France has reportedly proposed a plan to end Israel’s war on Lebanon that includes Lebanon’s recognition of Israel. The plan involves mutual steps by both countries to create the necessary conditions for peace along the border, particularly ending Hezbollah’s attacks on Israel and implementing the 2006 UN Security Council Resolution 1701.
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun openly called for direct talks with the Zionist state to establish the conditions for “security and stability” on the border between both countries. Prime Minister Nawaf Salam echoed this several times, most recently on 19 March , when he assured US President Donald Trump—as if he influences Israeli leaders—of his country’s readiness for negotiations.
Lebanon is even said to be forming a negotiating team that would include one representative from each of the country's four largest religious sects—Christians, Sunnis, Shia, and Druze—to ensure national consensus and agreement. So far, the Shia duo, Hezbollah and the Amal Movement, have rejected the proposal. Amal leader and Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri has demanded that negotiations take place after a ceasefire is signed and the displaced people from the south of the country return home.
Israel has not responded positively to the proposal and is unlikely to consider negotiations, given its insistence on eliminating Hezbollah. Its military operations since early March have killed more than 1,200 people and injured over 2,700 others. Over one million people have been displaced from the south and the southern suburbs of Beirut.
Israel’s declared objective of destroying Hezbollah is closely linked to a plan to ethnically cleanse southern Lebanon of its inhabitants. The Israeli Army repeatedly issues evacuation orders to residents in southern towns and Beirut’s southern suburbs, which are usually followed by attacks on what it claims to be Hezbollah positions and weapons caches.
These evacuation orders are followed by attacks on bridges connecting the south to the rest of the country, supposedly to cut off Hezbollah’s supply routes, but this is also clearly to prevent the return of the displaced. On 16 March, invoking Israeli operations in Gaza, Defense Minister Israel Katz declared that the hundreds of thousands of South Lebanese residents would not be allowed to return to their homes until the safety and security of Israeli communities near the border is assured.
Such a condition grants only Katz and others within Israel’s security establishment the power to decide the fate of southern Lebanon, to the detriment of the area’s Lebanese citizens, their livelihoods, and their future.
Furthermore, Israel has also sprayed concentrated herbicides on southern Lebanese villages to discourage their displaced residents from returning. This scorched earth policy paves the way for Israel to at least establish a buffer zone inside Lebanese territory, which many believe will mark the start of outright occupation. Indeed, Israel’s extremist Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has declared that Lebanon’s Litani River, approximately 15 to 20 miles north of the current Lebanese-Israeli border, should serve as the international boundary between the two nations.
Additionally, some Israeli politicians have reiterated calls to settle southern Lebanon, and the settler movement Uri Tzafon was established in March 2024 to promote civilian settlement in the area. Parliamentarian Yitzhak Kroizer, a member of the extremist Itamar Ben-Gvir’s Jewish Power Party, recently publicly declared that southern Lebanon up to the Litani River should be emptied of its inhabitants and settled by Israelis.
Given these conditions and Israel’s behaviour and goals, why would Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his right-wing government consider the idea of negotiating with Lebanon? Israel would essentially be abandoning its ambitions to control south Lebanon and potentially forsaking its goal of completely dismantling Hezbollah militarily, a goal it has pursued for decades.
Furthermore, Israel has a golden opportunity to do whatever it wishes in Lebanon, Syria, Iran, and elsewhere with the carte blanche it has from the Trump administration, which is currently waging war on Iran on its behalf. Israel is thus not seeking peace with Lebanon but for complete dominance over its northern neighbour.
Conversely, for Lebanon to negotiate an end to hostilities with Israel, the Lebanese government must be able to control Hezbollah, compel it to cease military operations against Israel, and surrender its weapons to the Lebanese state. Unfortunately, such objectives currently appear unachievable. To be sure, the Lebanese state and government’s desires regarding Hezbollah seem to be further today than anyone expected. The Party of God insists that it alone can stand up to Israel’s army and defend Lebanese sovereignty and territorial integrity; thus, it must be free to hold on to its weapons and operational independence.
And with the US-Israel war on Iran continuing without respite, Hezbollah—serving as a reserve force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps—is unlikely to relinquish its arms or cease its operations against the invading Israeli Army. Indeed, Israel’s war on Iran and Lebanon has ended any talk of the party surrendering its weapons to the Lebanese state, if it ever truly considered the idea.
Lebanon today is thus hostage to a relentless and aggressive Israeli policy that aims to empty its south from its inhabitants in preparation for indefinitely controlling it. According to such a policy, eliminating Hezbollah is merely a ruse to allow the ethnic cleansing of hundreds of thousands of Lebanese villagers so that Jewish settlers may find more land to colonize outside of Palestine. Imad K. Harb is Director of Publications at Arab Center Washington DC. The views expressed in this publication are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the position of Arab Center Washington DC, its staff, or its Board of Directors. Have questions or comments? Email us at: editorial-english@newarab.com Opinions expressed in this article remain those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The New Arab, its editorial board or staff.