‘Path to Normalization’: Lebanese President Turns on Hezbollah, Calls for Israel Talks

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun on Monday accused Hezbollah of dragging Lebanon toward becoming a “second Gaza” with its rocket attacks on Israel and called for negotiating a full ceasefire with Jerusalem, saying the launches served “the Iranian regime’s calculations” and risked “collapsing” the country.

Aoun’s remarks, among the most direct criticism of Iran-backed Hezbollah by a Lebanese president in years, accused the Islamist terror group of launching rockets as an “obvious trap” to lure his country back into a conflict with Israel.

“Whoever launched those rockets wanted to secure the fall of the Lebanese state, under aggression and chaos, even at the price of destroying dozens of our villages and the fall of tens of thousands of our people. For the sake of the Iranian regime’s calculations,” Aoun told European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President António Costa in an online meeting. 

Earlier this month, he added, the Lebanese government made “a clear and irrevocable decision” barring any military or security activity by Hezbollah.

An Israeli coalition of former diplomats, security experts, and business leaders called Aoun’s remarks a “courageous” and potentially “historic” opening by a Lebanese government seeking to disarm Hezbollah.

“Israel must seize the moment to create the necessary conditions for shaping a negotiated reality along the northern border — one that would constitute a significant strategic victory against Iran and further isolate it,” the Coalition for Regional Security said in a statement. 

The group praised the “anti-Iranian Lebanese government” for seeking to disarm Hezbollah, but warned that “it is unable to accomplish this task alone.” 

According to Lianne Pollak-David, the coalition’s founder, the current US-Israeli strikes on Iran were creating more space for Beirut to confront Hezbollah openly.

“The more Iran is weakened and isolated, the more the Lebanese government feels confident going directly and publicly against Hezbollah,” she told The Algemeiner. 

But Pollak-David argued the Lebanese government could not disarm Hezbollah on its own and would need help from outside powers, including Israel. That, she said, would force Israel to walk a “very tricky fine line” to break Hezbollah on the one hand, without leaving Beirut to absorb the blowback by itself.

She called for “collaborating with the Lebanese government, leveraging all the regional coalition that has been formed around this war, and, under [US President Donald] Trump’s leadership, pushing for a new reality in Lebanon.”

Iran’s military and political incapacitation could even open the way to more regional peace agreements, she said.

“Everything is connected,” Pollak-David said. “The more Iran is isolated and the more its proxies are weakened, the more we’re seeing all the moderate forces in the region coordinating and collaborating,” increasing the chances of “Israel-Lebanese normalization and Israel-Arab normalization altogether.”

But Hezbollah expert Lieutenant Colonel (Res.) Sarit Zehavi offered a far more skeptical view, questioning whether Aoun’s remarks signaled any real change on the ground.

“I don’t see the difference between Aoun’s remarks now and his remarks when he was elected, except for the willingness to have direct negotiations with Israel,” she told The Algemeiner.

When Aoun took office in January of last year, he said Lebanon must eventually ensure weapons are held only by the state, but he also said repeatedly that this had to happen through dialogue, not confrontation. 

“The biggest question at stake, which I don’t get an answer to, is whether Aoun’s army is willing to clash with Hezbollah, because that is what it will take to disarm it,” Zehavi said, noting Aoun’s fear that such a clash could lead to civil war. 

She pointed to reports from Monday that Hezbollah operatives arrested while transporting weapons south were released almost immediately on token bail of $20, which she said showed how little appetite Beirut had demonstrated for a real confrontation with the terrorist group.

Zehavi, who founded the Alma Center — a research center that focuses on security challenges relating to Israel’s northern border — said Aoun would need to do far more than denounce Hezbollah or talk about state authority over weapons before Israel could treat his government as a real partner. The first step, she said, was for his government to formally outlaw Hezbollah and take concrete action against it. 

“I will be much more convinced in Aoun’s good intentions if he designates Hezbollah as a terrorist entity,” she said. “Meanwhile, I don’t think we should negotiate with this Lebanese government.”

Until then, she said, Israel should keep up its attacks on Hezbollah, particularly south of the Litani River, located roughly 15 miles from the Israeli border.