Israeli-Lebanese Peace Talks, Palestinians to Vote // FAI ONLINE

A UNIFIL patrol near the Israeli-Lebanese Green Line (Uncredited, via aijac.org.au).

The State of Israel and the nation of Lebanon, still officially at war since the 1948 Israel War of Independence, will begin a UN sanctioned peace process this month. The announcement came this week from the office of Lebanese President Michael Aoun, on the heels of diplomatic normalization between Israel and the Gulf Arab states of UAE and Bahrain. The centerpiece of talks are to settle a maritime border dispute between the two nations in a swath of the Eastern Mediterranean that’s rich in natural gas. Donald Trump’s administration will mediate the talks, as it has done between the Jewish State and other Arab nations in the so-called Abraham Accords.

The Lebanese government is still reeling from the aftermath of an explosion that killed 220 and injured thousands in downtown Beirut on August 4, when 2750 tons of ammonium nitrate exploded in a warehouse near the capital’s port. That tragedy led to the resignation of Lebanon’s prime minister and his entire cabinet, followed by the resignation of his interim successor last week after failing to form a government. Iranian-sponsored militia Hezbollah is widely believed to be responsible for the storage of the combustible fertilizer that caused the Beirut blast, and was also fingered by French President Emmanuel Marcon as the primary obstacle for political progress in Lebanon this week. However, the explosion in Beirut has significantly eroded public support for Hezbollah in Lebanon, creating a window of opportunity for President Aoun to détente with Israel while Hezbollah’s position is weakened.

Hezbollah has been stoking hostility with Israel since the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Southern Lebanon in 2000, leading to the Second Israeli-Lebanese War in 2006. The war prompted the United Nations Security Council to unanimously adopt Resolution 1701, which demanded “the immediate cessation by Hizbollah of all attacks and the immediate cessation by Israel of all offensive military operations.” Resolution 1701 also dramatically expanded the deployment of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), which has a mandate to monitor all activity along the Green Line. Although the Israeli military has not invaded Lebanon since the war, Hezbollah has continued attacking Israel and digging infiltration tunnels into the Northern Galilee during the intervening years, successfully neutralizing UNIFIL’s effectiveness by dictating where it’s allowed to patrol in Southern Lebanon.

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Even the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria is interested in capitalizing on the momentum towards Arab-Israeli peace, signaling through the Russian government that it’s interested in bilateral negotiations with Israel. Some analysts suggest that the Syrian regime is using the Abraham Accords as a means of improving its standing with Western governments, many of which have imposed economic sanctions on Syria after a decade of war crimes and human rights violations during the Syrian Civil War. The last time Syria and Israel held peace talks was in December, 1999. US president Bill Clinton hosted Syrian President Hafez al-Assad and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak in Virginia, but talks broke down in January, 2000 after the two sides failed to reach any common ground. Hafez al-Assad died months later in July, 2000 and was succeeded by his son Bashar.

Meanwhile, the two main Palestinian political factions, Fatah and Hamas, met last week via videoconferencing and agreed to hold presidential and parliamentary elections within six months. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas leads the Fatah faction based in the West Bank, while Ismail Haniyeh’s Hamas organization rules the Gaza Strip. Abbas was elected president of the Palestinian Authority in 2005 after the death of Yasser Arafat, but has so far refused to schedule elections since the end of his term in 2009. Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip after sweeping a popular election in 2007 which followed the end of Israeli occupation. Both parties are bitterly opposed to one another, often imprisoning and summarily executing each others’ operatives in their respective territories. But the recent Abraham Accords between Israel and other Arab states have sidelined the Palestinian issue in Mideast Peace, forcing Fatah and Hamas to work together against the threat of irrelevance.

Although we welcome the continuing trend of peace initiatives between Israel and its Arab neighbors, we also recognize the complex dynamic that they create in the upheaval of the Middle Eastern order. We ask the global FAI family to continue to pray for the Israeli people, the people of Lebanon, Syria, and the Palestinian territories as their leaders continue to seek a stable footing in this season of realignment. We pray for a just and swift end to the Syrian Civil War through the peace process that includes Syrian regime, rebel and Kurdish factions. We pray that the Lord would continue to expose the duplicity and danger of Hezbollah in Lebanon, and that the Lebanese people would continue to turn against the terrorist group and unite together in the formation of a new government. We pray for a shield of divine protection around the State of Israel, that the schemes of her enemies would be thwarted and fail, and that all things, whether war or peace, would continue to open inroads for Good News to reach Jews, Arabs, Kurds and Turks throughout the region.

Maranatha.