What happened? Why is Israel agreeing to this now?
By Robert Spencer, Frontpage Magazine
A ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel in Lebanon appeared imminent on Tuesday afternoon. While numerous mainstream analysts, as clueless as ever, hailed it as the first step toward reducing tensions and establishing a lasting peace in the region, others were not so sanguine.
For over a year now and against enormous international pressure, Israel has been vowing to fight on until Hamas and Hezbollah were completely destroyed.
Now it is apparently about to agree to a ceasefire that could allow Hezbollah to survive and murder more Israeli civilians on another day. What is going on? Two words, as Joe Biden would say, and those words are the man’s name himself: Old Joe Biden.
Former Israel Defense Forces intelligence officer Sarit Zahavi explained what was at stake: “But the gap lies with the question of whether Hezbollah will be able to recover or not. After what happened on October 7th, Israelis are not willing to enable Hezbollah to recover. This is not going to happen anymore. We are not going to enable that. While I am speaking to you, there are alerts proving that Hezbollah still has the capabilities to launch rockets and missiles against Israel. We cannot rely on just promises. We need to make sure that Hezbollah is not capable of threatening us and our families over here in the north.”
Yet the ceasefire, at least as it is being reported, would allow Hezbollah to do just that.
CBS News reported Tuesday that “under the deal, a full and permanent ceasefire would be implemented immediately. There will be 60 days permitted for the full withdrawal of Israeli forces — a gradual withdrawal to allow the Lebanese forces to mobilize and move in to secure the area, but the trigger time is immediate, set to take effect later Tuesday.
The first peel-off of Israeli troops was to begin within the next 10 days.” As Israeli forces withdraw from Lebanon, “Hezbollah is expected to pull its forces and heavy weapons back about 20 miles from the Israeli border, to the Litani River.”
Now, this is problematic on its face. United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701 of August 2006 stipulated that Hezbollah was to withdraw its forces south of the Litani River. Yet that Resolution was never enforced, and Hezbollah never withdrew its forces. This time will supposedly be different.
CBS News noted that “under the proposed deal, Lebanese forces and United Nations peacekeepers are expected to jointly patrol southern Lebanon to ensure the terms of the agreement are adhered to. Earlier reports suggested the southern region would be monitored by a multi-nation committee, which would include both the U.S. and France.”
Yet the UN has had troops in southern Lebanon since 2006, and yet has never compelled Hezbollah to abide by Resolution 1701. It’s hard to see how they’re going to do so now.
Israel’s Internal Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, was not hopeful, saying: “An agreement with Lebanon is a big mistake. A historic missed opportunity to eradicate Hezbollah. I understand all the constraints and reasons, and it is still a grave mistake.”
So what happened? Why is Israel agreeing to this now? Alex Traiman of JNS explained that it all came down to a threat from the Biden regime: if Israel didn’t agree to a ceasefire now, the U.S. would continue to refuse to ship needed arms to Israel, and would abstain on another UN resolution condemning Israel and hamstringing its ability to act.
“Nobody knows exactly why,” said Traiman, “when the Biden administration is so close to leaving office, why the pressure has finally gotten to Netanyahu. What is it that the Biden administration is threatening Israel with, aside from, potentially allowing a UN Security Council resolution against Israel to pass in the coming weeks? And we don’t know what the UN security resolution could look like at this stage. But apparently, the threats are grave enough that Netanyahu is taking them very seriously.”
The saving grace for Netanyahu is that if Israel can just make it to Jan. 20, President Trump will presumably lift the pressure, despite his desire for a quick end to the war, and allow Israel to finish the job.
So the Israeli prime minister had to choose between being handcuffed by the Biden regime’s withholding of weaponry and a new round of international condemnations, or handcuffed by the ceasefire for a few weeks.
He appears to have chosen the latter. Supporters of free societies worldwide are united in the hope that he has made the right decision.