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Israel-Hezbollah War: To Cease or Not to Cease
Lebanon’s Hezbollah leader Sheikh Naim Qassem leads prayers during funeral of Hezbollah senior leader Ibrahim Aqil and Hezbollah member Mahmoud Hamad, who were killed in Israeli strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs, in Beirut, Lebanon, Sept. 22, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh
There were reasons for Israel to have accepted an American-authored “ceasefire” agreement with Hezbollah.
First, Iran is Israel’s chief security priority, not Hezbollah. In addition, Israel has been fighting the longest war of its modern existence, and its forces are being stretched. During that war, Hezbollah has been helping Hamas by diverting Israel’s military capability and attention; this ceasefire will allow Israel to put the focus of its deployment back on Gaza.
And not to be underestimated is the US “soft embargo” on weapons to Israel. There are rumors that the Biden administration has said that it will ensure deliveries on time if Israel agrees to the Lebanon plan. It would not be in Israel’s interest to further aggravate the outgoing administration.
There were also reasons for Israel to reject the current incarnation of a “ceasefire,” beginning with the way the signatories are positioned. Israel and the US have an agreement; the US and Lebanon have a separate one, although the language is the same; and there is an “authorized” non-Hezbollah representative as a third party.
The US tried the same fiction during the “Maritime Border Agreement” talks — separate US-Israel and US-Lebanon agreements, and a nod from Hezbollah. It failed when Hezbollah decided to break it.
Hezbollah had control not only of territory in the south, in which it had buried its arsenal, but also of the government in Beirut. Its control of territory is — happily — diminished, but it retains its place in Beirut. There is no assurance that Hezbollah will do other than what it chooses to do, and no assurance that the “Government of Lebanon” can operate independently.
According to the agreement, “both nations” — meaning Lebanon and Israel — retain their “inherent right of self-defense.” The kindest way to look at Lebanon is to say that it is occupied by Hezbollah, in which case, it has no ability to defend itself and requires rescue from its occupier. Neither the UN nor the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) have that capability. Israel might, but only if the international community agrees that Hezbollah has to go. No such policy has been articulated.
Moving through the terms, they are precisely those of the failed UN Security Council Resolution 1701 of 2006. Reports say that both Israel and Lebanon simply “reaffirmed” their commitment to the resolution. Hezbollah, it seems, simply reaffirmed its commitment to a “ceasefire.” Under the terms of 1701, the LAF was charged with enforcing conditions including, “Any other armed groups will be disarmed, and unauthorized military facilities or weapons caches will be dismantled.”
The LAF failed to do this in 2006, and there is no reason to believe it will succeed in 2024. Although it has received millions of US dollars, the US has had no influence on the political leaning of LAF commanders and troops.
Next, Israel has 60 days in which to operate in southern Lebanon and then gradually withdraw to the Blue Line (the UN-demarcated Lebanon-Israel border). Hezbollah has been tunneling and accumulating weapons inside civilian infrastructure — houses, mosques, schools — for 28 years. What if the job isn’t done in 60 days?
Hezbollah can wait 60 days, regroup its commanders and forces in Beirut, and then plan for its future. There is no international penalty on Hezbollah for its terrorist behavior or its violations of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) for abusing the civilian population and infrastructure of Lebanon.
An “Oversight Committee” will “oversee” compliance. That was, in fact, the job of UNIFIL — which not only failed, but operated in conjunction with Hezbollah to protect it and enhance its capabilities. Now the Oversight Committee will report violations of the new agreement to — wait for it — UNIFIL.
And finally, the US will facilitate indirect talks between Israel and Lebanon to finalize a “mutually agreed-upon land border.” This is obscurantism.
There is already a UN-demarcated land border between Israel and Lebanon, but there is also an unmentioned maritime border — encompassing vast natural gas reserves. This has been a separate but related bone of contention (see Maritime Border Agreement, above).
That covers the main points in the agreement, but what about the fundamental points that are NOT in the agreement?
There is no mention of eliminating, or even extracting a price from Hezbollah — an Iranian-funded proxy organization that has wrecked the once-prosperous nation of Lebanon, and threatens Israel as well as the broader region.
Speaking of the broader region, there is no mention of controlling the Iranian military supply lines that run through Syria and into Lebanon. Is that the responsibility of the LAF? UNIFIL?
The IDF, in conjunction with a deconfliction agreement with Russia, has worked to keep Iranian weapons out of Lebanon. Will that continue? Who says?
There is no mention of a peace agreement, or Lebanese recognition of the State of Israel, as required by UN Security Council Resolution 242 passed in 1967.
Without those, everything agreed to is temporary and lives at the convenience of organizations and countries uninterested in peace — but very much interested in the elimination of the State of Israel.
A ceasefire is not peace.
Survival is not victory.
Shoshana Bryen is Senior Director of The Jewish Policy Center and Editor of inFOCUS Quarterly magazine.
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Algemeiner Unveils 11th Annual ‘J100’ List at Gala Featuring Douglas Murray, Matisyahu
British author Douglas Murray speaking at The Algemeiner’s 11th annual “J100” gala in New York City on Jan. 14, 2025. Photo: FotoBuddy
The Algemeiner unveiled its 11th annual “J100” list of the top 100 people “positively influencing Jewish life” on Tuesday night at a gala in New York City.
The event took on special significance this year, with Israel having been at war every single day since the Hamas-led invasion of the Jewish state on Oct. 7, 2023, and fighting for its survival on several fronts — most notably against Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis Yemen, and Iran itself. Meanwhile, antisemitism has simultaneously surged around the world during the conflict, with antisemitic incidents reaching record levels in several countries including the United States.
The spike in antisemitism and the war between Israel and Iran’s network of Middle Eastern terrorist proxies featured prominently in speeches throughout the gala. However, many of the speakers struck an optimistic tone, noting Israel’s recent string of victories against Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
“Fifteen months have now passed since the Jewish state went to war, since the Jewish people went to war. A terrible price has been paid,” said event co-chair Dovid Efune. “But it is a different world now. Israel has out-maneuvered its foes at every turn in a complex, multi-front war … The Jewish state has doused Iran’s ring of fire and replaced it with a ring of Israeli iron.”
The acclaimed British author Douglas Murray — who, as Free Press founder Bari Weiss noted in her remarks introducing him, has emerged since Hamas’s Oct. 7 onslaught as one of the fiercest defenders of Israel and the Jewish people — noted that the atrocities of the Hamas attack marked “the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.” He also noted the “deep challenge ” of combating pro-Hamas demonstrators across the West flirting with “the most dangerous, evil imaginable.”
“What does it say about us and the society which we’ve allowed to emerge?” he asked.
However, Murray continued, he was hopeful for the future after recently spending months with the soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
“The real warriors are very clear. We all know who they are,” Murray said. “They are these remarkable young men and women. And we owe them everything. And the civilized world owes them everything.”
Murray was one of the honorees at the gala, along with Jewish singer-songwriter Matisyahu and philanthropists David and Debra Magerman.
Matisyahu, who was honored for his outspoken support for Israel and the Jewish people, said during his remarks that he reexamined his Jewish identity and faith following the deadly Hamas-orchestrated terrorist attack in Israel that took place on Oct. 7, 2023.
“After Oct. 7, I believe there was a paradigm shift. I was immediately forced to ask myself the question of what it means to be Jewish again and how important it is to be,” he said. “What does it mean to be a Jew now after Oct 7? Prior, the main division, seemingly, religion. But it seems that we elevated above that in a need to find each other. We are forced again to look inward. To ask ourselves: What does it mean to be a Jew? What does Israel have to do with being a Jew? If you don’t find the answer, the rest of the world will gladly find it for you, and whatever story they choose to make up — it’s not our story. The story of Moses and the Jews.”
The singer added, “May we continue to look within to find the answers we hold and may the shining star of Israel blaze forever.”
The gala also featured comments from Michal Lobanov, the widow of murdered Hamas hostage Alex Lobanov.
“After 11 months of unbearable suffering, on Aug. 29 [Alex] was murdered in Tel Sultan in Rafa,” Michal recalled. Along with other hostages kidnapped last Oct. 7, “their dead bodies were found in a tunnel in horrible conditions. Believe me, I saw this with my own eyes, the horrors that my Alex went through, together with the five hostages are the same horrors that happened in the Holocaust. Yes, we went through a Holocaust for the second time in history; there is no other way to describe it.”
The gala and Lobanov’s comments came one day before Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire to halt fighting in Gaza and release hostages as part of a phased deal.
Algemeiner publisher and chairman Simon Jacobson also spoke on Tuesday night and laid out the stakes of the current conflict, arguing that the events of today will shape the world of tomorrow in profound ways.
“We’re living in historic times. Events that are happening now are not just going to shape today, tomorrow, but the entire future,” Jacobson said during the event in New York City. “Every one of us senses it, whether it’s events, the different countries around the world, leaderships in crisis, but especially, which is close to our hearts, the Middle East, Israel, the Jewish people.”
Past Algemeiner gala honorees and participants have included the late Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel; actors Sharon Stone, Sir Ben Kingsley, and Jesse Eisenberg; human rights activist Garry Kasparov; the late entertainer Joan Rivers; media mogul Rupert Murdoch; former Czech President Miloš Zeman; the late TV host Larry King; Iranian dissident Masih Alinejad; and Natan Sharansky, the famed refusenik and international campaigner against antisemitism.
Founded in 1972 as a Yiddish broadsheet by the late veteran journalist Gershon Jacobson, The Algemeiner today runs this news website.
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Dovid Efune: ‘The Jewish State Has Doused Iran’s Ring of Fire’
Dovid Efune speaking at The Algemeiner’s 11th annual “J100” gala in New York City on Jan. 14, 2025. Photo: FotoBuddy
At The Algemeiner‘s 11th annual “J100” gala on Tuesday night, the event’s co-chair, Dovid Efune, described Israel’s recent military successes.
“Fifteen months have now passed since the Jewish state went to war, since the Jewish people went to war. A terrible price has been paid,” Efune said. “But it is a different world now. Israel has out-maneuvered its foes at every turn in a complex, multi-front war.”
The crowd applauded.
Efune said that Israel “has firmly reestablished in the eyes of all, a role as a regional superpower. Israel’s young soldiers have shown themselves to be more valiant and more committed to their cause than their fanatic terrorist enemies. Its vaunted intelligence agencies have seized the initiative, reminding the world that the Jewish state’s knack for innovation has multiple applications.”
Invoking Israel’s series of hits against the heads of Hamas and Hezbollah, Efune said “we watched in awe, the systematic elimination of a line-up of Middle East terror chiefs. Those who remain are in hiding. The Jewish state has doused Iran’s ring of fire and replaced it with a ring of Israeli iron. The walls of David’s citadel again stand tall and firm.”
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Algemeiner Publisher Simon Jacobson: ‘Times Like This Define Who’s Standing Up for Moral Clarity’
The Algemeiner’s publisher and chairman Simon Jacobson speaking at the 11th annual “J100” gala in New York City on Jan. 14, 2025. Photo: FotoBuddy
At The Algemeiner‘s 11th annual “J100” gala on Tuesday night, publisher and chairman Simon Jacobson issued a call for action.
“We’re living in historic times. Events that are happening now are not just going to shape today, tomorrow, but the entire future,” Jacobson said during the event in New York City. “Every one of us senses it, whether it’s events, the different countries around the world, leaderships in crisis, but especially, which is close to our hearts, the Middle East, Israel, the Jewish people.”
Jacobson continued, “So, as chairman of The Algemeiner, I feel especially honored that we are part of making history because it’s times like this that define who’s standing up for moral clarity amidst all the confusion, for values that we all cherish, that are the foundations and the basis of all civilization. That’s the time we’re in, literally every day.”
Describing three types of people — those who make things happen, those who watch things happen, and those who ask “what happened” — Jacobson said “all of you right here and The Algemeiner, are people who make things happen. We don’t just stand at the sidelines and react but are pro-active. This is the time.”
The post Algemeiner Publisher Simon Jacobson: ‘Times Like This Define Who’s Standing Up for Moral Clarity’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.