The Israeli-Lebanese Framework Agreement: Legitimizing Occupation and Reconstructing Lebanon

The framework agreement signed between Lebanon and Israel under American sponsorship was not merely a security understanding to halt military operations or to organize field arrangements in southern Lebanon. Rather, it represents a politically and strategically significant juncture in the course of the Arab-Zionist conflict, as it reflects the migration of the American project from crisis management in the region to the restructuring of the Lebanese political and security reality in accordance with the requirements of Israeli national security. A deep reading of the leaked details about the terms of the agreement, along with accompanying Israeli and American statements, reveals that the true objective transcends the matter of a ceasefire or temporary stability, reaching towards redefining the very concept of Lebanese sovereignty itself. The Lebanese state is being tasked with implementing security and political obligations that directly serve the Israeli project, while Israel retains the right to military intervention and the freedom to use force whenever it deems its interests or security to be threatened. This practically means that the agreement does not end the occupation but rather grants it a new political legitimacy and re-produces it in a different format. From the very first moment, it became clear that the United States was not a neutral mediator between two conflicting parties, but rather a full partner in formulating the agreement and determining its priorities. Therefore, most of the disclosed terms, as announced, are clearly biased towards the Israeli perspective, placing a long series of political, military, and security obligations on Lebanon in exchange for vague and conditional Israeli commitments. This confirms that the agreement is essentially an American-Israeli understanding that has been marketed as a Lebanese-Israeli agreement, and that the American administration has treated Lebanon as a field for reordering regional balances rather than a sovereign state entitled to impose its national conditions based on international law and United Nations resolutions. The most dangerous aspect of this agreement is that it transforms the occupation from its traditional status as a military occupation that must end unconditionally into an occupation conditional upon the removal of what Israel considers threats to its security. Instead of the Israeli withdrawal being a legal and moral obligation that is non-negotiable, it has become linked to the disarmament of Hezbollah and other resistance forces, alongside security arrangements determined by Israel and monitored by the United States. In this sense, the occupation is no longer temporary but has become open-ended, as Israel can at any time claim that its conditions have not been met, allowing it to maintain its military presence within Lebanese territories under the pretext of a security zone. Here, the occupation shifts from being an exceptional case to a permanent reality, with Lebanese sovereignty becoming hostage to Israeli security decisions. Moreover, the matter does not stop at the military dimension but extends to reshaping the function of the Lebanese state itself. If the state, in the national concept, is responsible for protecting the land, defending sovereignty, and preserving independence, then the agreement pushes it towards undertaking a different role, which consists of pursuing the resistance, drying up its sources of strength, and preventing any action that Israel might regard as a threat. Thus, Lebanese security institutions are required, directly or indirectly, to implement part of the Israeli security doctrine, a transition of profound danger that empties the concept of a national state of its true content and turns it into a tool for internal control that serves the security of the occupation rather than the security of the homeland. The subordination of a complete Israeli withdrawal to the condition of disarming the resistance cannot be viewed solely as a security measure but is part of an integrated political project to reshape the internal Lebanese system. The resistance, whether agreed upon by some or disagreed with by others, has become over the past decades one of the most important elements of the political and military balance in Lebanon, managing to establish deterrent equations that have prevented the return of occupation to the south for decades. Therefore, targeting it is not only a matter of weapons, but it also aims at the political and social environment that produced the resistance option, with the goal of redistributing the internal balance of power in a way that opens the door to the establishment of a power more closely aligned with the American and Western project and less able to oppose Israeli policies in the region. The agreement also unveils a clear attempt to separate Lebanon from its Arab and regional depth, particularly from the course of the conflict with Iran. The United States seeks to isolate the Lebanese file from any broader regional negotiations and prevent Lebanon from being a bargaining chip in any future settlements, enabling Washington to manage each Arab arena individually according to its own and Israel's interests. This approach aligns with the American strategy of dismantling arenas of conflict and preventing the emergence of any regional axis capable of imposing new equations in the face of Western hegemony. From a different perspective, the agreement provides Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with a significant political gain at a moment when he was facing accumulated internal and external crises. The statements he made after signing the agreement left no doubt that he considers what took place a strategic victory for Israel as it cements its forces' presence in the security zone, grants it military freedom of movement, and ties withdrawal to purely Israeli conditions. Moreover, the agreement presents to public opinion in Israel as an achievement accomplished without Israel having to make any real concessions, which explains the official Israeli celebration of the agreement as one of the most important political gains since the outbreak of war. On the internal Lebanese level, the repercussions of the agreement seem more dangerous than its texts themselves, as it deepens political and sectarian division and raises fundamental questions about the identity of the state and its strategic options. It is natural for a wide segment of the Lebanese population to view the agreement as a concession of part of national sovereignty, while other forces will consider it an opportunity to rebuild the state away from the logic of resistance. This division is likely to expand, carrying the potential for political tension and possibly security conflicts, especially if the disarmament file becomes a title for internal confrontation. Hence, the fears are justified that the agreement may have laid the foundation for a new Lebanese crisis that could exceed the severity of previous crises as it touches the core of the national contract and redraws the lines of internal alignment on sharper bases. From a pan-Arab nationalist perspective, this agreement cannot be considered a peace agreement, nor even a balanced truce, but rather constitutes a new episode in the project of reshaping the region to serve Israeli superiority and constrain the ability of Arab states to possess elements of strength and sovereignty. It grants the occupation what it has been unable to fully impose through military force and transforms Israeli military superiority into a political and legal commitment on the Lebanese state, while providing no real guarantees to end the occupation, halt aggressions, or respect Lebanese sovereignty. Therefore, the most dangerous aspect of this agreement lies not only in the stipulations laid down but in what it establishes as political and strategic facts that may redefine the relationship between Lebanon and the occupation for decades to come, opening the door to a new phase in which Israeli security becomes the reference against which the sovereignty of the Lebanese state and the limits of its national decisions are measured. This makes the agreement, in its essence, a victory for the Zionist project rather than a gateway to genuine stability or just peace, as peace based on a distorted balance of power and cementing occupation does not create lasting stability but merely postpones an explosion and establishes deeper conflicts in the future. As of the writing of these lines, the Israeli occupation army announced, just two days after the signing of the framework agreement between Lebanon and Israel, that it had killed members of Hezbollah who were armed with rocket launchers and shelled a rocket-launching platform in the Nabatiyeh region of southern Lebanon, claiming to eliminate threats facing its forces. This does not concern evaluating the Israeli narrative or verifying its details as much as it reveals a significant truth: that Israel still considers itself entitled to define the nature of the threat, the timing of the use of force, and the limits of its military intervention within Lebanese territories, even after the agreement had been reached. This confirms that what occurred did not establish a definitive end to the aggressions nor impose real constraints on the Israeli military decision-making freedom, but instead left the door open for military operations according to Israeli assessments alone. If the first actions following the signing of the agreement have reaffirmed the continuation of this approach, then this heightens concerns that the agreement may become a political umbrella enabling Israel to carry on its military operations whenever it claims a threat exists, emptying the concept of de-escalation of its true meaning and making Lebanese sovereignty permanently subject to the Israeli interpretation of the necessities of its national security. Therefore, the true value of any agreement is not measured by what is stated in its abstract texts, but by what it produces on the ground in terms of realities, and as the initial realities indicate a continuation of Israeli military force usage just days after its signing, serious questions arise regarding the extent to which this agreement can achieve the stability it promoted or whether it has instead provided a new political cover for Israel's continuous military intervention whenever it wishes under the titles of its choosing.