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Lebanon and Israel's Maritime Deal Suspends Them between No War and No Peace
(Carnegie Middle East Center-Lebanon) Maha Yahya - On Tuesday, Lebanon and Israel agreed to formally end a dispute between the two countries over their maritime borders. The agreement allows for the exploration of offshore gas reserves believed to lie along the countries' respective shorelines. However, the deal does not finalize the status of disputed land border areas. As part of the agreement, the U.S. has agreed to provide security guarantees to Israel, should there be an attack by Hizbullah against Israel's interests, and to deny Hizbullah any income from the gas revenues. Hizbullah's support for the deal can be understood in the context of Lebanon's catastrophic economic collapse. The socioeconomic collapse has led to considerable discontent within members of the party's own constituency. The deal presents the prospect of future economic growth and offers hope that Lebanon can emerge from its current quagmire. Despite an uptick in Hizbullah's rhetoric toward Israel, a military conflict would wreak havoc on the party's own backyard and might impinge on its expanding regional role. As a result, Hizbullah is not keen to go to war. While this is far from a peace treaty between Lebanon and Israel, the agreement means that both countries now have vested economic interests in maintaining calm along their common border regions, reducing the long-running threat of an outbreak of war between the two countries. In the immediate term, the deal is likely to trigger the finalization of previously negotiated agreements to provide Lebanon with gas from Egypt and electricity from Jordan, in both cases via Syria. The writer is director of the Carnegie Middle East Center.