By Michael Karadjis

The US-mediated Israel-Lebanon ‘framework agreement’ signed by the two countries on June 26 represents a direct challenge to Iran’s attempt to use its new power over the Strait of Hormuz to help achieve a victory for its ally Hezbollah and the south Lebanese Shiite community, a million of whom have been uprooted by Israel’s current occupation of up to one-third of that country.

A victory achieved this way would be a boost to Iran’s regional influence. And if achieved this way via the US-Iranian Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to end the Gulf conflict, it would mean a US role in enhancing Iran’s regional influence at the expense of Israel, as a direct result of Trump’s fateful decision to launch his monstrous war on Iran, which would be unfathomable to Israel – and to the Trump regime.

So, if and Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon and an end to Lebanon’s suffering at Israel’s hands were instead achieved via the new Israel-Lebanon agreement and a negotiated settlement, then surely that is a good thing, isn’t it? Why does Iran get a say in the decisions of the Lebanese government via Hezbollah, the only non-government militia allowed to keep weapons since the end of the Lebanese civil war 35 years ago?

Especially since, so far, Hezbollah’s March 2 decision to join the war in order to avenge Israel’s killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei has only resulted in Israel’s killing of 4000 Lebanese, the uprooting of over a million people from the south and a new Israeli occupation of 10-20 percent of Lebanon, an occupation not there before March.

That at least is the argument put forward by many Lebanese who support this agreement, who say whatever the downsides, Lebanon has suffered enough, an Iranian-backed militia should not have a veto over the national decision, and so this is the only way forward. As Lebanese president, Joseph Aoun says, if you reject the agreement, offer an alternative.

For supporters of Palestine, the fact that the agreement includes clauses about the two countries’ “shared goals to establish stable and peaceful relations” and they declare their intent not only “to conclusively end the [current] conflict” but “to therewith formally conclude any state of war between them,” reads a lot like a normalisation agreement, of the Camp David or Abraham Accords type. The Israeli-Lebanese border has already been long established by the 1949 Armistice, but this did not require full relations, which as with most Arab states, are withheld until Israel agrees to a just resolution of the Palestinian issue.

However, if many Lebanese people decide that having their country destroyed and thousands of their people killed every few years by Israel – which in addition has not led to justice for Palestine – can be ended by signing such an agreement, it is difficult as a non-Lebanese from afar to criticise this desire. And we should not underestimate the degree of support the agreement has from a large section of the population.

But will the agreement lead to Israeli withdrawal?

The problem with this argument is that the agreement does not commit Israel to fully withdrawing its forces. Not only does the agreement stipulate that Hezbollah must be fully disarmed – by the Lebanese government and army – before Israel has to commit to anything, the language remains vague even then.

Israel will carry out “phased withdrawals” from specific “pilot zones” once the Lebanese army has disarmed Hezbollah in those zones, and once complete, new pilot zones can be added. It is unclear how long this process may take, and in the meantime there is nothing preventing Israeli occupation forces continuing to fire on Hezbollah – and for the most part, Lebanese civilians – outside these zones.

In the agreement, Israel states it “has no territorial ambitions in Lebanon” and that disarming Hezbollah and other non-state armed groups, plus “additional security arrangements to be agreed upon,” would “eliminate any future need” for Israeli military action or presence. Needless to say, this is no clear commitment to withdraw from Lebanon. For anyone who has spent even a little time studying the region’s politics, such non-committal language virtually ensures a continual Israeli presence for a substantial period of time, continually dragged out, if not forever.

For example, until recent years, Israel also claimed to have no “territorial ambitions” in the West Bank or Gaza, rather, these were just security-driven “occupations” that just happen to last for decades, due to Palestinian “terrorism,” ie, Palestinian resistance to these occupations. Israel’s continual colonisation and effective annexation of large parts of the West Bank takes place despite having no “territorial ambitions.” From 1978-1990, Israel had not “territorial ambitions’ in Lebanon, but remained in the south until forced out by Lebanese armed resistance in 2000. From 1967 to 1981, Israel allegedly had no “territorial ambitions” in the Syrian Golan Heights, but then it did, and it annexed it. Now Israel does not formally have any “territorial ambitions” in southern Syria outside occupied Golan, but it has occupied a further chunk of Quneitra and Daraa provinces since December 2024; despite the Trump regime supposedly recognising Syria’s territorial integrity, it has not once demanded Israel withdraw to the 1974 UN demarcation lines.

Moreover, two days before the agreement, Netanyahu stated that Israeli occupation forces are actively establishing a fortified military buffer zone across southern Lebanon, which Israel would not withdraw from. The next day, Israeli defence minister Israel Katz repeated his earlier statement that Israeli forces “will remain in the security zones in Lebanon, Syria and Gaza indefinitely.”    

Gaza precedent

Just look at the progress of the ‘Gaza ceasefire’, crowned by Trump’s appointed ‘Board of Peace’ colonial administration. The initial agreement required Israel to gradually withdraw from the 52 percent of Gaza it occupied at the time, to be replaced by an ‘International Stabilisation Force’ which would separate the forces and make way for a Palestinian technical governing authority to replace it, while Hamas agreed to warehouse longer-range weapons but for its full disarmament to take place as part of a pathway towards establishment of a Palestinian state.

The reality is quite different. Apart from continuing to kill Palestinians – over 1000 since the “ceasefire” was established – and continuing to block most desperately needed aid getting into Gaza, Israel first increased its occupation to 58 percent, and has now declared it aims to occupy 70 percent of Gaza, while almost the entire Gaza Palestinian population is pushed into the remaining 30 percent, living on air and desperation. In that majority zone it occupies behind the ‘yellow line’, Israel “has completely bulldozed and razed the area … Israel has built and fortified 38 military bases in eastern Gaza, paved roads leading to the bases, and erected 25 kilometers of massive earth berms to physically divide Gaza.” That is, Israel plans to stay forever.

Rather than insist on Israeli withdrawal, or even allowing in the required amount of humanitarian aid, the Board insists only on complete Hamas disarmament before Israel has to do anything, or before any reconstruction can take place, a complete violation of the terms of the agreement. The Trump regime has left Gaza to its appointed cronies who rule entirely for Israel, with zero pushback or even interest from the US government.

Hezbollah disarmament before Israeli withdrawal

What the Gaza BOD process and this Lebanon framework agreement have in common is that the main armed resistance forces in each arena are required to completely disarm before the occupying power has any obligation to end its occupation of their countries. Yet the occupation is the main reason for the existence of armed resistance movements in the first place. Demanding they disarm before Israeli withdrawal leaves future withdrawal to trust in some imaginary Israeli goodwill. On the basis of experience, this is a big ask to say the least.

The Lebanon agreement thus legitimises Israeli occupation in the south; Israeli forces have a right to be there for Israel’s “security,” despite the security of the Lebanese people being violated by Israel’s atrocious crimes and its meticulous wiping of dozens of towns of villages off the map by dynamiting and bulldozing every home and building, actions which suggest a long-term occupation rather than an emergency security operation. The only enemy in the agreement is deemed to be Hezbollah, the militia resisting this occupation.

Moreover, since Hezbollah takes the opposite view – that disarmament should only proceed once Israeli occupation completely and finally ends – it leaves the situation in deadlock. To put the entire blame on Hezbollah for this is not only to ignore the facts above about Israel’s history of occupations, but also Lebanon’s most recent history. Even after the November 2024 ceasefire, when Hezbollah signed the ceasefire agreement to withdraw north of the Litani and be replaced by the Lebanese army, Israeli forces continued to occupy five small regions across the border, and to launch attacks every day, despite a complete absence of Hezbollah fire throughout that period. And now – regardless of one’s view of Hezbollah’s actions on March 2 or more generally – Hezbollah’s refusal to disarm without Israeli withdrawal cannot be separated from the fact that the million or so uprooted from the south are largely Lebanese Shiites, its communal base, who have no reason to trust Israeli goodwill which it is not even committing to.

But even if many Lebanese disregard this because they believe the alternative is worse, and believe that Hezbollah should disarm in order to strip Israel of excuses to occupy and bomb their country, the fact that it refuses to do so means that eventual disarmament – which most Lebanese see as a valid goal – can only proceed via a process of integration into the Lebanese army as part of an overall political process within Lebanon involving all its components.

By contrast, what this agreement demands is that the Lebanese army forcibly disarms Hezbollah. This can only really mean two things.

In the first scenario, the Lebanese army may not do so beyond declarations, because it knows it is virtually impossible, or instead may attempt a limited operation which is unsuccessful, and in any case, many troops will not want to fight other Lebanese, especially if perceived to be on behalf of the occupation. In this case, the Lebanese government has signed on to the Israeli occupation lasting forever. It will be up to the Lebanese army to prove itself an effective local police force for Israel, and as long as it cannot do so, but keeps attempting on a low level, it becomes a collaborationist ‘Palestinian Authority’ kind of regime in the south, a situation continuing in perpetuity.

Indeed, the parallel to the 1993 Oslo agreement and its decades-long aftermath is unmistakeable – even the concept of “pilot zones” and gradual withdrawal from more of them as ‘security” improves is remarkably similar to the “Gaza and Jericho first” concept in Oslo, which gradually added more Palestinian population centres as Israel annexed everything in between.

In fact, a semi-secret ‘security annex’ of the agreement gives Israel “freedom of military action” within the area still occupied, and even “grants Israel the legal right to re-enter areas at will if it determines that the Lebanese army has failed in its disarmament task,” according to analyst Qassem Qasir. Israel and Lebanon will also establish a Military Coordination Group for Lebanon, “tasked with the mission to operate 24/7, managing deconfliction, verification, and overall implementation,” essentially becoming allies against another Lebanese component.

In the second scenario, the Lebanese army does begin a large-scale military attack on Hezbollah, leading to a renewal of civil war in Lebanon; and given sectarian allegiances, and especially given Israel’s massive dispossession of the Shia, who have nowhere else to turn but to Hezbollah in the circumstances, this means sectarian war. And even then, it is very unlikely that it would be successful. With such massive “instability” and “terrorism” racking its northern neighbour, Israel again has excuses to stay forever in a “security buffer.”

In the final analysis, this is the main problem with the agreement – the requirement to turn the Lebanese army against part of its population on behalf of the enemy. Only if those Lebanese people who understandably support the agreement are asked whether they would be prepared to take part in such an operation, can the real gravity of this agreement be understood.

It is far from inconceivable that creating fratricide in Lebanon is the very aim of Israeli and US leaders. When the host at Channel 13 comments that “It seems we’re leading Lebanon to a civil war. Maybe it’s not so bad for us, let the Lebanese government fight Hezbollah,” the channel’s senior defence correspondent, Alon Ben-David responds “That’s been the goal from the start,” even though he adds “I’m not sure right now, in the current situation, if it has the power to do so. So today, two more signals, let’s call them that, another strike on infrastructure bridges over the Litani River.” Only a television conversation, but rather real: we want the Lebanese army to make war on Hezbollah even though it doesn’t have the power to win, this pointless fratricide allowing us to continue to “send signals.”

Challenge to US-Iran MOU?

This US-mediated agreement represents a direct challenge to the kind of regional power Iran has been attempting to project via the MOU with the US over that war. Before agreeing to lift its closure of the Strait of Hormuz following the April 7 ceasefire, Iran insisted the ceasefire include Lebanon. This was initially rejected by the US. Israel reacted by terror-bombing Beirut. When the US prevailed upon Israel to cool it, and then actually agree to a ceasefire formality, Iran finally opened the Strait ten days later (it then closed it again when the US refused to reciprocate and maintained its blockade of Iranian ports). This showed that Iran could use its new-found power over the Strait to make an impact on the broader region.

Such an outcome was viewed negatively by the US and Israel. However, in reality, the ceasefire favoured Israel, because it left it in occupation of 10 percent of Lebanon, which it had not been in before Hezbollah had launched its strikes on Israel on March 2. Thus, while Iran’s ability to force a change was a political victory for Iran, the actual situation on the ground was a victory for Israel. And it became even more so, because Israel barely adhered to the “ceasefire” for a day and continued killing at an alarming rate, while meticulously destroying everything standing in Lebanese towns and villages it occupied.

This reality was alarming for Iran’s own credibility. So it again insisted on “linkage,” that is, that its MOU with the US specifically include a ceasefire in Lebanon. Given that Israel’s continual actions since then have been on a relatively much lower level than during the first farcical “ceasefire,” this again could be seen as a victory for Iran. Even more, Iran insisted on including recognition of Lebanon’s “territorial integrity” in the language this time, somewhat strengthening it.

However, there is no commitment to Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon in the US-Iran MOU any more than there is in the Israel-Lebanon agreement, and in fact Israeli occupation forces occupy a substantially larger region now than at the outset of the April 17 Lebanon ceasefire. The language of “territorial integrity” is not different in substance from the language in this agreement that Israel has no “territorial ambitions” and that both sides support “full Lebanese state sovereignty” and so on. All are similarly vague with no commitment to withdrawal.

So those claiming that Iran had put Israeli withdrawal into the agreement are kidding themselves; of course, in the course of the 60 days of negotiations, Iran may insist on that as part of a final agreement; or it may not, depending on what else is on offer. However, that is not really point – the point remains that the MOU text, signed by the US, formally gives Iran, but not Israel, a say in what happens in Lebanon.

Even worse, the two mediator countries, Pakistan and Qatar, issued a declaration a few days later stating that “a de-confliction cell” would be created involving Iran, the US, Lebanon and the two mediators, “to ensure the adherence of the termination of military operations in Lebanon as per the MoU.” Thus Iran, but not Israel, was given a say in Lebanon!

To say the least, this was a huge affront to Israel, not necessarily because Israeli leaders, even though again there is no talk of withdrawal. Iran promoted as regional actor, while Israel not included on an issue in its “backyard.” It was also unacceptable to Trump and the US government more broadly. Yes, they needed the MOU. They will not scrap it over Lebanon having just signed it with Lebanon. But that doesn’t stop the US pursuing another track.

According to Netanyahu, the new agreement means that “Israel, Lebanon and the United States are essentially telling Iran: ‘This is none of your business. You have no status here, no involvement and no role. Not you, not Hezbollah, not any terrorist organization’.”

Netanyahu is correct. While we will have to wait and see, at first sight this represents quite a coup for Israel, and for the US bargaining position with Iran. If Iran did plan to push full Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon as part of its final deal, it is far more difficult now that the Lebanese government has signed its own agreement with Israel on a process that supposedly leads to Israeli withdrawal on its own timetable. It is one thing for Iran to negotiate on behalf of Hezbollah. It is another to try to dictate policy to the Lebanese government.

That said, that may even be an ‘escape valve’ for Iran if needed.

What Lebanon wants, what Iran wants – Is the Iranian element blameless?

In fact, one of Lebanese president’s key arguments has been that Iran has no right to dictate what Lebanon can do, an argument which, at face value, has merit; even more, he accuses Iran of seeking to use Lebanese sovereignty as a “bargaining chip” in its negotiations with the US. Given the content and context of the agreement as described above, this may seem rich coming from a government which has arguably signed away Lebanese sovereignty. But what of the argument itself?

Much as Iran has been arguing for inclusion of Lebanon in any deal, is Aoun’s implication that Iran could trade this away for better terms on other issues possible? It may be unlikely, but not out of the question. The fact that Iran’s insistence on Lebanese ceasefire (but not Israeli withdrawal) in the first April ceasefire meant nothing in practice and that Israel continued its killing and expanded its occupation over the next two months is evidence that it is possible.

That is not necessarily even a criticism. A country that has suffered such a violent attack, such massive destruction, after years of maximum pressure sanctions, cannot be expected to hold the line for other peoples’ struggles. That is just a reality. If Iran is offered a very good package in other respects and drops Israeli withdrawal from its conditions this cannot be called “betrayal” (except that Hezbollah’s action on March 2 was in solidarity with Iran … but that is part of the problem …). [To digress, the charge by some activists that Iran has “betrayed” Palestine by not including Gaza in the MOU is even more misleading, simply highlighting their illusions that Palestine has anything to do with Iran in the first place].

But in that sense, Aoun’s claim that Iran’s heavy involvement in Lebanon via Hezbollah may just be a bargaining chip is not necessarily wrong in the abstract. It is quite possible to be highly critical of the Israel-Lebanon agreement – as a possible road to continued Israeli occupation, a south Lebanese ‘Oslo’ or even to civil war – without being uncritical of the Iranian regime’s own power projection in the region.

Like any medium-sized capitalist power, Iran aims to increase its power and influence in the region. There is a great deal to criticise, or vigorously condemn, about the way it has done so, especially in Syria and Iraq, but this is not the space to cover such ground. Two anecdotes suffice for now: in 2015, when Iran was at the zenith of its regional power, Iranian MP Ali Reza Zakani claimed that Iran now controls four Arab capitals, Baghdad, Beirut, Damascus and Sanaa; while Ali Younisi, adviser to Iranian president Hassan Rouhani, stated that Iran now formed an empire, and that Baghdad was its “capital.”

Hezbollah was different, because it arose as a genuine expression of the resistance of south Lebanon’s Shiite population against the two-decade Israeli occupation. This gave Iran’s “resistance” ideology, otherwise hot air from a safe distance, some actual substance, given the Shiite religious connection and thus its reception to Khomeiniite ideology.

But once Israel was driven out in 2000, the right of Hezbollah to maintain arms due to “resistance” – while the militias of all other Lebanese communities dissolved at the end of the civil war in 1990 – came into question. Other than a short, but terrible, war in 2006, the Israel-Lebanon border was silent from 2000 to 2023. While an “axis of resistance” was talked about, none of the big Israeli wars on Gaza – 2008-9, 2012, 2014, 2019, 2021 – led to any reaction from across the Lebanese border, until the onset of the Gaza genocide (and even this reaction seems to have been a Hezbollah decision – driven by its south Lebanon context – rather than Iranian decision).

Why then did Iran want to maintain an armed Hezbollah in Lebanon? Surely it could have just as well maintained its influence, including significant economic penetration by Iranian capital, within the Lebanese Shiite community anyway. Israel, however, began campaigning from the early 1990s against an “Iranian bomb” that was often allegedly just “weeks away” from being built. As we have seen, this had an ideological function for the uncompromising, expansionist Zionist regime to justify everything. “Resistance” ideology played a similar role in the mobilizational needs of the Iranian regime.

But Iran also had reason to believe that Israel’s threats could someday become a reality. In past decades, Israel had bombed civilian nuclear facilities in both Iraq and Syria, and it had also killed Iranian scientists. Having an armed presence next door to Israel was a kind of forward security policy for Iran. As Palestinian writer Rashid Khalidi – author of ‘The 100 Years War on Palestine’ – put it, “I never believed there was such a thing as an axis of resistance. There was an axis for protection of Iran.”

Whether one agrees with this or not, Hezbollah’s fateful March 2 dispatch of rockets on northern Israel to avenge the death of an Iranian leader certainly supports Khalidi’s claim. Israel’s flagrant aggression against Iran means it is obviously no innocent here, to state the obvious, and its crocodile tears over northern Israeli communities sits uncomfortably with its vaporisation of countless Iranians at that very moment; and an act in solidarity with a foreign state under attack might sound admirable. But such a decision should be made by the Lebanese people as a whole, not by one organisation representing one part of one of its sectarian components, because the result – killing and destruction on an enormous scale and a new occupation – impacts all of Lebanon.

Hezbollah justified its action on the basis that Israel was still occupying five small regions near the border in violation of the November 2024 ceasefire, and this is true. But these were essentially five hilltop forts with a total area of some hectares, while now Israel is in occupation of up to a fifth of the country. Moreover, that had been the case all along; the March action was undeniably to avenge Khamenei.

That of course is not up to a non-Lebanese writer from far away, but up to the Lebanese people to sort out. But that is kind of the point.

Now – Lebanese Shiites have the right to resist occupation and dispossession

All that said, the situation has changed. All of Lebanon is impacted; but it is largely a million Shiites uprooted from the region under Israel’s occupation, the region being destroyed Gaza-style. And Hezbollah once again is their only organ to resist this occupation.

Israel’s gigantically “disproportionate” response – if it is even possible to use such terms – has given Hezbollah a new lease on life as a vehicle of resistance. Anyone would think this was Israel’s aim.

I am not so conspiratorial. But perhaps the point is that Israel’s aims have changed and that “disproportionate response” is now no longer a useful description, and not only because of the astronomical degree of the “disproportionality.”

When leader after leader states either that Israel plans to stay forever, or that Israel’s new borders should be the Litani (a view that is deeply held within Israeli society), or that a Greater Israel as allegedly depicted in biblical texts is a valid goal, we start to get the idea: West Bank, Gaza and Golan are not the limits of the expansionist state.

If the goal now actually is Greater Israel with new borders (for now?) on the Litani, then Hezbollah’s brief changes back to what it was in 1980s and 1990s, as opposed to the 2000-2023 period. And that puts real pressure on Iran not to trade it away; while not out of the question, an Iranian “betrayal” in the context of a long-term Israeli goal for new borders at the expense of the Shiites really would be a massive setback for the Iranian regime. As opposed to regimes or forces that Iran may have established transactional relations with at times, it is no accident that the only solid allies (whether considered “proxies” or otherwise) that Iran has in the region to use to project power and influence are among the Shiite populations in Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen. It may be able to give up Hezbollah’s armed forward defence role (especially now that Iran has broken the psychological barrier of directly hitting back at Israel), but it will not want to lose its influence among 40 percent of the Lebanese population.   But we will have to wait and see whether either the US-Iran agreement or the US-Israel-Lebanon agreement get Israel out of its new conquest. My long-time prognosis remains: a relative Iranian victory in the Gulf, and a relative Israeli victory in its own vicinity. If Israel still sees this as a defeat it is because it rejects sharing the region with any second hegemon.