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Speaker 1: Zone Media. Hello everyone, and welcome Dick could happen here.

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Speaker 1: My name is Dan El Kird, and I'm a researcher

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Speaker 1: and analyst of Arab and Palestinian politics. Today I'm joined

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Speaker 1: by Edia Yub, who is a Palstinian Lebanese writer and

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Speaker 1: researcher as well as a podcaster with the podcast The

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Speaker 1: Fire These Times and from the Periphery Media Collective. And

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Speaker 1: today he's speaking to us about the recent agreement between

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Speaker 1: Lebanon and Israel related to Israel's continued occupation of the

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Speaker 1: southern part of Lebanon and continued bombardment. So he's going

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Speaker 1: to talk to us about what the agreement says, why

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Speaker 1: there are so many problems and concerns related to this agreement,

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Speaker 1: and how it fits into the broader regional war against Iran. Idia.

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Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining.

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Speaker 2: Us, Hi, thank you for having me again.

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Speaker 1: So today we're going to be discussing, as I mentioned

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Speaker 1: in the intro, the agreement between Lebanon and Israel, the framework,

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Speaker 1: which has been quite controversially so I wanted to just

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Speaker 1: give you an opportunity to give a brief explainer.

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Speaker 2: What is this agreement. So it's technically like a high

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Speaker 2: lateral framework in the sense that it includes legally anyway

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Speaker 2: the US, Israel, and Lebanon ostensibly, like what it says

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Speaker 2: it does is that it proposes some kind of future

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Speaker 2: in which Lebanon and Israel, which have been in the

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Speaker 2: factor state of war for basically forever to no longer

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Speaker 2: be in that the factor state of war. The problem,

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Speaker 2: which probably won't surprise like the audience of this podcast,

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Speaker 2: the problem is sort of in the details, like what

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Speaker 2: is it that Lebanon has signed. If you look on

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Speaker 2: the website itself, it's on the American government's website. There

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Speaker 2: are fourteen points. It's roughly one thousand, I don't know,

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Speaker 2: three hundred words or so, and already you see what's absent,

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Speaker 2: which is the terms like withdraw world and of occupation

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Speaker 2: any of that. There's basically no stipulation whatsoever that the

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Speaker 2: Israelis have to leave Lebanon. You will have people who

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Speaker 2: support the Zeru Cello. Technically that's not true, because it

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Speaker 2: says here in number two, the Government of Israel and

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Speaker 2: Government of Lebanon commits to reciprocal sequence process with clear conditions,

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Speaker 2: whereby the RAF, which is the Lebanese Armed Forces whither

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Speaker 2: his store effective sovereign authority over all of Lebanes's territory.

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Speaker 2: And here is the grub I'm quoting, pending the verified

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Speaker 2: disarmament of non state armed roups and dismantlement of associated infrastructure,

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Speaker 2: enabling the idea of the defense forces to progressively redeploy

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Speaker 2: out of Lebanes's territory. What it essentially says, and the

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Speaker 2: various points we don't have to go through all of them,

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Speaker 2: essentially confirmed this time and time again is that Israel

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Speaker 2: will get to define, will get to decide when an

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Speaker 2: area that Israel is occupying, as in the Debanese territory

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Speaker 2: that Israel is occupying, when that area is officially disarmed,

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Speaker 2: when it is no longer a quote on Coote security thread,

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Speaker 2: The Debinese state has no say in the matter. There's

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Speaker 2: no independent like you n type mechanism that would determine that.

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Speaker 2: It's just that gets to define that. And what they're

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Speaker 2: currently they're currently doing, which is what the Lebanese government

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Speaker 2: has a key to, which is part of the controversy

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Speaker 2: that we'll get into, is that they're creating these two

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Speaker 2: so called pilot zones, which are among it in the territory,

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Speaker 2: that is that is currently occupying in Lebanon, in which

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Speaker 2: they would allow the LAF, the Lebanese owned forces to

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Speaker 2: progressively assert its I'm putting this in quotation. You can't

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Speaker 2: see it like assert is a sovereign territorial control. But

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Speaker 2: and here again is the kind of the devil in

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Speaker 2: the detail. The Lebanese Army cannot actually enforce anything that

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Speaker 2: would still be the authority of the Israeli army, which

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Speaker 2: again is the one that is currently illegally occupying southern Lebanon.

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Speaker 2: So yeah, we can get into more of the details,

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Speaker 2: but that's sort of in a nutshell why it's so bad.

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Speaker 2: But I can get into more why it's bad as well.

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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, we'd like to talk about all the bad.

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Speaker 1: So before we get into like all the bad, where

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Speaker 1: does Hasboala play into any of this?

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Speaker 2: Well, personally opposes this. In fact, I don't think a

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Speaker 2: majority of the political parties currently in the Lebanese Parliament

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Speaker 2: support this, if I'm not mistaken, which is one of

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Speaker 2: the reasons why I don't think this particular agreement, which

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Speaker 2: is the latest of so many agreements between the Americans,

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Speaker 2: is radius and the Deliberinese at least at the official level.

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Speaker 2: I don't see this lasting very long. Abala has immediately

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Speaker 2: said that this is a humiliation, it's surrendered its defeat,

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Speaker 2: which is not that unusual. That's sort of how they've

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Speaker 2: been talking about these negotiations for since they started. Really

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Speaker 2: and it declared them declared this agreement null and void,

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Speaker 2: which they cannot get more more straightforward than that. Their

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Speaker 2: main ally in parliament, i e. The Amal movement has

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Speaker 2: also come out to oppose this, which is a big

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Speaker 2: deal because that's the speaker of parliament. Lebanon is ruled

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Speaker 2: by this kind of troika, so he's one or one

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Speaker 2: out of three, which is a big problem for the

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Speaker 2: other two. And yeah, I kind of genuinely don't see

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Speaker 2: this lasting. But I am also worried about what can

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Speaker 2: come next.

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Speaker 1: I mean, the fact that Israel is again the unilateral

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Speaker 1: you know, judge jury executioner here exactly obviously is a

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Speaker 1: very big problem.

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Speaker 2: But what other issues do you foresee with disagreement. I

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Speaker 2: worry that the Lebanese government, in at first having some

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Speaker 2: I think understandable concerns over Iran's rod and Lebanon and

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Speaker 2: we can get into that, has sort of I don't

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Speaker 2: know how you would describe it, maybe over corrected and

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Speaker 2: gone a bit too anti Iran, which in and of

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Speaker 2: itself I wouldn't necessarily oppose. I'm not a fan of

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Speaker 2: the Islamic Republic, to put it mildly, and I've always

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Speaker 2: opposed has Bolla for as long as I can remember.

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Speaker 2: But the timing of doing what they've been doing, and

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Speaker 2: I can get into it now, has been I think,

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Speaker 2: very to put it charitably, very puzzling, but I think

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Speaker 2: also like very very short sighted and frankly rerectless and dangerous.

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Speaker 2: This is all while Israel is bombing Lebanon. I should say,

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Speaker 2: if this was any context where there was no active war,

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Speaker 2: I wouldn't have as big of an issue with it.

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Speaker 2: But they've declared the Iranian ambassador to Lebanon to be

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Speaker 2: persona non grata. They've taken down photos of the aetola

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Speaker 2: by the road to the airport and replaced it with

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Speaker 2: lubnan Auolan, which is like Lebanon. First, they've deported like

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Speaker 2: members of the IOGC, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, and done

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Speaker 2: a bunch of other even like rhetorical things like the

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Speaker 2: President would go on Twitter and say like Ron get

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Speaker 2: out and stuff like that, the President of Lebanon, which

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Speaker 2: again I have one thousand and one issues with the

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Speaker 2: Iranian role in Lebanon and including my issue with Hasbola.

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Speaker 2: But there's only one country that is currently actually occupying

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Speaker 2: Lebanon militarily and actually bombing Lebanon militarily with its military

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Speaker 2: I mean, and that country is not Iran. So the

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Speaker 2: priorities of the government in wanting to distance itself from

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Speaker 2: Hesbola's actions, which I should say have been controversial from

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Speaker 2: the beginning because Hezbola took a unilateral decision to enter

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Speaker 2: the war against Israel, a decision that was not made

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Speaker 2: with like the yes of Lebanon's approval. So it's been

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Speaker 2: like controversial from the start. And that's what I meant

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Speaker 2: by like the charitable interpretation is that the Lebanese government

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Speaker 2: sort of over corrected and instead, by attempting, supposedly to

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Speaker 2: distance itself from Iran, what has actually done is made

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Speaker 2: us even more dependent on the United States than we

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Speaker 2: used to be before.

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Speaker 1: Right, So that's where the things you're describing under normal

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Speaker 1: circumstances to be like, yeah, like why is it run

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Speaker 1: so embedded in a lot of these different countries in

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Speaker 1: the region, and why does it have such an interventionist role.

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Speaker 1: But you're saying it's reckless in this context where the

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Speaker 1: Lebanese government is basically making itself more at the mercy

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Speaker 1: of actors like the United States and Israel by proxy.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, as of now, like and I really tried my

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Speaker 2: best to look for some leverage that Lebanon might have,

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Speaker 2: but as of now, I don't actually see any leverage

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Speaker 2: that Lebanon has. It's basically we hope for the best.

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Speaker 2: Like I wish I could put it differently, but it

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Speaker 2: essentially is under the hope that, like the Trump administration

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Speaker 2: is tired of Netanyahu, that it might fall you know,

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Speaker 2: force day israelis to either withdraw from Lebandon or to

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Speaker 2: adverily stop the bombing or whatnot, which I've seen no

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Speaker 2: evidence of. And as of now, every time a so

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Speaker 2: called ceasefire has been signed that even has Bola agreed to,

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Speaker 2: the only thing that it's done is that Hezbola would

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Speaker 2: not respond to Israeli bombings. So the Israeli bombings have

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Speaker 2: been a constant throughout this entire thing. Ceasefire or no

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Speaker 2: ceasefire since the agreement was signed, They've continued. They haven't stopped.

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Speaker 2: As of time of recording, over four two hundred Lebanese

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Speaker 2: have been killed since the beginning of this latest war,

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Speaker 2: so not even since the beginning since twenty twenty three,

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Speaker 2: but since in twenty twenty six alone, because Israel does

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Speaker 2: not discriminate and how they bomb. So to give you

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Speaker 2: the example of those two so called pilot zones, are

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Speaker 2: they even inhabitable as of now? I don't know. Because

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Speaker 2: of the fifty four towns and villages Lebanese towns and

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Speaker 2: villages that the Israelis militarily occupy, at least forty six

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Speaker 2: of them that we know of, are either partially or

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Speaker 2: entirely demolished. So what are those security zones? What does

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Speaker 2: that even mean? You know? But again is this the

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Speaker 2: entire problem now is that they get to decide all

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Speaker 2: of that. And again, with all of my issues with Iran,

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Speaker 2: the agreement that the Lebanese have signed with the Israelis,

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Speaker 2: I think is objectively worse than the Memoranda of Understanding

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Speaker 2: that the Iranians signed with the Americans that actually also

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Speaker 2: included Lebanon, because at least in that MoU and thatment

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Speaker 2: of understanding. It included the sentence territorial integrity and sovereignty

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Speaker 2: of Lebanon, as well as a call for ceasefire, which

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Speaker 2: was a nightmare for Nataniahu.

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Speaker 1: Let's talk about Iran more specifically for a moment. I mean,

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Speaker 1: Lebanon has taken out, the ambassador has made all of

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Speaker 1: these kind of rhetorical shifts away from the Iruni regime,

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Speaker 1: obviously display for the US and for Israel. But Iran,

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Speaker 1: how has it responded, How has the government responded, and

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Speaker 1: how does this agreement relate to the MLU that Iran

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Speaker 1: signed with the United States.

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Speaker 2: So it's quite complicated because the MoU was signed just

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Speaker 2: about a week or so before. So the deal between

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Speaker 2: the Ionians and the Americans was signed roughly a dean

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Speaker 2: or agreed upon. I don't know if they signed these

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Speaker 2: things roughly a week before this one, the one between

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Speaker 2: Israel and Lebanon via America, the hyparthite one, as they

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Speaker 2: call it. One interpretation that I've seen is that by

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Speaker 2: going directly to Lebanon, America actually managed to bypass these

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Speaker 2: kind of bullet points that Iran was putting forward. So, like,

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Speaker 2: let's say Iran is saying, well, Levet there should be

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Speaker 2: ceasfire in Lebanon, and that there should be like territory,

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Speaker 2: integrity and sovereignty. In the meantime, the Lebanese state is

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Speaker 2: saying to Iran like, you do not negotiate on our behalf.

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Speaker 2: So the Americans go to Lebanon directly, or the Lebanon

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Speaker 2: goes to the American and they superseded. They supersede this

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Speaker 2: and they do a negotiation, or they head they get

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Speaker 2: the Lebanese to sign the latest agreement directly, which of

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Speaker 2: course does not include the Iran anyway. So the main

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Speaker 2: difference is between the MoU between America and Iran and

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Speaker 2: the agreement between let's say Israel and Lebanon, is that

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Speaker 2: Israel had no part whatsoever in the MoU, And if

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Speaker 2: it had come to pass, if the Iranians had basically

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Speaker 2: gotten what they were asking for, the Americans would have

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Speaker 2: been forced, at least legally, to pressure the Israelis to

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Speaker 2: leave Lebanon all together. No ifs and bots, no negotiated

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Speaker 2: exit whatever that means, no making up pilot zones, none

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Speaker 2: of that stuff. It would just be you've been doing

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Speaker 2: this occupation illegally. You need to leave. As simple as

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Speaker 2: that that's been the Ironian position, which is not a

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Speaker 2: position that most Lebanians would disagree with, because it is

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Speaker 2: just the fact, right.

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Speaker 1: And it's interesting, I mean, obviously we don't want to speculate,

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Speaker 1: but it is interesting that Iran made the ceasefire and

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Speaker 1: Lebanon so kind of central to a lot of their demands, right.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not that I think to me, I think

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Speaker 2: because they see this as saving has Bodla, so like it.

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Speaker 2: It's like it's almost like an easy thing to do.

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Speaker 2: It doesn't cost them anything. In a sense. It would

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Speaker 2: have cause put pressure on the Israelis, which they're happy

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Speaker 2: to do since Israel and America started the war against

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Speaker 2: Yvon in the first place. And it would you know,

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Speaker 2: give some kind of a breathing space for their main

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Speaker 2: ally in Lebanon, which is has Bodler. So in and

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Speaker 2: of itself, I don't think it's surprising that they included it.

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Speaker 2: Maybe they knew that Lebanon would have rejected officially given

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Speaker 2: their position of the Lebanese government, you know thus far,

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Speaker 2: and I can't know for sure, but yeah, and of itself,

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Speaker 2: it doesn't surprise me that they went for this because

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Speaker 2: one other thing I should say that they were proposing

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Speaker 2: in that MoU is a so called deconfliction cell, the

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Speaker 2: details of which are not entirely clear to me yet

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Speaker 2: and at this point may never happen anyway, But the

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Speaker 2: way it's been interpreted that I saw is that it

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Speaker 2: would see its influence in Lebanon restored. So there's also

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Speaker 2: like a self interest and all of that, but not

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Speaker 2: in a militarily occupying way. So for me, it's not

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Speaker 2: that the option has been either an amazing option or

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Speaker 2: a bad option. It's more like either we get the

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Speaker 2: Iran option, which is not ideal but self functional, or

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Speaker 2: a catastrophic option, which is the one that we actually

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Speaker 2: got with THEA it is right, And I.

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Speaker 1: Mean, we've had some episodes about Iran. I've hosted a

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Speaker 1: few people about Iran, and I think it bears repeating

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Speaker 1: that their strategy, their ability to kind of withstand even

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Speaker 1: this level of severe warfare in the latest escalation, has

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Speaker 1: depended on their allies in the region and kind of

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Speaker 1: the diffusion of Iranian power to nonstate actors essentially, So

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Speaker 1: what was the public reaction to the Lebanese government signing

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Speaker 1: this agreement? The Lebanese public reaction to be clear, Yeah, the.

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Speaker 2: Most immediate reaction on this hit has been by of

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Speaker 2: course by Hesbola and it's ally AML in which they

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Speaker 2: you know, they burn stuff down, they yelled, they threw

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Speaker 2: stuff at the cops and stuff like that. The Secretary

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Speaker 2: General of hasbal as I said, has the clearly did

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Speaker 2: not avoid and so on. As for the rest of

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Speaker 2: the country, there hasn't been any kind of mobilization against it,

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Speaker 2: but they shouldn't be interpreted as consent. It's more I think,

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Speaker 2: in my view that the Libanese population as a whole

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Speaker 2: has been exhausted by nearly three years of war now

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Speaker 2: and there is an appetite for kind of diplomacy. In fact,

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Speaker 2: there's been a pole, a Nation White Pole, it was

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Speaker 2: just released a few days ago that says that roughly

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Speaker 2: fifty four percent of the population support the plomacy versus

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Speaker 2: thirty five percent that support armed resistance. Now, the fifty

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Speaker 2: four percent that support diplomacy, which is you know, not

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Speaker 2: just over half, it's not because they believe this is

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Speaker 2: the best option. It's more that they believe I think

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Speaker 2: this is my interpretation. It's more that I think most

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Speaker 2: people genuinely believe that there are no other options. So

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Speaker 2: it's more like, I think, a reflection of how desperate

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Speaker 2: the situation is more than anything else. It should not

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Speaker 2: be confused with any kind of like warming up towards

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Speaker 2: Israel and that Sam Paule, which again was nation Onloyd.

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Speaker 2: Eighty seven percent of people in Lebanon identified Israel as

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Speaker 2: their main enemy versus fifty one percent that identified America

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Speaker 2: and thirty eighty percent that identified Iron. And this is

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Speaker 2: a cost sects. So usually when you see the reporting,

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Speaker 2: you could be led to believe that it's only Sheas

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Speaker 2: in Lebanon that opposed Israel, but actually it is really

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Speaker 2: a cost sect that is real is a deeply unpopular

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Speaker 2: state in Lebanon, which is not surprising because it's been

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Speaker 2: bombing Lebanon for on and off of decades.

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Speaker 1: Now, right, you've written about this for nine seventy two. Mac.

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Speaker 1: You have another article coming out, I'm sure, or it's

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Speaker 1: already out. I'm not sure, but I will definitely link

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Speaker 1: it in the show notes by the time this episode airs.

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Speaker 1: Is there anything you feel like we missed and that

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Speaker 1: listeners should know.

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Speaker 2: It's very difficult to know where things are heading in

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Speaker 2: terms of the security situation in Lebanon. I would argue

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Speaker 2: that kind of the specter of a civil war, whatever

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Speaker 2: that actually looks like, is never too far away, and

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Speaker 2: hasn't been too far away for a while now. I

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Speaker 2: don't think it's likely in the traditional sense, like multiple

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Speaker 2: armed actors in the near future, largely because I think

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Speaker 2: the population is really exhausted. But the Israeli war on

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Speaker 2: Lebanon has created kind of this fault line that's very,

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Speaker 2: very difficult, I think to overcome now. And it's not

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Speaker 2: again a fault line between Prozien and anti Israel. Both

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Speaker 2: sides of this fault line are technically anti Israel. It's

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Speaker 2: more of like what the priority should be for the

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Speaker 2: Lebanese states, and its sense for a lot of people

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Speaker 2: who are from southern Lebanon that is currently as we're speaking,

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Speaker 2: still being bombed. It is giving the sense that the

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Speaker 2: rest of the country is abandoning them, and this sort

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Speaker 2: of grievances is quite literally what gave us has buddled

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Speaker 2: in the first place. Hazbola was created in the mid eighties.

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Speaker 2: This was a couple of years to three years after

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Speaker 2: the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon really started. Which was

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Speaker 2: not even the first one. It was the second one.

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Speaker 2: It was just the biggest one. It would last for

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Speaker 2: eighteen years, and in those eighteen years, this obscure group

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Speaker 2: that did not really exist grew in popularity because they

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Speaker 2: were the most effective ones thanks to the fact that

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Speaker 2: Iran was backing them, until they became the de facto

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Speaker 2: king makers of Lebanese politics for a couple of decades

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Speaker 2: after that. So the way here is not even that

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Speaker 2: I feel that history will just repeat itself and whatnot.

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Speaker 2: It's more that there doesn't seem to be any actual

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Speaker 2: path forward that proposes any alternative to people from southern Lebanon,

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Speaker 2: which is roughly a fifth of the country in terms

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Speaker 2: of both size more or less in population. More or less,

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Speaker 2: those people have nowhere else to go. They will go

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Speaker 2: back to their homes when they can, They go back

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Speaker 2: to their lands if their homes are destroyed, and they

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Speaker 2: will try and rebuild as they have done already in

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Speaker 2: the past, if not once, sometimes more than once. And

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Speaker 2: if there isn't a solution for them, that is just

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Speaker 2: a fair solution that brings them justice, that stops the

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Speaker 2: Israeli bombings and permanently forces the Israelis out of Lebanon.

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Speaker 2: There's going to be some force somewhere that's going to

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Speaker 2: find a way to appeal to that population, and if

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Speaker 2: they're not offered an alternative, they will seek that alternative,

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Speaker 2: which again is the history has well in the first place.

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Speaker 2: So as much as I opposed has Bola for very

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Speaker 2: Lebanese reasons, and as the Lebanese myself because of the

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Speaker 2: sectanism and authoritaranism and so on, that's a completely separate

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Speaker 2: question for me. Then the right of people who are

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Speaker 2: under military occupation to resist that military occupation, because that

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Speaker 2: is actually a right that's guaranteed under international law. And

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Speaker 2: I'm really worried as now, and I'm not just speaking

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Speaker 2: for myself here, that's virtually everyone. I know that the

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Speaker 2: situation is getting to the point where essentially the Lebanese

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Speaker 2: state is hoping that the Americans would just pressure the Israelis,

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Speaker 2: And the way it's been happening as of now is

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Speaker 2: that they would pressure them here and they're a bit

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Speaker 2: but not much, and then the rest of the time

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Speaker 2: they just let them do whatever they want with American

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Speaker 2: tax money. Of course, if they don't actually force the

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Speaker 2: Israelis to withdraw from Lebanon, it can create like a

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Speaker 2: you know, a whole different political beast in a sense

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Speaker 2: that would be even more violent.

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Speaker 1: I think we're specifically talking about Lebanon, but this is

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Speaker 1: the case in so many contexts in the region, is

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Speaker 1: that when the conflicts are unresolved, when the violence is unresolved,

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Speaker 1: then it'll only perpetuate more violence. Everyone I know has

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Speaker 1: been warning about that in every context in Palestine and Lebanon.

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Speaker 1: Uh So it's extremely depressing. But thank you so much

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Speaker 1: for sharing your insights with us, and I will link

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Speaker 1: Adia's work in the show notes. And yeah, hope you

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Speaker 1: all stay safe.

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Speaker 2: Thanks Denna. It Could Happen Here is a production of

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Speaker 2: cool Zone Media.

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Speaker 1: For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website

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Speaker 1: coolzonmedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,

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Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can

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Speaker 1: now find sources for It Could Happen here listed directly

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Speaker 1: in episode descriptions.

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Speaker 2: Thanks for listening.