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Lebanon's Bait-and-Switch Treaty
(Wall Street Journal) David Schenker - I visited Beirut in 2020 while serving as assistant secretary of state for Near East affairs to restart the maritime border negotiations between Israel and Lebanon that had been stalled for nearly a decade. Two years later, the states have reached an agreement on their offshore exclusive economic zone boundary that heavily favors Lebanon. During negotiations, mediated by the Biden administration, Israel conceded the entirety of its claims to the 330-square-mile zone to Lebanon in return for a 3-mile internationally recognized buffer zone adjacent to the shoreline. As per the new agreement, Lebanon will attain virtually 100% of its initial negotiating position. It's a remarkable turn of events, especially given Beirut's profound lack of leverage. Lebanese negotiators won the day by employing a time-tested bait-and-switch negotiating tactic. Immediately after talks commenced, Lebanon changed its position, demanding an even larger exclusive economic zone, a maximalist demand that led to a breakdown in the talks. When negotiations resumed, the new Israeli government saw Lebanon's readiness to return to the previous line as a significant concession. The Israel Defense Forces say the agreement will remove one point of friction with Hizbullah. But the proposition that the maritime deal makes Israel safer or promotes prospects for normalization with yet another Arab state is dubious. With Iran upgrading its proxy's arsenal of missiles and Hizbullah digging in along Israel's border, another war appears inevitable. It's difficult to imagine that Hizbullah won't emerge from these negotiations emboldened by Israel's decision. The compromises Israel made demonstrate how far it will go to make peace with its Arab neighbors. Unfortunately, as long as Beirut remains a satrapy of Iran and dominated by its proxy, it's unclear how any agreement will prevent the next Israel-Hizbullah war. The writer is director of the Program on Arab Politics at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.