What the Ceasefire in Lebanon Means for the Middle East

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Journal – "What the Ceasefire in Lebanon Means for the Middle East"

Introduction

In the November 27, 2024 episode of The Journal, hosted by Kate Linebaugh and Ryan Knutson with contributions from Jessica Mendoza, The Wall Street Journal & Gimlet delve into the recent ceasefire agreement between Israel and Lebanon. This critical development holds significant implications for the broader Middle East conflict, particularly concerning ongoing tensions in Gaza and the regional power dynamics involving Iran and Hezbollah.

Background of the Conflict

The recent escalation between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon emerged in the aftermath of the October 7th Hamas attack on Israel. Hezbollah, a militant group and political party with strong ties to Iran, intervened by launching rocket and drone attacks on northern Israel, thereby expanding the conflict into a multifaceted regional war.

Kate Linebaugh sets the stage:

“For weeks, life in Lebanon has been punctuated by the sounds of surveillance drones, sirens and explosions as the Israeli military attacked the militant group Hezbollah. Then today, it all stopped because Israel and Lebanon agreed to a ceasefire.” (00:05)

On-the-Ground Perspectives

Jared Malson, reporting from Beirut, provides a vivid account of the situation in Dahya, a southern district heavily targeted by Israeli airstrikes:

“You have people coming back to a neighborhood that has been shaken by the bombing, fires that were still burning, firefighters trying to put out those blazes...It was a very surreal scene.” (00:38)

He elaborates on the atmosphere of palpable relief as the ceasefire takes effect:

“There was palpable relief in Lebanon today. People have been waiting for this for a long time.” (00:31)

Details of the Ceasefire Agreement

The ceasefire agreement between Israel and Lebanon marks a significant de-escalation on one of the many fronts of the Middle East conflict. Key provisions of the deal include:

• Withdrawal of Israeli Forces: Israel agreed to withdraw its military from southern Lebanon within 60 days.
• Deployment of Lebanese Security Forces: Lebanese authorities are to establish control over the withdrawn areas.
• Hezbollah's Positioning: Hezbollah has committed to relocating its forces north of the Litani River, adhering to previous international resolutions.

Malson highlights the strategic significance of these terms:

“The significance is that in the last deal, Resolution 1701, that ended the last war almost 20 years ago, it called on Hezbollah to not have its military forces in the area south of the Litani.” (06:51)

Hezbollah's Concessions and Motivations

Hezbollah's agreement to the ceasefire represents a substantial concession, shifting away from its initial stance of unwavering support for Hamas and solidarity with the Palestinian cause. Malson explains:

“It's a huge concession because it was their entire rationale for getting involved in the war in the first place. They were saying, we are doing this to help Palestinians... It has brought pressure from regular Lebanese people who... needed to regroup.” (08:12)

This concession is driven by:

• Military Pressure: Sustained Israeli airstrikes have weakened Hezbollah’s capabilities.
• Public Sentiment: Lebanese society has grown weary of the prolonged conflict and its devastating impact on the economy and civilian lives.

Reactions in Lebanon

The Lebanese population has largely welcomed the ceasefire, viewing it as a respite from the constant bombardment and displacement. Malson recounts interactions with residents:

“I talked to a guy today who... had anxiety about his house being safe... on the last night of the bombing, it gets hit.” (12:07)

The return of displaced persons is met with mixed emotions of relief and lingering fears about the future security of their homes.

Reactions in Israel

In Israel, the response to the ceasefire is divided:

• Opposition from Mayors: Some local leaders in northern Israel advocate for a more aggressive stance, expressing doubts about the longevity of the ceasefire and the continued threat from Hezbollah’s arsenal.

“There are questions about can they really feel safe given the fact that Hezbollah hasn't gone away and that their missile and drone and rocket capabilities are still there.” (12:36)

• Support for Continued Ceasefire Efforts: Conversely, segments of Israeli society push for broader ceasefire measures in Gaza, emphasizing the need for hostages' release and humanitarian relief.

Implications for Gaza and Broader Middle East Dynamics

While the ceasefire alleviates tensions between Israel and Lebanon, the conflict in Gaza persists unabated. Malson notes:

“A ceasefire in Gaza is unlikely, because all of the factors that prevented a ceasefire in the first place are still in place.” (13:37)

The ongoing hostilities in Gaza, coupled with Israel’s strained relations with Iran and continued military actions in Syria aimed at curbing Hezbollah’s influence, underscore the fragile nature of regional stability.

Netanyahu's focus, as discussed by Malson, emphasizes a shift towards isolating Iran and rearming Israeli forces, suggesting a strategic reorientation rather than a comprehensive regional peace:

“Netanyahu wants to focus on its confrontation with Iran, that it wanted to isolate Hamas, and that he wanted to allow the Israeli army to regroup and rearm itself.” (05:25)

Enforcement and Future Outlook

The enforcement of the ceasefire relies on an international monitoring committee comprising the U.S., France, and existing UN peacekeepers from UNIFIL. However, Malson highlights the inherent fragility of the agreement given the ongoing conflicts:

“There’s a lot of inbuilt fragility with this agreement because of all this other fighting and hostility in the region.” (01:47)

Looking ahead, the broader regional conflict remains tense, with multiple actors repositioning amidst shifting geopolitical landscapes, including the impending transition within the U.S. administration.

Conclusion

The ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon marks a pivotal, albeit partial, step towards reducing immediate hostilities in the region. While it offers much-needed relief to civilians in Lebanon and northern Israel, the enduring conflicts in Gaza and the overarching tensions with Iran continue to pose significant challenges to long-term peace and stability in the Middle East.

The Journal continues to monitor these developments, providing in-depth analysis on the evolving dynamics and their implications for global economics, politics, and security.

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Notable Quotes:

• Kate Linebaugh (00:05): “For weeks, life in Lebanon has been punctuated by the sounds of surveillance drones, sirens and explosions as the Israeli military attacked the militant group Hezbollah. Then today, it all stopped because Israel and Lebanon agreed to a ceasefire.”

• Jared Malson (00:31): “There was palpable relief in Lebanon today. People have been waiting for this for a long time.”

• Jared Malson (08:12): “It's a huge concession because it was their entire rationale for getting involved in the war in the first place... It has brought pressure from regular Lebanese people who... needed to regroup.”

Timestamps Reference:

• All timestamps correspond to the provided transcript sections and denote where quotes and information were derived.

Transcript

[Kate Linebaugh]

For weeks, life in Lebanon has been punctuated by the sounds of surveillance drones, sirens and explosions as the Israeli military attacked the militant group Hezbollah. Then today, it all stopped because Israel and Lebanon agreed to a ceasefire.

[Jared Malson]

There was palpable relief in Lebanon today. People have been waiting for this for a long time.

[Kate Linebaugh]

Our colleague Jared Malson has been reporting in Beirut.

[Jared Malson]

So I was out in the southern section of Beirut, which is called Dahya in Arabic, which is where most of the Israeli airstrikes in the city have taken place. And now you have people coming back to a neighborhood that has been shaken by the bombing, fires that were still burning, firefighters trying to put out those blazes. You had the supporters of Hezbollah driving through the street on motorcycles and cars, waving the yellow Hezbollah flags, people coming back to homes only to find out that they'd been bombed on the very last night of the bombing. So it was a very surreal scene.

[Kate Linebaugh]

How will this ceasefire change the wider war going on in the Middle East?

[Jared Malson]

It de escalates one of the fronts in this multipolar conflict that we've seen in the Middle East.

[Kate Linebaugh]

And to be clear, this deal is regarding the conflict in Lebanon only. The war in Gaza continues.

[Jared Malson]

Yes, and that is significant. The war in Gaza continues. Israel's tensions with Iran continue. Israel's continued bombing of Syria, where they're trying to cut off Hezbollah's supply lines and kind of roll back Iranian influence across the region. All of that is expected to continue. There's a lot of inbuilt fragility with this agreement because of all this other fighting and hostility in the region.

[Kate Linebaugh]

Welcome to the Journal, our show about money, business and power. I'm Kate LINEBAUGH. It's Wednesday, November 27th. Coming up on the show, a truce between Israel and Lebanon and what it means for the Middle East.

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[Kate Linebaugh]

The recent conflict between Israel and Hezbollah started after the October 7th attack on Israel by Hamas.

[Jared Malson]

The Lebanese Hezbollah movement, which is both a militia and a political party and is strongly allied with Iran, decided to intervene in the war On Hamas's side, launching rocket and drone attacks on northern Israel.

[Kate Linebaugh]

Israel and Hezbollah have been fighting along the border for months. And in September, Israel stepped up its response, invading Lebanon, bombing Beirut and killing Hezbollah's leader. Since then, the international community, the U.S. france and Arab nations have been looking for a way to de escalate the conflict. A big sticking point has been that Hezbollah said it wouldn't agree to a ceasefire until there was one in Gaza too.

[Jared Malson]

For the longest time, Hezbollah said no, this is an ironclad demand. And according to our reporting, they quietly back down from that in the last few weeks. And that has happened since this series of devastating airstrikes by the Israelis and this eruption of full scale war in Lebanon. And then on the Israeli side, this deal is in part designed to allow the Israeli army to regroup and rearm themselves. And that's important because, you know, Israel relies on these part time reservist soldiers. And a lot of them, they're not showing up in increasing numbers and they're still fighting on other fronts in the west bank, in Gaza.

[Kate Linebaugh]

And then yesterday, rumors started bubbling that a deal had been reached.

[Jared Malson]

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave a speech in primetime local time, where he made the case for the deal, saying that Israel wanted to focus on its confrontation with Iran, that it wanted to isolate Hamas, and that he wanted to allow the Israeli army to regroup and rearm itself.

[Kate Linebaugh]

What does he mean by focus on Iran?

[Jared Malson]

Netanyahu said he's not going to elaborate on that. Look. So this is all happening in the context of this. The war in Gaza has spawned this larger regional war that has resulted in Israel and Iran exchanging direct fire for the first time in history. So there's been a lot of concern about the worst case scenarios of full scale war between these two archenemies in the Middle East.

[Kate Linebaugh]

Lebanon's prime minister said the deal would bring calm and stability to the country and allow displaced people to return home. The ceasefire deal gives 60 days for the Israeli military to withdraw from southern Lebanon and for Lebanese security forces to deploy in the area. And it calls for Hezbollah to move its forces away from the Israeli border and north of a Lebanese river called the Litani. What is the significance of the Litani River?

[Jared Malson]

The significance is that in the last deal, so in Resolution 1701 that ended the last war almost 20 years ago, it called on Hezbollah to not have its military forces in the area south of the Litani. There's also a history here where Israel has kind of used the litany as they don't want threats to their security in that area. In the 1970s, they launched what's called Operation Litany to kind of roll back Palestinian militants from that area. And this has been their consistent demand, is they don't want militants in that area.

[Kate Linebaugh]

And Hezbollah has agreed to move north of the river.

[Jared Malson]

They have signaled their support for it. The Lebanese government says that they have agreed to it. And we've spoken with Hezbollah officials who have spoken positively of it. There is some ambiguity here where they have not come out publicly with an endorsement. There could be a number of reasons for that, one of which is that it does amount to a climb down from their previous policy of maintaining the linkage with Gaza.

[Kate Linebaugh]

Is that a major concession on the part of Hezbollah?

[Jared Malson]

It's a huge concession because it was their entire rationale for getting involved in the war in the first place. They were saying, we are doing this to help Palestinians. It is an act of solidarity with them and an act of solidarity with Hamas, who is an allied group and also part of this constellation of pro Iranian militias in the region. And it's a big deal in the sense that they came under a lot of pressure from Lebanese society to stop this. There was a lot of suffering here, a lot of people who had to leave their homes, whose homes were destroyed, a lot of people killed and injured. Obviously devastating for the economy.

[Kate Linebaugh]

So what is Hezbollah getting out of this deal?

[Jared Malson]

What they get is calm. They have suffered a huge setback in this war with basically a generation of their leaders being killed in these airstrikes. It has brought this pressure from regular Lebanese people who, when you talk to a lot of them, will say, you know, why is this happening? You know, what does this have to do with Lebanon? Why are we getting involved in another country's problems? And there's a sense that they needed to regroup. And there's both the military pressure and. Yeah. And pressure from Lebanese people.

[Kate Linebaugh]

Coming up, what this deal means for people in Israel and Lebanon, the deal says both sides have a right to defend themselves. What does that mean?

[Jared Malson]

That is a really important question. So for the Israelis, one thing that they've insisted on throughout the negotiations is this so called freedom of action, where they want to be able to strike Hezbollah in response to perceived threats from them in order to maintain their security. A lot of the negotiations that unfolded over the last couple of months were around this point, and they apparently got some kind of guarantees from the US that are separate from the actual bilateral deal itself that they would have that ability. The text of the agreement itself, as you said just says that both sides have a right to self defense. And it talks about these are two sovereign countries that both have that right.

[Kate Linebaugh]

How will this deal be enforced? And what happens if either party breaks it?

[Jared Malson]

It will be enforced by there's supposed to be an international monitoring committee that includes the US And France, and they join these other parties that are already on the ground, like UN peacekeepers, which are a part of unifil, which is the UN peacekeeping organization that already has thousands of peacekeepers here.

[Kate Linebaugh]

What has the reaction been in Lebanon to this deal?

[Jared Malson]

Well, it's a huge exhale here. You have to imagine this has been two months of constant airstrikes of people having to leave their homes and, you know, staying with relatives, sleeping in their cars, camping in the street, staying in schools, this huge displacement crisis. And now those people are going back. I mean, there's lots of people piling in their cars and driving around with mattresses strapped to the top because a lot of people who left the south, for example, they took out the mattresses out of their houses. They said, okay, we're leaving, we're going to go sleep somewhere else. And now you can see them driving back the other way.

[Kate Linebaugh]

And when you spoke with people, what did they say?

[Jared Malson]

I talked to a guy today who, he lives in the southern suburbs and the building had been fine for the entire war until last night when it was hit. And he showed up this morning and he kind of, you could see this look on his face of just like his heart sinking, realizing it's like you have all this anxiety of like, is my house going to be safe? Is my house going to be safe? And then on the last night of the bombing, it gets hit. So a lot of mixed emotions, obviously.

[Kate Linebaugh]

What has the reaction in Israel been to this deal?

[Jared Malson]

It's been a mixed reaction. There's been some opposition in Israel, for example, from the mayors of some of these towns in northern Israel where their citizens have been evacuated. Some of those people wanted Israel to be more aggressive. And there's questions about can they really feel safe given the fact that Hezbollah hasn't gone away and that their missile and drone and rocket capabilities are still there. So you have that reaction from the right. On the other side of the equation, there's a section of Israeli society that has been also advocating for a ceasefire in Gaza where you would have the return of the hostages held by Hamas and also a ceasefire that would bring relief to the people of Gaza.

[Kate Linebaugh]

How much could this deal, this truce, impact the war in Gaza?

[Jared Malson]

A ceasefire in Gaza is unlikely, because all of the factors that prevented a ceasefire in the first place are still in place. Netanyahu, in his speech last night, intimated that they would continue fighting. The intransigence on both sides of the conflict in terms of getting a deal in place is still there, and I'd say that hopes for a deal are diminishing. That said, the efforts to get one are ongoing. The Biden administration in kind of its twilight, they're still trying, as are the various Arab countries involved, but it's going to be difficult.

[Kate Linebaugh]

What are you looking for next?

[Jared Malson]

This is still a moment of profound insecurity and the end of the war in Lebanon. Assuming the ceasefire holds, this is a huge relief for millions of people both here and in northern Israel. There's no question about that. The broader picture is still very worrying in the sense that you still have war unfolding on multiple fronts and you have all these actors repositioning themselves with respect to the Trump administration coming in. That's the story that we're going to have to cover going forward is, you know, what happens with this much broader conflict between these two sides playing out across the region.

[Kate Linebaugh]

That's all for today. Wednesday, November 27 the Journal is a co production of Spotify and the Wall Street Journal. Additional reporting in this episode by Dove Lieber. The show is made by Katherine Brewer, Jonathan Davis, Pia Gadkari, Rachel Humphries, Ryan Knudsen, Matt Kwong, Jessica Mendoza, Annie Minoff, Laura Morris, Enrique Perez de la Rosa, Sarah Platt, Alessandra Rizzo, Alan Rodriguez Espinosa, Heather Rogers, Pierce Singh, Jeevika Verma, Lisa Wang, Katherine Whalen, Tatiana Zamis and me, Kate Limebaugh, with help from Trina Menino. Our engineers are Griffin Tanner, Nathan Singapok and Peter Leonard. Our theme music is by so Wiley. Additional music this week by Peter Leonard, Bobby Lord, Nathan Singapok, Griffin Tanner and Blue Dot Sessions. Fact checking by Najwa Jamal and Mary Mathis. Thanks for listening. We're off for Thanksgiving and we'll be back on Monday with a new episode.