Lebanon-Israel talks expose deep rift between Lebanese government and Hezbollah

Even before officials convened in Washington, the fault lines over Israel-Lebanon talks were already on display in Beirut, where opposition to the meeting had spilled into the streets.

Demonstrators have gathered in the Lebanese capital in recent days, making their objections unmistakable – and impossible to ignore.

For many in the city, the idea of direct engagement with Israel amounts to betrayal, all the more so because the talks have stirred speculation about possible “normalisation” between the two states.

Hezbollah Secretary General Naim Qassem dismissed the process as “futile” and described it as a “free concession” to Israel and the United States. The group has been pressing the Lebanese authorities to withdraw altogether.

Still, the meeting proceeded. Israel’s ambassador to the US Yechiel Leiter and Lebanon’s ambassador Nada Hamadeh sat down at the State Department under the chairmanship of Secretary of State Marco Rubio – the most direct bilateral contact between the two countries since 1983, and by some measures the most consequential since the State of Israel was founded in 1948.

The session lasted a little more than two hours. Expectations were low from the outset, and there was no breakthrough.

Israel’s ambassador to the US Yechiel Leiter speaks to members of the media outside the US State Department

The joint statement that followed was, in many respects, standard diplomatic fare. Both delegations signalled support for continuing discussions. The US called the meeting a “historic milestone” and pointed to the possibility of reconstruction funding. Lebanon pressed for a ceasefire. Israel reiterated its call for disarmament. There was no open clash – but no movement either.

Lebanon’s Culture Minister, Dr Ghassan Salamé, told RTÉ News in Beirut today that the gathering had always been intended only as a “preliminary meeting”.

“It is a way of trying to produce a pause in the fighting – and on the other hand, to start thinking about the negotiation. The negotiations as such will start much later than today,” he said.

That blunt assessment reflects Lebanon’s position. The government travelled to Washington not because it believed success was close, but because it saw little alternative.

Israel has killed more than 2,000 people here since March, destroyed an estimated 40,000 housing units in just 35 days, and is pursuing what it calls a security zone in southern Lebanon – a zone that, in reality, has meant razing villages, destroying bridges over the Litani River and severing the south from the rest of the country.

It is a campaign that extends well beyond a narrowly targeted operation against Hezbollah.

The distance between the two sides was clear before the talks began. Israel’s ambassador reportedly arrived with instructions not to agree to a ceasefire. Lebanon’s central demand, by contrast, was precisely that – a ceasefire before any broader negotiations could move forward.

Lebanon and the United States have reportedly asked Israel for a “pause” in the fighting, while some Israeli officials have suggested Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could accept a brief tactical halt in airstrikes.

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There is also the basic issue of who was not in the room. Hezbollah holds 15 seats in Lebanon’s parliament. It has its own armed wing, its own internal structures and its own social welfare network. In practical terms, it remains more powerful than the Lebanese army.

The Lebanese state cannot, by itself, deliver Hezbollah’s disarmament – Israel’s stated condition for any meaningful deal.

And that is only one of the complications.

“The larger challenge is that Hezbollah does not make its own decisions,” said Paul Salem, Senior Fellow at the Middle East Institute, who has spent a lifetime watching Lebanon’s recurring conflicts at close range.

His father served as Lebanon’s foreign minister in the 1980s.

“It’s not a sovereign militia. It belongs to the [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps], and Tehran makes the decisions,” he said.

Benjamin Netanyahu apparently views the talks as a tactic to buy time without stopping the fighting

That, Mr Salem argues, is exactly why US-Iran relations matter to Lebanon almost as much as anything discussed in Washington.

“It’s very important that, as the US sits down with the Iranians, they also insist that Iran walks away from the strategy it has pursued for 40 years – arming militias in various Arab countries to protect Iran. That is not an acceptable strategy for any country,” he added.

There are, at least, limited grounds for optimism.

With the Assad regime gone, Iran weakened and Hezbollah battered, Lebanon’s government is trying to set a course of its own in a way it has not managed for decades.

Mr Salem described today’s direction as “the first of its kind since the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948”. The Culture Minister, for his part, says the minimum objective is to secure a pause in the bloodshed.

But the barriers remain daunting. Mr Netanyahu apparently sees the talks as a way to buy time without ending the military campaign. Israel has also made clear it will not discuss a ceasefire with Hezbollah – and Hezbollah has no intention of entering direct talks with Israel.

Dr Ali Hamie, a Hezbollah-linked strategic analyst, was even more direct. He told RTÉ News that talks with Israel were out of the question for Hezbollah.

“Talks with the Israelis? No way. No way,” he said.

“We still have the bloodshed on the ground and so many murders in Lebanon. We’ve been defending ourselves for 75 years against Israeli aggression,” he said, adding that Israel would at a minimum need to withdraw from Lebanon.

Israel, he said, has failed to abide by previous agreements and UN resolutions.

“So that’s why I don’t think Hezbollah will ever, ever sit across the table from the Israelis,” he said. “Not now, not ever.”

Lebanon’s culture minister Dr Ghassan Salamé believes ‘there is still hope’

Hezbollah’s absence from the talks, however, does not automatically rule out an agreement. The group has accepted ceasefires before – in 2006, in 2022 and in 2024 – without taking part directly in the negotiations.

Back channels remain available, especially through parliament speaker Nabih Berri, who stays in close contact with both the Lebanese government and Hezbollah’s leadership.

“To the degree that their acquiescence is needed on anything,” Mr Salem said, “the back channel exists, and they can be talked to.”

But no one expected two hours at the State Department to settle questions of that magnitude.

Even so, hope persists. “We can’t live without hope,” Minister Salamé said.

“If you have a child who needs hospital care, you take him to the hospital. You don’t wait asking yourself what the chances of remission are,” he said.

Put another way, sometimes action comes not because success is assured, but because the alternative is paralysis.

For Lebanon, that has long been the calculation. It still is today.