Lebanon Cease Fire Leaves Netanyahu With his Thumb Up in The Air
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Reporting from Jerusalem
New York Times
President Trump may be trumpeting the cease-fire between Israel and Lebanon, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cannot.
Israeli voters did not want the fighting to end.
Overwhelmingly, polls showed, they wanted the military to keep up the pressure on Hezbollah, the militant group whose rockets and missiles have made life miserable and perilous for residents of northern Israel, until the group, which Iran backs, was destroyed or forced to disarm.
That, after all, is what Mr. Netanyahu and his military chiefs had promised to do.
But Mr. Netanyahu quickly, if grudgingly, fell in line on Thursday when Mr. Trump pressed for a cease-fire in Lebanon — just as the Israeli leader did with prior cease-fires the president had orchestrated.
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| Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a dark suit and bright blue tie, is surrounded by other people as he attends a ceremony. |
Benjamin Netanyahu at a wreath-laying ceremony in Jerusalem this week.Credit...Erik Marmor/Getty Images
Now, the prime minister’s critics, and even some of his allies on the right, have seized on what appears plain as day: his inability to resist Mr. Trump’s pressure, not just in pushing to bring the long-distance war with Iran to a close but even in demanding a truce with an enemy directly across Israel’s northern border.
“A cease-fire must come from a position of strength and be an Israeli decision, reflecting leverage that serves negotiations,” said Gadi Eisenkot, a former military chief of staff whose new centrist opposition party, Yashar, is gaining in the polls. “A pattern is emerging in which cease-fires are being imposed on us — in Gaza, in Iran, and now in Lebanon.”
It is a stark turnabout from Mr. Netanyahu’s role in persuading Mr. Trump to join Israel in attacking Iran — a hard-sell pitch, as The New York Times reported, that Iran was ripe for regime change, that a combined U.S.-Israeli operation could quickly topple the Islamic Republic, and that concerns about Iran’s responding by closing the Strait of Hormuz and attacking U.S. interests in the region were overblown. None of those assurances proved true.
A core element of Mr. Netanyahu’s appeal to voters — the argument that his close bond and strategic mind meld with Mr. Trump make him uniquely equipped to ensure Israel’s security — now appears far less convincing.
“Netanyahu influenced how the war started,” said Aaron David Miller, a former Middle East negotiator now at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “He won’t influence how it ends.”
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| The rubble of houses stands before a bombed-out house in the background that yellow excavators are demolishing. |
Israeli army vehicles and excavators demolishing houses in the southern Lebanese village of Meiss El Jabal on Friday.Credit...Jalaa Marey/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Mr. Netanyahu, who is up for re-election this year — and whose coalition is behind in the polls — took pains to reassure Israelis about the halt in fighting with Hezbollah, saying that soldiers would remain in a security buffer zone extending 10 kilometers into Lebanon. That would guard against incursions into Israel and against the use by Hezbollah of anti-tank rockets to terrorize border communities, he said in a televised address.
“Of course, there are still problems,” Mr. Netanyahu conceded. “They still have rockets left.”
But Mr. Netanyahu said that could be addressed in the context of talks over what he said could be a “historic peace agreement with Lebanon.”
Of course, it is Hezbollah, which could use a cease-fire to regroup, that looms as the would-be spoiler. The cease-fire negotiations were between Israel and the Lebanese government, not Hezbollah — and peace talks would be the same. But the militant group’s assent would be crucial for any agreement to be enforceable.
Whatever comes of those negotiations, the talk in Israel of Mr. Netanyahu’s tendency to “overpromise” when it comes to security matters — and particularly about what can be gained from military action — is growing louder.
“It creates, even for his supporters, this serious frustration because the results do not align with the promises,” said Shira Efron, an Israeli analyst at RAND. “Not even close. What are the war aims that have been achieved?”
So, too, is the talk of Mr. Netanyahu’s apparent inability or unwillingness to stand up to Mr. Trump.
Before the cease-fire was announced Thursday, “There was a serious school of thought here that said that, when it comes to Iran, Netanyahu has no choice but to go for a cease-fire if that’s what Trump wants, but when it comes to Lebanon, he will defy him,” said Nimrod Novik, a onetime aide to Prime Minister Shimon Peres and a fellow of the liberal Israel Policy Forum.
“He can’t,” Mr. Novik added. “Not in an election year, when he’s counting on Trump perhaps to campaign on his behalf, and at least not to throw him under the bus.”
There is a more forgiving read of Mr. Netanyahu’s latest acquiescence to Mr. Trump’s pressure.
For one thing, the military gains to be had in Lebanon may have reached the point of diminishing returns.
For another, Mr. Netanyahu has already gotten more from Mr. Trump than an Israeli leader has ever gotten from an American president.
“It’s not necessarily a negative to be considerate of their needs,” said Ms. Efron, referring to the United States.
Ms. Efron argued that Mr. Netanyahu’s big promises “cannot be achieved using military means alone.” Negotiations will be necessary, she said, but diplomacy was a largely forgotten art in Israel.
“So if it leaves this whole idea of Trump pushing Israel to negotiations?” she added. “Good. That’s great. Israel will not go voluntarily. Not under Netanyahu.”
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