The Only Way to Make Peace Between Israel and Lebanon - Is Very Ugly

Something interesting happened after the Six Day War.

Almost immediately, Israel began developing unofficial channels of cooperation with Jordan. That quiet relationship became so important that in 1970, Israel effectively helped save the Hashemite regime from collapse during Black September.

But with Egypt and Syria, the opposite happened. After 1967, the conflict did not calm down. It deepened, escalated, and eventually exploded into the Yom Kippur War.

Yet 1973 became a turning point. Within about five years, Israel signed a peace treaty with Egypt. And although no peace treaty was ever signed with Syria, the Syrian front eventually entered a kind of cold stability. The center of gravity of the conflict then moved northward, into Lebanon, where the Assad regime built a sphere of influence with the help of Palestinian forces.

Then, in 1994, fifteen years after Egypt, Israel signed a peace treaty with Jordan. In truth, that peace had already existed unofficially since 1967. King Hussein had even warned Golda Meir before the Yom Kippur War about the coming Egyptian and Syrian attack.

So after the Six-Day War, a fascinating split emerged.

With Syria and the Palestinians, the situation deteriorated.

With Egypt and Jordan, the long-term situation improved.

This does not mean Egypt became a true friend of Israel. It did not. Egypt has continued to play a deeply problematic role, including in relation to terror and smuggling. Nor does it mean Jordan is a genuine ally in the emotional sense. Much of its population remains deeply hostile to Israel.

But the logic was clear.

Israel captured territory from these states. Those states then faced two choices: keep fighting and risk losing more, or negotiate and recover something.

That is the hard logic of Middle Eastern diplomacy.

And this is precisely why Israel cannot normalize relations with Lebanon merely by striking Hezbollah. Defeating Hezbollah is only stage one. Stage two requires creating leverage over the Lebanese state itself.

In the Middle East, peace is rarely made out of sentiment. It is made through territory, deterrence, humiliation, fear, interest, and necessity.

If Israel wants a future agreement with Lebanon, it cannot rely only on airstrikes, limited raids, or symbolic victories like Beaufort. It must understand the basic regional grammar: no one signs seriously with a power that only reacts. They sign with a power that can take something, hold it, and return it only in exchange for something real.

That is how peace with Egypt became possible.

That is how peace with Jordan became possible.

And that is the only way any future arrangement with Lebanon could become possible.

Not a romantic peace. Not the imaginary peace of Western diplomats. Not peace ceremonies with flowers, flags, and empty declarations about a “new Middle East.”

Rather, a cold exchange of interests.

A border for a border.

Quiet for quiet.

Territory for recognition.

Deterrence for restraint.

Lebanon today has no reason to make peace with Israel if Israel holds nothing that Lebanon urgently wants back. Hezbollah can survive. Iran can continue negotiating with Washington. The Lebanese state can hide behind its weakness. And Israel can keep striking targets without ever converting military superiority into diplomatic achievement.

That is not strategy. That is motion.

To create a real political horizon, Israel must stop pretending that Lebanon is merely a Hezbollah problem. Lebanon is a state problem. Hezbollah is the armed symptom of a deeper strategic reality: Lebanon has allowed its territory to become a platform for war against Israel while avoiding the full price of that decision.

The only way to change that equation is to make Lebanon understand that sovereignty cuts both ways.

If Lebanese territory is used for war, Lebanese territory becomes part of the war.

And if Lebanon wants that territory back, it will have to offer Israel something more serious than temporary calm.

With the Palestinians, this logic does not work in the same way, because the dispute is not simply over borders. For Palestinian nationalism, Israel’s very presence on the land is itself treated as the declaration of war. That is why every territorial concession to the Palestinians has produced not finality, but another stage of conflict.

But Lebanon is different.

Lebanon is not Gaza. It is not Ramallah. It is a state with borders, interests, factions, fears, elites, and something to lose.

That means Israel must think less like a country managing another round of fire, and more like a regional power shaping the next treaty.

The lesson of 1967 is not that land alone brings peace.

The lesson is sharper than that.

Only a country capable of taking land becomes a country worth negotiating with.

And only a country willing to translate battlefield power into territorial leverage can force its enemies to choose diplomacy over war.

That is the only way to make peace with Lebanon.