Israel's best bet in Lebanon is a negotiated deal – and they know this

Members of the Druze minority during the funeral for the children killed in a rocket strike in Majdal Shams. Reuters

The rocket attack against Majdal Shams in the occupied Golan Heights on Saturday, which killed 12 children, has pushed Hezbollah and Israel to the brink of a major escalation in their war. Yet all the signs are that neither side wants to allow the situation to degenerate into an all-out conflict that spreads to the region.

The Israelis appear to understand an underlying reality they face in Lebanon, namely that there is no military solution likely to bring them an outcome better than a negotiated agreement, or even a return to the status quo before October 7 last year. While Israelis officially reject this logic, they have not found an alternative to disprove it.

A sign of this came on July 23, when Israel’s Education Minister announced that students from the northern border area would not return to schools there in September, and would instead continue to attend classes in other parts of Israel. This indicated that Israel anticipates a continuation of the conflict, even as the decision reduced the immediate pressure on the government to go to war against Hezbollah.

Anything short of an invasion of southern Lebanon is bound to fail, while the outcome of an invasion may well be even worse for Israel. If the Israelis try to maintain a free-fire zone in the south, Hezbollah is likely to continue to bomb northern Israel and make it impossible for citizens to return. If there is an invasion, Israel will be trapped again in a Lebanese quagmire, while the conflict will certainly lead to major destruction of northern Israeli towns, delaying a return of their inhabitants perhaps for years.

That is why a negotiated settlement is preferable, and the outlines of one are fairly well known. Yet Hezbollah has only agreed to discuss the terms once the fighting in Gaza stops. Such an agreement is bound to be far from perfect, and will primarily be cosmetic, but must also allow either side to be able to claim some sort of a victory.

Various mediation efforts, French but also American, have led to the main points in a possible accord. The Biden administration’s envoy, Amos Hochstein, has visited Beirut several times, as have French officials. They have proposed broadly the following: a Hezbollah withdrawal from the border with Israel, alongside the deployment of more Lebanese army troops and UN forces, to be followed by further steps to stabilise the situation.

The details of the plan remain unclear. Some suggest Israel wants Hezbollah to withdraw behind the Litani River, about 30km from the border, thereby implementing UN Security Council Resolution 1701 that ended the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah. Others say Israel would accept a pullback of 8-10km, coupled with negotiations over 13 contested border points, and an end to Israel flying over Lebanon, themselves violations of Resolution 1701.

It’s highly probable that in the event negotiations take place once the fighting in Gaza ends or dies down, those will be the contours of an agreement. Hezbollah has rejected the idea of withdrawing from the border, but its allies have hinted the party would implement Resolution 1701. Yet committing to a pullback would be meaningless, as many Shiite party members hail from border villages, and no one could prevent them from returning.

However, if the party can secure an Israeli commitment to end overflights, and can initiate negotiations over the contested border points, it could sell this as a victory and remove certain types of weapons from near the border while reducing its presence there. However, since many border villages are destroyed, young Hezbollah members would be able to return almost immediately under the cover of reconstruction.

Ultimately, Hezbollah is keen to return to the pre-October 7 situation, so it is not overly concerned with resolving the disagreements over border points. On the contrary, as long as these remain unresolved, the party’s raison d’etre to resist Israel will continue. But an end to overflights would be a major gain, as the Israelis watch Hezbollah closely to see if it is transferring weapons into Lebanon, which the party seeks to conceal.

What would Israelis gain from such an agreement? First, even a cosmetic Hezbollah pullback from the border could be portrayed by the Netanyahu government as an achievement. Second, once the inhabitants of the north return home, Mr Netanyahu would have defused another domestic political time bomb. And third, even an imperfect deal could be preferable to Israel than a Lebanon war that goes regional, and whose outcome is so uncertain it may undermine the Israeli Prime Minister’s political survival.

Israelis will say that they reject an imperfect accord. However, it’s unclear, after nine months of conflict in Gaza, fatigue in their army, in the midst of a tight US election, and needing to replenish their arsenal, that they have the bandwidth and outside military backing to sustain an even more challenging war that certainly won’t lead to a decisive victory.

In light of this, the always pragmatic Mr Netanyahu may prefer to try to avoid allowing the perfect to become the enemy of the good, and go for a Lebanon arrangement that allows him to focus on his internal political challenges and the Palestinian question, which are his main preoccupations today.