I still remember how the Reagan administration (Republican) dealt with this first large-scale Israeli invasion of a sovereign Arab country. Israeli forces in cahoots with the Lebanese Phalange Party under Bashir Gemayel, aided and abetted by the Lebanese forces of Samir Geagea, moved northwards and laid siege to Beirut in September 1982.
Sharon with his Lebanese collaborators then oversaw the systematic massacre of innocent Palestinians in the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila. The US administration did not take a clear and unequivocal position against the massacre of the defenceless Palestinians. Its main, and I would say only, interest back then centred around the withdrawal of the forces of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) led by the late Yasser Arafat who was based in Beirut.
The Reagan administration appointed Philip Habib as its special envoy in Lebanon. His mission, in essence, was to oversee the withdrawal of the Palestinian forces. The American position was that if they would not withdraw, the United States would not object to an all-out military offensive by the invading Israeli forces to push Arafat and his forces out of Lebanon.
I can still recall the many phone calls that took place between Ashraf Ghorbal, Egypt’s ambassador to the United States at the time, and Habib. Egypt’s concern was twofold: first, to guarantee the personal safety of Arafat; and second, to secure the unhindered withdrawal of the Palestinian forces from Lebanon by sea to their new destination in Tunisia, with iron-clad American guarantees that they would not be attacked during their withdrawal.
Former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak made many efforts to secure the Palestinian withdrawal conditional on such guarantees.
The Palestinians left for Tunisia, the Israeli forces withdrew south of the Litani River, and an Israeli occupation of Southern Lebanon set in that lasted from 1982 until 2000, when the government of then Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak decided to withdraw. The reason behind this decision was the armed resistance of Hizbullah, an armed Shiite organisation aided by the newly established regime of Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran that had been formed in 1982 in reaction to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon.
Fast forward 26 years and a very similar scenario is now playing out once again in Lebanon.
On 3 June, the US State Department said in a statement that Lebanon and Israel had agreed to implement an American-brokered ceasefire. However, this stressed, unusually candidly, that the “ceasefire is contingent on a complete cessation of Hizbullah fire and the evacuation of all Hizbullah operatives from south of the Litani River.”
It is as if we are witnessing a replay of 1982. The resistance to the Israeli occupation of Lebanese territories, whether the PLO in 1982 or Hizbullah in 2026, are to withdraw and lay down their arms without any Israeli commitments whatsoever to withdraw from Lebanon. In both cases, the United States is shielding Israel and providing diplomatic and political cover for the continuation of the Israeli occupation of the south of the country.
One difference between 1982 and 2026 is that in the former case the PLO fighters could withdraw because they were Palestinians and not a native resistance movement. Calling upon the members of Hizbullah, on the other hand, all Lebanese by birth, to withdraw is something that defies the imagination, especially as the Israelis would remain as an occupying force.
To expect Hizbullah to discuss how to implement the ceasefire agreement brokered by the American administration with the Lebanese government in the absence of an Israeli withdrawal is a non-starter, and this explains the reaction of the Hizbullah leadership to the agreement.
It released a statement on 4 June saying that it is “concerned only with a comprehensive cessation of aggression through a ceasefire and Israel’s withdrawal” and adding that it has not made a commitment to any party to stop the resistance as long as the occupation continues. It is thus stating an equation that neither the United States nor Israel have ever accepted as a sustainable basis for peace and security between Lebanon and Israel – namely, that in order to end the resistance it is necessary to end the Israeli occupation.
Any diplomatic efforts to reach a permanent ceasefire in Lebanon will prove fruitless as long as Israeli forces remain in Southern Lebanon. It is doubtful that the ceasefire agreement put forward on 3 June will lead to “progress towards comprehensive peace and security between Lebanon and Israel”, as the US State Department was quoted as saying last week.
The next day, Israeli Minister of Defence Israel Katz claimed that his country has freedom of action, backed by the United States, to strike Beirut in response to attacks on Israeli communities and territory. Israeli forces since the outbreak of the US-Israeli war on Iran on 28 February have killed at least 3,516 Lebanese civilians and displaced more than one million people.
The record of the last 26 years in Lebanon has proven without a shadow of a doubt that one-sided ceasefire agreements favouring Israel and aligned with Israeli interests are not sustainable. The results of the present ceasefire agreement will not be any different.
Moreover, it is incumbent on the leadership of Hizbullah to coordinate its position with the Lebanese government and not solely with outside powers. In other words, Hizbullah should prepare to play a long game. In the meantime, the Lebanese government should not mistake Hizbullah for its enemy. Its enemy sits across the border to the south.
Getting involved in a meaningless shouting match with the government of Iran will not prove helpful either.
Diplomacy could prove more effective in closing the gap between their respective positions concerning Hizbullah and how to negotiate a comprehensive deal with the American administration that would guarantee a durable ceasefire in Lebanon linked to an Israeli withdrawal from Southern Lebanon and the return of the displaced Lebanese in the south to their villages in return for a ceasefire in the northern part of Israel that would lead to the return to normal life of the various communities living there.
The writer is former assistant foreign minister.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 11 June, 2026 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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