Direct US-brokered talks between Israeli and Lebanese representatives are set to take place in Washington this week. The Israeli delegation will be headed by Yehiel Leiter, Jerusalem’s ambassador to the US. Lebanon will be represented by Nada Hamadeh, the Lebanese ambassador to Washington. The US State Department will host the negotiations.

In his statement on Thursday announcing the talks, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu framed their purpose as ‘‌disarming Hezbollah and establishing peaceful ‌relations between ⁠Israel and ⁠Lebanon’. Lebanese prime minister Nawaf Salam, for his part, expressed his hope that Beirut should become a ‘demilitarised city’.

Even as the talks were announced, Lebanese Hezbollah’s attacks on Israeli population centres and Israel’s wide-ranging ground and air offensive against the terror group continued. The IDF has now completed its deployment along a line of control north of the Israel-Lebanon international border. This buffer zone is intended to place Israel’s border communities out of the range of Hezbollah’s anti-tank rockets (which the organisation routinely employs against civilian targets). It is also intended to make impossible any 7 October-style attack from this border.  

The announcement of the first direct and public negotiations between Beirut and Jerusalem is of obvious significance at a symbolic level. It reflects the weariness of a significant part of the Lebanese political elite with Hezbollah, and with the destruction caused by the party’s use of Lebanese soil to prosecute its part of Iran’s long war against Israel. Beyond symbolism, what is the reason for holding........

© The Spectator