle East. Faced by a militaristic pan-Arabist campaign, led by Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser, to remove him from power for signing off on the Eisenhower doctrine, Lebanese president Camille Chamoun called on US president Dwight Eisenhower for help.
Israel not only provided intelligence information to the US Marines deployed in Lebanon but also secretly supplied the Christian forces supporting Chamoun with weapons smuggled through the border Israeli town of Metulla. In the 1960s, Israel repeatedly warned the Lebanese government to control Palestinian militant activities to no avail.
In fact, Lebanese governments legitimized Palestinian activities on Lebanese soil. When Israel attacked Beirut’s international airport in 1968 in retaliation for an attack on an El Al plane, prime minister Abdallah el-Yafi defended Palestinian terrorism by describing their work as “legal and sacred.”
This foolhardy attitude helped in no small measure president Nasser to impose the 1969 Cairo agreement on Lebanon, which created a Palestinian state within the Lebanese state. Southern Lebanon had become a terrorist haven. PLO chairman Yasser Arafat had become a kingmaker in Lebanon to the chagrin of Christian leadership.
The fallout of Lebanon's civil war
Soon enough, Lebanon’s civil war exploded in 1975. Forsaken by big powers and threatened by defeat, the Christian Phalange and National Liberal parties made official contacts with Israel’s government and asked for weapons in the name of a minority alliance, fighting the same enemy, and saving the Christian community.
Despite mixed feelings about the Christian leadership, Israel obliged. Initially, prime minister Yitzhak Rabin pursued a policy to help the Christians help themselves. However, under the Likud’s government, which came to power in 1977, prime minister Menahem Begin elevated Israel’s support of the Christian camp to direct involvement in the war.
Begin and his defense minister Ariel Sharon greatly supported the Phalange party under the rising leadership of Bachir Gemayel, the younger son of the patriarch of the family Pierre Gemayel. Begin built hopes for a peace treaty with Lebanon and expected Christian involvement in Israel’s plan to expel the PLO from Beirut as the Phalange leadership hedged its partnership with Israel.
Pierre and his older son, Amin, paradoxically sought yet frowned upon Israel’s support. Bachir, on the other hand, publicly recognized this support. In fact, his strategy had been to provoke Israel’s invasion of Lebanon for he knew that only Israel had the power to expel the PLO and Syrian forces from Lebanon.
However, when the time had come for the Phalange forces to participate in the battle for Beirut, Bachir demurred; and thereafter, following his election as president in August 1982, he balked at signing a peace treaty with Israel even though Israel had forced the PLO from Lebanon. Begin was disappointed with the man he called “my son.”
Before long, Begin’s government came under scathing international and domestic criticism for inviting the Phalange to ferret out PLO fighters who reportedly remained in Beirut’s Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps. Although no PLO militants were found in the camp, the Phalange avenged their recently assassinated leader by killing many Palestinian civilians. Facing an international opprobrium and censured domestically, Begin decided to withdraw from Beirut but not before signing the May 17, 1983, agreement with Lebanon.
The agreement was little less than a full peace treaty. It explicitly stated that both Lebanon and Israel “recognize their right and obligation to live in peace with each other.” Significantly, Israel did not entertain any territorial gain in Lebanon. Pressured by domestic and regional opposition to the agreement, president Amin Gemayel abrogated the agreement.
Lebanon lost a peace opportunity. Israel’s legendary intelligence officer David Kimche observed that Lebanon’s confessional politics and shifting alliances are vagaries beyond the grasp of international diplomacy.
The growth of Hezbollah
Thanks to the Iranian and Syrian Assad regimes, Hezbollah built a state within a state undergirding a huge social and military infrastructure. Lebanon lived under the murderous thumb of Hezbollah. Although Israel withdrew completely from Lebanon in 2000 according to a UN-approved line, Hezbollah continued its so called resistance against Israel. To be sure, Hezbollah had become central to Iran’s axis of resistance against Israel.
As fate would have it, only Israel was able to deal Hezbollah a severe blow and offer Lebanon another opportunity to secure its sovereignty. But time is running out for the Lebanese government to pressure or force Hezbollah to give up its arms. As shown, Israel has had no territorial or colonial ambitions in Lebanon. Israel today occupies some border areas in Lebanon imperative to its security.
Clearly, Israel will not agree to Byzantinian diplomatic ploys, perfected by Hezbollah and its political carpetbaggers, meant to gain time until things change or protagonists get tired. Lebanon has a choice to prosper and live in peace with its neighbor or live disgraced internationally and subdued by Israel’s sword.
Surely, Lebanese leaders have to disabuse themselves of the illusion that Israel will again open its arms to welcome their egotistic supplications.
The writer is a professor of political science at Florida Atlantic University. He served as chief of emergency of the Red Cross in East Beirut during Lebanon’s civil war. He can be reached at rrabil@fau.edu, and on X @robertgrabil.