Washington’s Diplomatic Efforts Should Not Reward Hezbollah

by Farley Weiss, Chairman

9/20/2024, 12:32:42 AM

Prussian General Carl von Clausewitz famously said, “War is politics by other means” or what one cannot achieve through diplomacy, one may gain via bargaining power and through military action. To prevent war, it is important to show that diplomatically and militarily war will lead not just to a military loss, but a political and diplomatic loss as well.  

Unfortunately, the Biden-Harris administration’s diplomatic efforts as it relates to Hezbollah and Lebanon have led to the current situation in the north of Israel, including the displacement of more than 60,000 Israelis. The administration appointed Amos Hochstein as its envoy to negotiate with Israel and Lebanon.

Hezbollah first took advantage of Hochstein’s inexperience by threatening to attack Israel’s gas reserves off the coast of Northern Israel. In late 2022, Hochstein got then-Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid and his Defense Minister Benny Gantz to capitulate to Hezbollah’s demand that Israel give in to Lebanon’s claims on the maritime border, even though those claims had previously been rejected by Israel’s previous prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and by the Trump administration. Washington hoped that appeasement by Israel would lead to peace in the area and provide a massive financial gain that would greatly enrich Lebanon.

However, such a financial win would enrich Iran’s terror proxy Hezbollah. The idea that any financial enrichment of Lebanon is good for peace while Hezbollah, an Iranian proxy, controls the country is itself patently absurd, yet this is the view held by Hochstein. Despite being given everything it asked for in 2022, Hezbollah recently breached the agreement when it sent four drones towards Israel’s Karish energy platform in the Mediterranean, all of which were intercepted by the Israel Defense Forces, reported The Times of Israel.  

Hezbollah learned in 2022 that with Hochstein negotiating on behalf of Washington if it attacked Israel it would benefit diplomatically. In an interview with the Carnegie Endowment for Peace, Hochstein said that even if the efforts didn’t lead to peace between Hezbollah and Israel, but led to “a set of understandings” that would “take away some of the impetus for conflict and establish for the first time ever a recognized border between the two, I think that will go a long way.”

The problem with his viewpoint is that Israel and Lebanon already agreed on their land border, in 2006, when the United Nations Security Council unanimously approved the  U.N. Resolution 1701 (which was recently renewed by the U.N. Security Council) as part of a deal to end the Second Lebanon War.

The Lebanese cabinet unanimously approved the resolution on Aug. 12, 2006. On the same day, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said that his militia would honor the call for a ceasefire. He also said that once the Israeli offensive stops, Hezbollah’s rocket attacks on Israel would stop. A day later, on Aug. 13, the Israeli Cabinet voted 24-0 in favor of the U.N. resolution, with one abstention. The ceasefire began on Aug. 14.

As part of the agreement, Hezbollah’s forces were to stay north of the Litani River, located 18 miles from the Israel border, but that is not the case. Instead of punishing them for violating U.N. Resolution 1701 and using their proximity to launch a war against Israel on Oct. 8, Hochstein is trying to negotiate a deal with Hezbollah that would give them land the United Nations said in 2006 is part of Israel, even though the 2022 agreement was violated by Hezbollah.  

It has been reported recently that Hochstein proposed that Hezbollah be given parts of Israeli sovereign territory that the terror group now claims, despite the United Nations ruling it as part of Israel. Hochstein reportedly proposed that Hezbollah move just six miles from the Israeli border and retain a militarily beneficial high ground in the westernmost border point of the Blue Line, overlooking the Israeli town of Rosh Hanikra. The U.S. envoy proposed that this area be recognized as part of Lebanon and that U.N. forces be deployed in the area. 

However, there is already a U.N. peacekeeping force deployed in Lebanon, one that has done absolutely nothing to stop Hezbollah’s attacks on Israel. The bottom line is that Hochstein’s outrageous proposals are just rewards for Hezbollah in its war against Israel and will encourage the terror group to continue its actions assuming that Hochstein is likely to propose even more concessions by Israel.  

Hezbollah launched an unprovoked war on Israel on Oct. 8 because its leaders believed that they would be diplomatically rewarded by both Hochstein and the Biden administration to ensure peace between the two entities.

Bad diplomacy leads to war, and Washington’s diplomatic efforts thus far have encouraged Hezbollah to keep fighting because they are obtaining U.S. support for their invalid land claims in the process. 

Good diplomacy punishes those who go to war, and it is time for the Biden-Harris administration to remove Hochstein and change its diplomatic policy to one that supports Israel’s war strategy and returns peace to the north not through Israeli-land concessions, but by rejecting Hezbollah’s land claims. It needs to be made clear to Hezbollah that there will be no diplomatic gain in its war against Israel.