‘Not a Ceasefire, a Surrender’: Lebanese Analyst Slams Israel-Lebanon Deal
June 9, 2026
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“The US-brokered trilateral statement, issued by the US State Department on Wednesday following the latest high-level meeting between Lebanese and Israeli representatives, belongs to a category of political submission so extreme that it is difficult to locate a precedent in the history of modern statecraft.
Lebanon, a state under attack, co-signs a document that conditions a ceasefire not on the withdrawal of the occupying power from its territory, but on the withdrawal of its own citizens from their land.
The ceasefire agreement is not made conditional on Israel ending its aggression, withdrawing from occupied Lebanese territory, releasing prisoners, or enabling the return of the displaced, but on Hezbollah ceasing fire and withdrawing from the south.
Israel is not even named in relation to the ceasefire’s obligations.
What is presented as a cessation of hostilities is, therefore, structured not as the withdrawal of Israel from Lebanon, but as the removal of Lebanese citizens from their land.
Nor is this omission accidental. Israeli freedom of action had already been normalised in a previous framework, and since this statement contains no requirement that Israel stop its attacks, that earlier dispensation remains intact.
Instead, the centre of gravity is Hezbollah, which is defined not as a Lebanese resistance force confronting occupation, but as the problem to be dismantled throughout Lebanon.
By placing its signature beneath US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s claim that Hezbollah is “an enemy of Lebanon”, the Lebanese government lends state authority to the assertion that both the resistance and the political community it represents are external to the Lebanese nation itself.”
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✍: Amal Saad
*The views expressed in this column belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of MEE
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