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Danielle Kurd
Coal Zone Media. Hello everyone and welcome to It Could Happen Here. My name is Danielle Kurd and I'm a researcher and analyst of Arab and Palestinian politics. Today I'm joined by Ilya Ayoub, who is a Palestinian, Lebanese writer and researcher as well as a podcaster with the podcast the Fire of these Times and from the Periphery Media Collective. And today he's speaking to us about the recent agreement between Lebanon and Israel related to Israel's continued occupation of the southern part of Lebanon and Continued bombardment. So he's going to talk to us about what the agreement says, why there are so many problems and concerns related to this agreement and how it fits into the broader regional war against Iran. Ilya, thank you so much for joining us.
Ilya Ayoub
Hi, thank you for having me again.
Danielle Kurd
So today we are going to be discussing, as I mentioned in the intro, the agreement between Lebanon and Israel, the framework which has been quite controversial. So I wanted to just give you an opportunity to give a brief explainer. What is this agreement?
Ilya Ayoub
So it's technically like a trilateral framework in the sense that it includes, well, legally anyway, the us, Israel and Lebanon, ostensibly, like what it says it does is that it proposes some kind of future in which Lebanon and Israel, which have been in a de facto state of war for basically forever, to no longer be in that de facto state of war. The problem, which probably won't surprise, like the audience of this podcast, the problem is sort of in the details, like what is it that Lebanon has signed? If you look on the website itself, it's on the American government's website, there are 14 points, it's roughly, I don't know, 300 words or so. And already you see what's absent, which is the terms like withdrawal and of occupation, any of that. There's basically no stipulation whatsoever that the Israelis have to leave Lebanon. And you will have people who support this deal who said, well, technically that's not true because it says here in number two, the government of Israel and government of Lebanon commit to a reciprocal sequence process with clear conditions whereby the laf, which is the Lebanese Armed Forces, will restore effective sovereign authority over all of Lebanese territory. And here is the grub I'm quoting. Pending the verified disarmament of non state armed groups and dismantlement of associated infrastructure, enabling the idf, the Israel Defense Forces, to progressively redeploy out of Lebanese territory. What it essentially says and the various points we don't have to go through, all of them essentially confirmed this time and time again, is that Israel will get to define, will get to decide when an area that Israel is occupying, as in the Lebanese territory that Israel is occupying, when that area is officially disarmed, when it is no longer a quote unquote security threat, the Lebanese state has no say in the matter. There's no independent, like UN type mechanism that would determine that. It's just Israel that gets to define that. And what they've currently, they're currently doing, which is what the Lebanese government has agreed to, which is part of the controversy that we'll get into is that they're creating these two so called pilot zones which are among the, in the territory that Israel is currently occupying in Lebanon in which they will allow the laf, the Japanese armed forces, to progressively assert its, I'm putting this in quotation, you can't see it like assert its sovereign territorial control. But and here again is the kind of the devil in the detail. The Lebanese army cannot actually enforce anything that would still be the authority of the Israeli army, which again is the one that is currently illegally occupying southern Lebanon. So yeah, we can get into more of the details, but that's sort of in a nutshell, why it's so bad. But I can get into more of why it's bad as well.
Danielle Kurd
Oh yeah, we'd like to talk about all the bad. So before we get into like all the bad, where does Hezbollah play into any of this?
Ilya Ayoub
Well, unsurprisingly, Hezbollah opposes this. In fact, I don't think a majority of the political parties currently in the Lebanese parliament support this, if I'm not mistaken. Which is one of the reasons why I don't think this particular agreement, which is the latest of so many agreements between the Americans, Israelis and the Lebanese, at least at the official level, I don't see this lasting very long. Hezbollah has immediately said that this is a humiliation. It's surrender, it's defeat, which is not that unusual. That's sort of how they've been talking about these negotiations for since they started, really. And it declared them, declared this agreement null and void, which, you know, they cannot get more, more straightforward than that. Their main ally in parliament, that is the Amal movement, has also come out to oppose this, which is a big deal because that's the speaker of parliament. Lebanon is ruled by this kind of troika. So he's one out of three, which is a big problem for the other two. And yeah, I, I kind of genuinely don't see this lasting. But I, I'm also worried about what, what can come next.
Danielle Kurd
I mean, the fact that Israel is again the unilateral, you know, judge, jury, executioner here. Exactly. Obviously is a very big problem. But what other issues do you foresee with this agreement?
Ilya Ayoub
I worry that the Lebanese government in at first having some, I think, understandable concerns over Iran's role in Lebanon and we can get into that has sort of either, I don't know how you would describe it, maybe overcorrected and gone a bit too anti Iran, which in and of itself I wouldn't necessarily oppose. I'm Not a fan of the Islamic Republic, to put it mildly. And I've always opposed Hezbollah for as long as I can remember. But the timing of doing what they've been doing, and I can get into it now, has been, I think, very, to put it charitably, very puzzling. But I think also, like, very, very short sighted and, and frankly reckless. And this is all while Israel is bombing Lebanon. I should say if this was any context where there was no active war, I wouldn't have as big of an issue with it. But they've declared the Iranian ambassador to Lebanon to be Persona non gata. They've taken down photos of the Ayatollah by the road to the airport and replaced it with Lubnan Awalan, which is like, Lebanon first. They've deported, like, members of the irgc, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, and done a bunch of other even rhetorical things. The president would go on Twitter and say, Iran, get out and stuff like that. The President of Lebanon, which Again, I have 1001 issues with the Iranian rule in Lebanon and including my issues with Hezbollah. But there is only one country that is currently actually occupying Lebanon militarily and actually bombing Lebanon militarily with its military, Amin. And that country is not Iran. So the priorities of the government, in wanting to distance itself from Hezbollah's actions, which I should say have been controversial from the beginning because Hezbollah took a unilateral decision to enter the war against Israel, a decision that was not made with, like, the rest of Lebanon's approval. So it's been, like, controversial from the start. And that's what I meant by, like, the charitable interpretation is that the Lebanese government sort of overcorrected and instead by. By attempting supposedly to distance itself from Iran, what has actually done is made us even more dependent on the United States than we used to be before.
Danielle Kurd
Right. So that's where the things you're describing under normal circumstances would be like, yeah, like, why is Iran so embedded in a lot of these different countries in the region? And why does it have such an interventionist role? But you're saying it's reckless in this context where the Lebanese government is basically making itself more at the mercy of actors like the United States and Israel by proxy.
Ilya Ayoub
Yeah, as of now, like, and I really tried my best to look for some leverage that Lebanon might have, but as of now, I don't actually see any leverage that Lebanon has. It's basically, we hope for the best. Like, I wish I could, I could put it differently, but it essentially is under the hope that like the Trump administration is tired of Netanyahu, that it might fall, you know, force the Israelis to, to either withdraw from Lebanon or to adverb, at least stop the bombing or whatnot, which I've seen no evidence of. And as of now, every time a so called ceasefire has been signed that even Hezbollah agreed to, the only thing that it's done is that Hezbollah would not respond to Israeli bombings. So the Israeli bombings have been a constant throughout this entire thing, ceasefire or no ceasefire, since the agreement was signed, they've continued, they haven't stopped. As of time of recording, over 4,200 Lebanese have been killed since the beginning of this latest war. So not even since the beginning, since 2023, but since in 2026 alone, because Israel does not discriminate in how they bomb. So to give you the example of those two so called pilot zones, are they even inhabitable as of now? I don't know. Because of the 54 towns and villages, Lebanese towns and villages that the Israelis militarily Occupy, at least 46 of them that we know of are either partially or entirely demolished. So what are those security zones? What does that even mean, you know? But again, the entire problem now is that they get to decide all of that. And again, with all of my issues with Iran, the agreement that the Lebanese have signed with the Israelis I think is objectively worse than the Memorandum of Understanding that the Iranians signed with the Americans. That actually also included Lebanon because at least in that mou and that moment of understanding, it included the sentence territorial integrity and sovereignty of Lebanon, as well as a call for ceasefire, which was a nightmare for Netanyahu.
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Sheryl Swoopes
Hey, everybody, I'm Tareka Foster Brasby. What's up, y'?
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Danielle Kurd
Let's talk about Iran more specifically for a moment. I mean, Lebanon has taken out, the ambassador, has made all of these kind of rhetorical shifts away from the Iranian regime. Obviously a display for the US and for Israel. But Iran, how has it responded? How has the government responded? And how does this agreement relate to the MoU that Iran signed with the United States?
Ilya Ayoub
So it's quite complicated because the MOU was signed just about a week or so before. So the deal between the Iranians and the Americans was signed roughly Dean, or agreed upon. I don't know if they signed these things roughly a week before this one, the one between Israel and, and Lebanon via America, the tripartite one, as they call it. One interpretation that I've seen is that by going directly to Lebanon, America actually managed to bypass these, these kind of bullet points that, that Iran was putting forward. So like, let's say Iran is saying when there should be a ceasefire in Lebanon and that there should be like territorial integrity and sovereignty in the meantime, the Lebanese state is saying to Iran, like, you do not negotiate on our behalf. So the Americans go to Lebanon directly or Lebanon goes to the America and they supersede it. They supersede this and they do a negotiation or they rather they get the Lebanese to sign this latest agreement directly, which of course does not include Iran anyway. So the main differences between the MOU between America and Iran and the agreement between, let's say Israel and Lebanon is that Israel had no part whatsoever in the MoU. And if it had come to pass, if the Iranians had basically gotten what they were asking for, the Americans would have been forced, at least legally, to pressure the Israelis to leave Lebanon altogether. No ifs and buts, no negotiated exit, whatever that means. No making up pilot zones, none of that stuff. It would just be, you've been doing this occupation illegally, you need to leave, as simple as that. That's been the Iranian position, which is not a position that most Lebanese would disagree with because it is just a fact.
Danielle Kurd
Right. And it's interesting. I mean, obviously we don't want to speculate, but it is interesting that Iran made the ceasefire in Lebanon so kind of central to a lot of their demands. Right?
Ilya Ayoub
Yeah, it's not that surprising to me, I think, because they, they see this as saving Hezbollah. So like it's, it's like, it's almost like an easy thing to, to do. It doesn't cost them anything in a sense. It would of course put pressure on the Israelis, which they're happy to do since Israel and America started the war against Iran in the first place.
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Ilya Ayoub
And it would, you know, give some kind of breathing space for their, their main ally in Lebanon, which is Hezbollah.
Danielle Kurd
Yeah.
Ilya Ayoub
So in and of itself, I don't think it's surprising that they included it. Maybe they knew that Lebanon would reject it officially, given the position of the Lebanese government, you know, thus far, and I can't know for sure, but yeah, in and of itself it doesn't surprise me that they went for this, because one other thing I should say that they were proposing in that MOU is a so called deconfliction cell, the details of which are not entirely clear to me yet and at this point may never happen anyway. But the way it's been interpreted that I saw is that it would see its influence in Lebanon restored. So there's also like a self interest in all of that, but not in a militarily occupying way. So for me it's not that the option has been either an amazing option or a bad option. It's more like either we get the Iran option, which is not ideal but still functional, or a catastrophic option, which is the one that we actually got with the Israelis.
Danielle Kurd
Right. And I mean, we've had some episodes about Iran. I've hosted a few people about Iran. And I think it bears repeating that their strategy, their ability to kind of withstand even this level of severe, you know, warfare in the latest escalation has depended on their allies in the region and kind of the diffusion of Iranian power to non state actors, essentially. Yeah. So what was the public reaction to the Lebanese government signing this agreement? The Lebanese public reaction, to be clear.
Sheryl Swoopes
Yeah.
Ilya Ayoub
The most immediate reaction on the streets has been by, of course, by Hezbollah and its ally Amal, in which they, they, you know, they burn stuff down, they yell, they, they, they throw stuff at the cops and stuff like that. The Secretary General of Hezbollah, as I said, has declared a null and void and so on. As for the rest of the country, there hasn't been any kind of mobilization against it. But this shouldn't be interpreted as consent. It's more, I think, in my view, that the Lebanese population as a whole has been exhausted by nearly three years of war now. And there is an appetite for kind of diplomacy. In fact, there's been a poll, a nationwide poll that was just released a few days ago that says that roughly 54% of the population support diplomacy versus 35% that support armed resistance. Now, the 54% that support diplomacy, which, you know, just over half, it's not because they believe this is the best option. It's more that they believe. I think this is my interpretation. It's more that I think most people genuinely believe that there are no other options. So it's more like, I think, a reflection of how desperate the situation is more than anything else. It should not be confused with any kind of like warming up towards Israel. In that same poll, which again was nationwide, 87% of people in Lebanon identified Israel as their main enemy versus 51% that identify America and 38% that identified Iran. And this is across sects. So usually when you see the reporting, you could be led to believe that it's only Shias in Lebanon that oppose Israel, but actually it is really a cross sect that Israel is a deeply unpopular state in Lebanon, which is not surprising because it's been bombing Lebanon for on and off for decades now.
Danielle Kurd
Right. You've written about this for 972Mag. You have another article coming out, I'm sure, or it's already out. I'm not sure, but I will definitely link it in the show notes. By the time this episode airs, is there anything you feel like we missed and that listeners should know?
Ilya Ayoub
It's very difficult to know where things are heading in terms of the security situation in Lebanon. I would argue that kind of the specter of a civil war, whatever that actually looks like, is never too far away and hasn't been too far away for a while now. I don't think it's likely in the traditional sense of multiple armed actors in the near future. It largely because I think the population is really exhausted. But the Israeli war on Lebanon has created kind of this fault line that's very, very difficult, I think, to overcome now. And it's not again, a fault line between pro Israel and anti Israel. Both sides of this fault line are technically anti Israel. It's more of like what the priorities should be for the Lebanese state. And it's created a sense for a lot of people who are from southern Lebanon that is currently, as we're speaking, still being bombed. It is giving the sense that the rest of the country is abandoning them. And this sort of grievances is quite literally what gave us Hezbollah in the first place.
Danielle Kurd
Right.
Ilya Ayoub
Hezbollah was created in the mid-80s. This was a couple of years, two, three years after the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon really started, which was not even the first one. It was the second one. It was just the biggest one. It would last for 18 years. And in those 18 years, this obscure group that did not really exist grew in popularity because they were the most effective one, thanks to the fact that Iran was backing them until they became the de facto kingmakers of Lebanese politics for a couple of decades after that. So the worry here is not even that I feel that history would just repeat itself and whatnot. It's more that there doesn't seem to be any actual path forward that proposes any alternative to people from southern Lebanon, which is roughly a fifth of the country in terms of both sides, more or less, and population, more or less. Those people have nowhere else to go. They will go back to their homes when they can. They go back to their lands if their homes are destroyed, and they will try and rebuild as they have done already in the past, if not once, sometimes more than once. And if there isn't a solution for them that is just a fair solution that brings them justice, that stops the Israeli bombings and permanently forces the Israelis out of Lebanon, there's going to be some force somewhere that's going to find a way to appeal to that population and if they're not offered an alternative, they will seek that alternative, which, again, is the history of Hezbollah in the first place. So as much as I oppose Hezbollah for very Lebanese reasons, like, and as a Lebanese myself, because of the sectarianism and authoritarianism and so on, that's a completely separate question for me than the right of people who are under military occupation to resist that military occupation, because that is actually a right that's guaranteed under international law. And I'm really worried as of now, and I'm not just speaking for myself here, that's virtually everyone I know, that the situation is getting to the point where essentially the Lebanese state is hoping that the Americans would just pressure the Israelis. And the way it's been happening as of now is that they would pressure them here and there a bit, but not much. And then the rest of the time, they just let them do whatever they want with American tax money. Of course, if they don't actually force the Israelis to withdraw from Lebanon, it can create like a, you know, a whole different political beast in a sense that would be even more violent.
Danielle Kurd
I think we're specifically talking about Lebanon, but this is the case in so many contexts in the region is that when the conflicts are unresolved, when the violence is unresolved, then it'll only perpetuate more violence. Everyone I know has been warning about that in every context in Palestine, in Lebanon. So it's extremely depressing. But thank you so much for sharing your insights with us, and I will link Ilya's work in the show notes. And yeah, hope you all stay safe.
Ilya Ayoub
Thanks, Dana.
Danielle Kurd
It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, Visit our website coolzonemedia.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts you can now find sources for. It Could Happen here listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening.
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Sheryl Swoopes
This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.
This episode, hosted by Danielle Kurd, features researcher and writer Ilya Ayoub discussing the new trilateral agreement between Lebanon, Israel, and the United States regarding the continued Israeli occupation and bombardment of southern Lebanon. The guests analyze the specifics of the agreement, its flaws, its impact on Lebanese domestic and regional politics, Hezbollah’s opposition, and the broader context of escalating tensions involving Iran.
“Israel will get to define... when an area that Israel is occupying... is officially disarmed... The Lebanese state has no say in the matter.”
— Ilya Ayoub (04:25)
Unilateral Power: Israel is the “judge, jury, executioner,” determining security status and withdrawal timeline.
Lebanon’s Political Calculus:
Critique:
Memorable Quote:
“There is only one country that is currently actually occupying Lebanon… And that country is not Iran.”
— Ilya Ayoub (08:45)
“As of now, every time a so-called ceasefire has been signed…The Israeli bombings have been a constant throughout this entire thing.”
— Ilya Ayoub (10:03)
Recent MOU: Iran and the U.S. had just come to terms on a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) prior to the Lebanon-Israel deal.
Differences:
Iran’s Response: Attempted to make ceasefire in Lebanon central to its demands mainly to protect Hezbollah (its ally), but lacks leverage over the new framework.
“If the Iranians had basically gotten what they were asking for, the Americans would have been forced...to pressure the Israelis to leave Lebanon altogether... No making up pilot zones, none of that stuff.”
— Ilya Ayoub (15:27)
Public Reaction:
Cross-Sectarian Opposition to Israel: Host and guest emphasize it is not just a sectarian issue; opposition is widespread across religious and political divides.
“It should not be confused with any kind of like warming up towards Israel… 87%…identified Israel as their main enemy.”
— Ilya Ayoub (19:02)
Civil War Specter: Ayoub warns that Lebanon remains close to the brink of new internal conflict, not between “pro-” or “anti-” Israel camps, but due to competing priorities and the government’s inability to protect southern Lebanese communities.
Historical Precedent:
Future Risks:
Memorable Quotes:
“This sort of grievance is quite literally what gave us Hezbollah in the first place.”
— Ilya Ayoub (21:01)
“If there isn’t a solution…that brings them justice, that stops the Israeli bombings and permanently forces the Israelis out of Lebanon, there’s going to be some force somewhere that’s going to find a way to appeal to that population.”
— Ilya Ayoub (22:23)
On the structure and danger of the agreement:
“There’s basically no stipulation whatsoever that the Israelis have to leave Lebanon.” (Ilya Ayoub, 03:55)
On the Lebanese government’s shift towards the U.S.:
“By attempting supposedly to distance itself from Iran, what has actually done is made us even more dependent on the United States than we used to be before.” (Ilya Ayoub, 09:24)
On the futility of existing ceasefires: “As of now, every time a so-called ceasefire has been signed...The Israeli bombings have been a constant throughout this entire thing, ceasefire or no ceasefire...” (Ilya Ayoub, 10:03)
On the risk of further radicalization:
“If there isn’t a solution…there’s going to be some force somewhere that’s going to find a way to appeal to that population...” (Ilya Ayoub, 22:23)
This episode delivers a sobering, detailed analysis of the Lebanon-Israel agreement, exposing its serious deficiencies, the geopolitical maneuvers of local and outside actors, and its likely inability to solve Lebanon’s core security and sovereignty issues. The conversation contextualizes the deal’s broader implications for Lebanese society, regional stability, and the perpetual cycle of violence driven by unresolved conflict and foreign intervention.
For further reading, see Ilya Ayoub’s articles at 972Mag and watch for the cited poll data.