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Source: https://www.jpost.com/jerusalem-report/article-893908
Lebanon's Choice: Disarm Hizbullah or Accept an Israeli Buffer Zone
(Jerusalem Report) Lt.-Col. (res.) Shaul Bartal - The current war cycle has stripped away any remaining ambiguity about Hizbullah's role. It is no longer simply a "resistance movement" but a strategic arm of Iran operating on Lebanese soil, often in direct contradiction to Lebanon's own national interests. Lebanon must confront this reality and embrace a framework that enables Hizbullah's exit from the military sphere. Following the 1949 armistice after Israel's War of Independence, the Israeli-Lebanese border remained relatively quiet for decades. The Lebanese civil war in 1975 transformed the reality in the south. Palestinian armed organizations, chiefly the PLO, turned the area into a forward base against Israel. During the First Lebanon War in 1982, a short-lived Israel-Lebanon agreement emerged on May 17, 1983, offering mutual recognition and normalization. Hizbullah emerged from that same war, reshaping the self-image and sociopolitical position of Lebanon's Shi'ite community and elevating loyalty to Tehran. Successive Lebanese governments have lacked both the capacity and the will to confront Hizbullah. Until such a strategic decision is made in Beirut, Israel will likely insist on maintaining a security zone up to the Litani River, and on preventing the organized return of the Shi'ite population to devastated villages that could quickly be remilitarized. The hard choice before Lebanon is clear: either assume responsibility for disarming Hizbullah and normalizing relations with Israel, or live for the coming years with an Israeli-controlled buffer zone on its soil as the price of leaving Hizbullah's weapons in place. The writer is a research fellow at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University.