On June 26, Israel and Lebanon signed a framework agreement outlining the principles for a final agreement, provided its conditions are implemented.
It appears that US President Donald Trump has developed a fondness for the concept of a “framework agreement,” a model that has parallels in the business world. In fact, his 20-point plan for Gaza was the first such framework agreement, although so far it has not progressed beyond the implementation of its initial phase.
It is still too early to judge the framework agreement with Iran, but it, too, contains significant gaps, and its prospects for implementation appear limited.
The framework agreement with Lebanon – positive as it is – also contains numerous challenges. Its primary purpose seems to be ending the war on the northern front.
It is also likely that the immediate political need of both Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to demonstrate some form of diplomatic achievement encouraged the United States to exert considerable pressure to reach an agreement quickly, while deliberately leaving many provisions ambiguous and many questions unanswered.
The difficulties surrounding implementation stem not only from the agreement’s vague wording but also from Lebanon’s deeply complex political reality, which itself necessitates an ambiguous text designed to satisfy as many actors as possible.
The agreement faces three challenges:
First, although the agreement is bilateral – between the governments of Israel and Lebanon – a crucial third party, Hezbollah, is missing. In fact, Hezbollah has rejected the agreement outright. Backed by Iran, it will likely make every military and diplomatic effort to undermine the agreement and, in any event, prevent the Lebanese state from advancing to the next stage.
The inevitable confrontation between the Lebanese state and army on the one hand, and Hezbollah on the other, could develop in one of three directions: escalating internal tensions leading to civil war; continued fighting between Israel and Hezbollah; or successful efforts by the Lebanese Armed Forces, initially in the designated pilot areas, to disarm Hezbollah.
Second, the issues of Hezbollah’s disarmament and Israel’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon are inextricably intertwined. As long as Israel remains in southern Lebanon, Hezbollah will continue to frame its struggle – as it has done in the past – as a war to liberate Lebanese territory.
Conversely, Israel cannot be expected to withdraw from southern Lebanon until Hezbollah has been effectively disarmed. This creates a classic catch-22 from which it is difficult to see an obvious way out.
Third, the agreement’s enforcement mechanism remains unclear. The agreement provides for the establishment of a trilateral mechanism involving Israel, Lebanon, and the United States. Yet it does not specify who will determine whether Lebanon has fulfilled its obligations, or on what criteria Israel would be entitled to delay its withdrawal.
It is worth recalling that former US president George W Bush’s 2003 Road Map also sought to establish clearly defined benchmarks for moving from one phase to the next.
However, the mechanism established to monitor and implement those benchmarks ultimately failed to fulfill its mission. This may well explain why the current agreement avoids setting a clear timetable.
Can the agreement be carried out?
Beyond these specific implementation challenges lies what may prove to be the greatest obstacle: the ability of Lebanon’s current government and the armed forces to carry out the agreement. This, in turn, depends on the legitimacy enjoyed by the current political leadership.
Public discourse in Lebanon, as reflected in the local media, currently tends to support the government’s initiatives. Yet Lebanon remains a deeply fragmented society composed of numerous religious communities, with roughly one-third of its population being Shi’ite. The political mood could therefore shift.
Moreover, the genuine fear of renewed internal violence may quickly temper the initial optimism, as the trauma of Lebanon’s civil war remains very much alive in the collective memory.
Ultimately, the diplomatic initiative should be welcomed because it represents an attempt to translate Israel’s military achievements against Hezbollah into political gains, given that Hezbollah cannot simply be defeated or made to disappear. Historically, however, this is not a dramatic breakthrough.
Israel and Lebanon signed an Armistice Agreement in 1949, and the Mixed Armistice Commission functioned with relative success between 1949 and 1967. Israel also signed a peace agreement with Lebanon in 1983 and even established a diplomatic mission in Beirut. That agreement, however, was limited from the outset and was annulled a year later under Syrian pressure.
Precisely for this reason, the success of the current agreement should not be judged solely by whether Hezbollah is disarmed. If disarmament eventually occurs, it will be the outcome of a long-term process rather than the agreement’s starting point. In other words, disarmament should be the result of strengthening the Lebanese state – not a prerequisite for doing so.
The more important question is whether the agreement succeeds in gradually strengthening the Lebanese state – its army, state institutions, governing capacity, and public legitimacy – regardless of the pace of Hezbollah’s disarmament. Such a process would steadily erode Hezbollah’s position while sharpening the contradiction between its Iranian revolutionary identity and its Lebanese national identity.
Accordingly, the agreed pilot areas should not serve merely as testing grounds for Hezbollah’s disarmament or the deployment of the Lebanese Armed Forces. They should also become spaces where the Lebanese state begins to reclaim civilian responsibility through rebuilding infrastructure, restoring public services, and strengthening local governance.
If that process takes hold, Hezbollah’s eventual disarmament may become significantly more achievable.
If there is one central lesson to be drawn from this framework agreement, it is that military achievements cannot stand on their own.
Their strategic value will ultimately be measured by their ability to create a new political reality – one in which the Lebanese state gradually grows stronger as Hezbollah finds it increasingly difficult to justify its continued existence as a state within a state.
Prof. Elie Podeh teaches in the Department of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is a member of the Executive Board of Mitvim – The Israeli Institute for Regional Foreign Policies – and a member of the Coalition for Regional Security.
Eitan Yishai is a Ph.D. candidate at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Head of the Middle East and North Africa Program at the Mitvim Institute, and a specialist on Lebanon.