Latest news with #Lebanon-Israel
Memri
21-07-2025
- Politics
- Memri
U.S. Softens Its Position On Hizbullah And Its Weapons; Special Envoy Thomas Barrack: Hizbullah Is 'A Political Party,' It Will Hand Over Only Its Heavy Weapons, And Only Over Time
In the past few months, there has been a significant shift in the U.S. administration towards a softer position vis-à-vis Lebanon and also vis-à-vis Hizbullah and its weapons. This is evident in both tone and essence. This change was reflected in the appointment of Thomas Barrack, an American businessman of Lebanese origin and the U.S. Ambassador to Turkey, to oversee the Lebanon portfolio. He replaces Morgan Ortagus, who was known for her hawkish approach to Hizbullah.[1] Barrack's softer tone regarding the Lebanese government, and the essence of his statements, surprised many in Lebanon and abroad, who had expected him to continue in Ortagus' footsteps and strongly pressure the Lebanese state to disarm Hizbullah. However, Barrack effectively recognized Hizbullah as a political party that should not be ignored, differentiating between this and the organization's "military wing." Moreover, he avoided indicating whether the U.S. would remove Hizbullah from the list of terrorist organizations if it disarmed its military wing and focused on its political activity. The U.S. has already done this for Hay'at Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), the jihadi terrorist organization that took over Syria in December 2024 and is headed by Ahmed Al-Sharaa, formerly known as Abu Muhammad Al-Joulani. Barrack also framed Hizbullah's disarmament as a domestic Lebanese issue that would have to be with Hizbullah's consent and not imposed by force, making clear that the U.S. has no intention of interfering in the matter. Furthermore, he in effect recognized Hizbullah's right to continue to possess arms by calling for it to give up only its heavy weapons, and even this only gradually, as Israel withdraws from the territory it occupied in southern Lebanon and carries out other steps. The positions expressed by Barrack are in contrast with the traditional positions of the U.S., which does not distinguish between Hizbullah's so-called "political wing" and "military wing," but rather defines the entire organization as terrorist.[2] In addition, the U.S. has to date insisted that Hizbullah disarm completely across all of Lebanon, in accordance with the Lebanon-Israel ceasefire agreement of November 27, 2024, which is, as is known, guaranteed by the U.S. and France. It should be noted that the early signs of this shift were apparent during the tenure of Ms. Ortagus. Although she vetoed Hizbullah's participation in the new Lebanese government, calling it "a red line," the U.S. embassy in Beirut welcomed the new government under Nawaf Salam, which preserves Hizbullah's representation in that it includes two ministers from this organization.[3] This report will present recent statements by U.S. Special Envoy Thomas Barrack on the topic of Hizbullah's disarmament. U.S. Special Envoy Barrack: Hizbullah – A Political Party That Has A Future In The Country "Hizbullah is a political party. It also has a militant aspect. Hizbullah needs to see that there's a future for them, that that road is not harnessed just so we're against them and that there's an intersection of peace and prosperity for them also…"[4] This surprising declaration – which completely contradicts the U.S. position that defines Hizbullah as a terrorist organization without any distinction between its military and political wings – was made by none other than Thomas Barrack, the U.S. ambassador to Turkey, Special Envoy to Syria, and diplomat in charge of the Lebanon portfolio, at a press conference he convened in Beirut on July 7, 2025, following a meeting he had with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun. Asked how the U.S. intended to respond if Hizbullah refuses to turn over its weapons to the Lebanese government, Barrack said: "The good news for the U.S. is we don't intend to deal with it. We intend for you to deal with it, so this is not a situation of the United States coming in and saying let us tell you we want a regime change, let us tell you we're unhappy with one of your largest political parties… What we're doing is saying, you want change, you change it and we'll be there to support you. If you don't want change it's no problem. The rest of the region is moving at Mach speed and you will be left behind, sadly, you will be left behind." Posing a rhetorical question to the journalists at the press conference, Barrack asked: "Is Hizbullah a political party in Lebanon?", and added: "… So why do you think America or France or Great Britain are going to come in and resolve a political party in a sovereign country? That's not going to happen. It's your problem. You figure it out…"[5] Thomas Barrack, U.S. Special Envoy to Syria and U.S. ambassador to Turkey (Source: July 8, 2025) The significance of the remarks by U.S. Envoy Barrack is that he recognizes Hizbullah as a legitimate political party in Lebanon that has a future in the country. At a press conference he convened in New York on July 11, he reiterated the distinction between Hizbullah's military and political wings. Although he clarified that the U.S. sees Hizbullah as a terrorist organization, he stressed that, from a Lebanese perspective, Hizbullah has a political wing. He said, "And I got in trouble the other day because I said Hizbullah has two parts. First of all, certainly America looks at it as a terrorist organization. So Hizbullah, terrorist organization, same sentence – I'm saying it. That's what it is. However, in Lebanon, it's a political party. So, in Lebanon you have 13 to 15 parliamentary participants. That's Hizbullah the political party, one of the parties that represents the Shias along with the Amal party. And you have Hizbullah the militant group, which we think is backed by Iran, which is the foreign terrorist organization, which we have issues with. The process of Hizbullah putting their arms down starts with the Lebanese government process. They have to – and the council of ministers – have to authorize that mandate and that act, and Hizballah itself, the political party, has to agree to that…"[6] Barrack: "I Can't Answer" Whether The U.S. Will Remove Hizbullah From Its Terror List Furthermore, Barrack did not rule out the possibility that the U.S. would remove Hizbullah from its terror list if it decided to disarm and become a regular Lebanese political party – which the U.S. administration has already done for Hay'at Tahrir Al-Sham that today rules Syria. Asked at a press conference about this, Barrack replied, "It's a great question, and I'm not running from the answer, but I can't answer it."[7] Barrack: Hizbullah Will Hand Over Only Its Heavy Arms, And Consensually Along with accepting Hizbullah as a legitimate political element, Barrack drew back from the U.S. position in the matter of disarming Hizbullah. In the past few months, the U.S. has been strongly pressuring the Lebanese government to disarm Hizbullah across the country, in accordance with the Israel-Lebanon ceasefire agreement that came into effect on November 27, 2024. But it is clear that this position has also changed somewhat since Barrack was placed in charge of the Lebanon portfolio. During his first official Lebanon visit, on June 19, 2025, Barrack handed Lebanese President Joseph Aoun a document that, according to reports in the Lebanese and Arab media, included a road map for Lebanon's future. Along with demands for economic reform and normalization with Syria, it also included a demand for Hizbullah's disarmament throughout the country.[8] At a July 11 press conference in New York, Barrack clarified that Hizbullah must consent to its disarmament – that is, the process must be coordinated with it and approved by it, not imposed on it. He said, "The process of Hizbullah putting their arms down starts with the Lebanese government process. They have to – and the council of ministers – have to authorize that mandate, and that act, and Hizbullah itself, the political party, has to agree to that."[9] Also at the July 11 press conference, he underlined the demand that Hizullah hand over only its heavy weapons and not its light weapons, noting that the organization must agree "over a time period to forego its major weapons, right – everybody in Lebanon is packing a 357 Magnum. I mean, it's like having a belt. So we're not talking about small arms. We're talking about the weapons that could affect Israel."[10] These statements are in line also with a report published by the Lebanese daily Al-Mudun in early July, which said that according to the road map presented by Barrack to the Lebanese government, Hizbullah must lay down its heavy weapons – missiles and drones – as Israel withdraws from the areas in southern Lebanon that it controls.[11] This too is a withdrawal from the U.S. position, which up until now has called on the Lebanese government to completely disarm Hizbullah across Lebanon, without connection to an Israeli withdrawal. Hizbullah: We Make No Distinction Between A Political And A Military Wing; We Are One Organization With One Leadership It should be noted that, contrary to the remarks made by U.S. Envoy Barrack, Hizbullah itself denies that there is any distinction between its political and its military wings. In an interview with the Lebanese Al-Nahar daily that was published on July 11, 2025, Ihab Hamadeh, a Hizbullah MP, said: "Hizbullah does not have two wings. It is one organization with one leadership."[12] Similarly, in June 2013, about a month before the EU decision to add Hizbullah's military wing to the list of terrorist organizations, Na'im Qassem, who is currently Hizbullah's secretary-general, mocked the distinction between the organization's military and political wings, saying: "We do not have a military arm and another [arm] that is political. These Europeans are making themselves ridiculous… They are manipulating their own peoples [by saying] that they are conducting a dialogue with [Hizbullah's] politicians rather than with members of [its] military [arm]. They have forgotten that for us, every child is both a military man and a politician."[13]
Nahar Net
21-07-2025
- Politics
- Nahar Net
Barrack says Trump wants prosperity in Lebanon, US can't guarantee Israel's actions
by Naharnet Newsdesk 21 July 2025, 13:20 Visiting U.S. envoy Tom Barrack met Monday with President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam and is scheduled to meet later in the day with political and religious leaders, and on Tuesday with Speaker Nabih Berri. Speaking to reporters after his talks with Aoun and Salam, Barrack said he returned to Lebanon because U.S. President Donald Trump is interested in reaching 'regional stability' and that Lebanon is the 'center of that process.' Noting that the U.S. wants 'security' and 'economic prosperity' in Lebanon, Barrack pointed out that the U.S. cannot 'compel' Israel to do or not do 'anything.' 'We're here to use our influence to bring calm minds together to come to a conclusion. The U.S. has no business in trying to compel Israel to do anything,' the U.S. envoy added. Barrack also said that the Lebanon-Israel cessation of hostilities agreement "didn't work," while noting that Hezbollah's disarmament is a "very internal" issue in Lebanon. He added that if it didn't happen it would be "disappointing." Moreover, Barrack said the U.S. is not trying to threaten the Lebanese and that it is not thinking of slapping sanctions on Lebanese officials. The U.S. does not want to "add more logs to the fire," he said. 'There's no consequence, there's no threat, there's no whip, we're here on a voluntary basis trying to usher in a solution," he added. "Your leaders have been more than helpful," he said on his second visit to Beirut this month, adding that "the reforms that are happening... are amazingly plausible and significant." The Presidency meanwhile said that Aoun handed Barrack, in the name of the Lebanese state, a "draft comprehensive memo for the implementation of everything that Lebanon has pledged -- from the November 27, 2024 declaration to the Lebanese government's ministerial statement to especially the president's inaugural speech.' The draft emphasized the need to extend state authority to the entire country, restrict the bearing of weapons to the army and ensure "decisions of war and peace" rest with Lebanese constitutional authorities, according to the Presidency statement. Barrack's visit to Lebanon comes amid ongoing domestic and international pressure for Hezbollah to give up its remaining arsenal after a bruising war with Israel that ended with a U.S.-brokered ceasefire agreement in November. Israel has continued to launch near-daily airstrikes in Lebanon that it says are aimed at stopping Hezbollah from rebuilding its capabilities. On Friday, Hezbollah chief Sheikh Naim Qassem said his group was not ready to lay down its arms before an "existential threat" to Lebanon comes to an end, adding that "we will not surrender to Israel." The U.S. "disarmament plan now, at this stage ... is for Israel," Qassem said. "We are ready for any action that leads to a Lebanese understanding... but for Israel and America, we will not do this under any type of threat," he said.
Al Jazeera
09-04-2025
- Politics
- Al Jazeera
Israel pushes on with strategy to keep neighbours weak in Lebanon and Syria
Beirut, Lebanon – Israel's continuing attacks intend to keep its neighbours unstable, weak and fragmented, analysts say, and are contributing to the derailing of governing projects in Lebanon and Syria. Conversations with experts, analysts, and diplomats reveal a belief that Israel wants to keep the two states weak and fractured, maintaining Israel as the strongest regional power. 'The Israelis believe that having weaker neighbors, as in states that aren't really able to function, is beneficial for them because, in that context, they're the strongest actor,' Elia Ayoub, writer, researcher, and founder of The Fire These Times podcast, told Al Jazeera. Lebanon and Syria, the targets of Israel's forays, have largely not retaliated against the Israelis, who outpower them militarily, financially and technologically. Lebanon and Syria are both in a fragile condition. Lebanon has been in dire economic straits for at least six years, with bouts of political paralysis, and has just emerged from a prolonged Israeli assault that killed more than 4,000 people and destroyed swaths of the country. That war, which also badly damaged the armed movemen tHezbollah, a major domestic actor in Lebanon since the 1980s, ostensibly ended with the November 27 ceasefire. Syria, meanwhile, recently emerged from a nearly 14-year-long war that displaced millions and killed hundreds of thousands. The transitional government is working to unify armed factions, stabilise the economy and gain international recognition. Along with Lebanon, which is led by its first functioning cabinet in years, Syria has new leadership that wants to turn a page on recent history but, analysts told Al Jazeera, Israel seems intent on preventing that. Israel has been violating the ceasefire with Lebanon since it was signed, justifying each breach by claiming it had hit 'Hezbollah targets'. The situation is particularly gruesome along Lebanon's southern border, where some villages were obliterated during the war and others were completely razed since the ceasefire was agreed on. 'There are a lot of violations,' a member of Lebanon's civil defense force, who asked to not be named, told Al Jazeera from the battered southern town of Meiss el-Jabal, adding, 'There's nothing we can do about it.' Israel has also refused to fully withdraw from Lebanon, as the ceasefire stipulates, instead, leaving its forces in five points that experts say are likely being held for future negotiations over delineating the Lebanon-Israel border. 'The very clear path ahead is that Israel has no limits in its operations within Lebanon,' Mohanad Hage Ali, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut, told Al Jazeera. 'The only distinction made is in firepower and destruction, which is reserved for disproportionate responses to attacks on northern towns in Israel.' In Syria's chaos following the Assad regime's overthrow on December 8, Israel launched attacks on military infrastructure around the country, focusing on the south and creeping its forces further into Syrian territory. Syria's transitional government has said it has no interest in regional war. Instead it has said that it has no intention to attack Israel and would respect the 1974 Agreement on Disengagement between the two countries. But the Syrian government's overtures fell on deaf ears, and the attacks have continued. The Israeli government immediately revealed its position towards the new Syrian government following President Bashar al-Assad's overthrow, calling it 'a terror group from Idlib that took Damascus by force'. Israel has since repeatedly bombed Syria, and seized territory along the frontier between the occupied Golan Heights and the rest of Syria. 'Israel has made a bet that Syria will fail and will be fragmented,' Aron Lund, a fellow at Century International, told Al Jazeera. 'What they're doing is trying to position themselves in that scenario, as a push to have sway over the south and keep it unthreatening to them and protect their now almost unlimited freedom of manoeuvre in their airspace.' In March, Israeli air strikes on Syria increased and expanded to new areas, with ground incursions increasing by 30 percent, including into the southern areas of Deraa and al-Quneitra. 'The impact on civilians has been increasingly deadly,' Muaz al-Abdullah, ACLED's Middle East Research manager, said in a statement. 'To defend themselves, residents in the village of Kuya, in Deraa, fired warning shots to deter Israeli forces from advancing into the village on March 25. The response by Israeli forces was an air strike and shelling of the village, and at least six civilians were killed.' Imad al-Baysiri, from Deraa, told Al Jazeera about a similar incident in Nawa, 34km (21 miles) north of Deraa city. The Israeli army 'tried to advance to all the large squares in Nawa so some young men started running and the Israeli army started shooting at them', he said, adding that locals confronted the army and forced them to retreat. 'They brought in helicopters and drones and for around four hours bombed the area,' he said. 'Warplanes and helicopters also bombarded the city of Nawa with missiles from helicopters and drones.' Analysts can see little that would stop Israel's near-daily attacks on Lebanon and Syria. 'They listen to Americans, but only to a certain extent,' a Western diplomatic source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Al Jazeera. Hezbollah's arsenal may once have acted as a deterrent, but the latest war has changed that calculus. 'All deterrence has been lost,' Hage Ali said. Without any diplomatic or military pressure in its way, Israel seems set on disrupting any progress in Lebanon and Syria and keeping them mired in chaos. 'That's how Israel views its best-case scenarios in the region,' Ayoub said. 'It speaks to a deep cynicism at the heart of Israeli politics, and one that comes from decades-long militarism that has become a normalised part of day-to-day Israeli political culture.' Many analysts have spoken of Israel needing a 'forever war' in the region, something that it would be 'quite comfortable' in, according to Natasha Hall, senior fellow at the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, speaking at the American University of Beirut on April 8. Or, as the diplomatic source told Al Jazeera: 'This [Israeli] government has shown that it knows how to make war. But it has yet to show that it knows how to make peace.'
Nahar Net
03-04-2025
- Politics
- Nahar Net
Israel says negotiations ongoing over Lebanon border, prisoners
by Naharnet Newsdesk 7 hours Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said Thursday that negotiations are ongoing over the border dispute with Lebanon and the release of Lebanese prisoners detained in Israel. After meeting his French counterpart Jean-Noël Barrot in Paris, Saar said that Turkey is playing a negative role in Syria and Lebanon, adding that Israel wants "the stability of Lebanon, the continuation of the ceasefire, and liberating Lebanon from Iranian occupation." Saar's statement came after a wave of Israeli airstrikes targeting Syria and south Lebanon and a deeper military incursion into Syria. Deputy U.S. Special Envoy for Middle East Morgan Ortagus will soon arrive in Beirut to discuss the Lebanon-Israel ceasefire after having said that the U.S. will be "bringing together Lebanon and Israel for talks aimed at diplomatically resolving several outstanding issues between the two countries". The sticking points are the release of Lebanese prisoners, the remaining disputed points along the Blue Line, and the remaining 5 points where Israeli forces are still deployed.
Nahar Net
03-04-2025
- Politics
- Nahar Net
Israel says negotiations ongoing over Lebanon border, prisoners
by Naharnet Newsdesk 03 April 2025, 14:07 Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said Thursday that negotiations are ongoing over the border dispute with Lebanon and the release of Lebanese prisoners detained in Israel. After meeting his French counterpart Jean-Noël Barrot in Paris, Saar said that Turkey is playing a negative role in Syria and Lebanon, adding that Israel wants "the stability of Lebanon, the continuation of the ceasefire, and liberating Lebanon from Iranian occupation." Saar's statement came after a wave of Israeli airstrikes targeting Syria and south Lebanon and a deeper military incursion into Syria. Deputy U.S. Special Envoy for Middle East Morgan Ortagus will soon arrive in Beirut to discuss the Lebanon-Israel ceasefire after having said that the U.S. will be "bringing together Lebanon and Israel for talks aimed at diplomatically resolving several outstanding issues between the two countries". The sticking points are the release of Lebanese prisoners, the remaining disputed points along the Blue Line, and the remaining 5 points where Israeli forces are still deployed.
