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Source: https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/article-896480
Israel-Lebanon Ceasefire a Dangerous Fiction in the War Against Hizbullah
(Jerusalem Post) Herb Keinon - The U.S. State Department's Friday announcement - following another round of negotiations between Israel and Lebanon in Washington - extending the ceasefire between the two countries is something of a fiction. It is not the government of Lebanon, but Hizbullah, that decided to wage war against Israel, first on October 8, 2023, and then again on March 2, 2026. A ceasefire with Lebanon doesn't mean much, since their armies aren't fighting one another. It is Hizbullah that is firing drones at Israeli soldiers in southern Lebanon, there to prevent it from once again setting up a base of operations directly on Israel's border, with the expressed intent of launching an Oct. 7-style invasion of the Galilee. The ceasefire is by no means a harmless fiction because it ties Israel's hands. The current restrictions on Israel's use of force in Lebanon effectively take Beirut out of the game and establish a maximum price Hizbullah knows it can tolerate. Israel is not using its full force and sending fighter planes to strike Hizbullah strongholds in Beirut or in the Bekaa Valley because of the understandings surrounding the ceasefire. Negotiations detached from the realities on the ground do not end terrorism. Rather, they create space for the terrorists to adapt, regroup, and strike again.