Israel Prepares Lebanon Cease-Fire Plan as ‘gift’ to Trump, Officials Say

The Washington Post / Shira Rubin, Suzan Haidamous, John Hudson

17:09 JST, November 14, 2024

TEL AVIV – A close aide to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Donald Trump and Jared Kushner this week that Israel is rushing to advance a cease-fire deal in Lebanon, according to three current and former Israeli officials briefed on the meeting, with the aim of delivering an early foreign policy win to the president-elect.

Ron Dermer, Netanyahu’s minister of strategic affairs, made Mar-a-Lago the first stop on his U.S. tour Sunday before traveling to the White House to update Biden administration officials on the state of Lebanon talks, a sign of how swiftly America’s political center of gravity has shifted after Trump’s electoral victory.

“There is an understanding that Israel would gift something to Trump … that in January there will be an understanding about Lebanon,” an Israeli official said. Like others in this article, the official spoke to The Washington Post on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive conversations.

Dermer’s spokesman told The Post that he discussed a wide range of issues during his trip but did not elaborate. Netanyahu’s office and a spokesperson for Trump declined to comment. Kushner’s spokesperson did not reply to a request for comment.

Trump has said he wants to bring an end to the wars in the Middle East, but he also told Netanyahu in a call last month to “do what you have to do” against Hezbollah and Hamas. It is unclear what impact, if any, the Lebanon proposal discussed at Mar-a-Lago would have on stalled cease-fire and hostage release talks in Gaza.

“Netanyahu has no loyalty to Biden and will be focused entirely on currying favor with Trump,” said Frank Lowenstein, a former special envoy for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations under President Barack Obama who served during the transition to the first Trump administration. If 2016 is any indication, he added, “Trump won’t hesitate to act like he’s already president when he sees an opportunity.”

Netanyahu said in a video statement Sunday that he had talked to Trump three times in recent days and that the two saw “major opportunities ahead for Israel, especially in advancing peace” – a striking statement after more than a year of devastating war in Gaza and six weeks after Israel broadened its military campaign against Hezbollah by sending ground troops into southern Lebanon.

The Israeli prime minister was planning for a new era in Washington well before Election Day on Nov. 5. Netanyahu had been in regular contact with Trump, according to the Israeli official, and Dermer with Kushner, who helped broker normalization agreements between four Arab nations and Israel during Trump’s first term and maintains personal and financial ties to the region.

Kushner is expected to play an advisory role in the event of future negotiations over Israeli normalization with Saudi Arabia, even if he is not appointed to a formal White House position, according to a former Trump official.

On Sunday, the Israeli official said, the conversations at Trump’s Florida residence focused on an Israeli cease-fire proposal for Lebanon involving Western and Russian cooperation. An Israeli military official said plans were also being created to ramp up ground operations in Lebanon if talks were to ultimately fall apart.

The terms of the evolving deal, according to Israeli officials, would require Hezbollah fighters to retreat beyond the Litani River – the northern edge of a U.N.-monitored buffer area established after the 2006 conflict between Israel and Hezbollah. Since October 2023, following the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel, Lebanese militants have used the region as a staging ground to rain down thousands of rockets and missiles on Israel, killing 45 civilians and 31 soldiers and forcing some 60,000 people from their homes.

Nearly 900,000 people have been internally displaced by Israel’s expanding military campaign in Lebanon. More than 3,300 have been killed, according to the country’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but says hundreds of women, children and first responders are among the dead. Hezbollah said about 500 of its fighters were killed before the start of the Israeli ground operation, when the group stopped releasing a public count. More than 40 Israeli soldiers have been killed in ground fighting since Oct. 1, including six on Wednesday.

A person close to Hezbollah said the group would be willing to withdraw its fighters north of the Litani as part of a temporary cease-fire. The Israeli official said the Lebanese military would take control of the border zone for an initial 60-day period, overseen by the United States and Britain.

Lowenstein said Netanyahu could be aiming for a temporary agreement with Biden still in office, leaving a final settlement for Trump to take credit for.

“The one thing Netanyahu cares more about than Trump is his own domestic politics, and getting Israeli civilians back to the north is a major objective that he may not want to wait on,” he said.

The broad contours of the agreement taking shape are similar to those in previous rounds of negotiations and align with Trump’s expressed desire to put an end to Israel’s multifront war, but the plan has yet to be formally submitted to Hezbollah, according to officials in both countries. And the proposal calls for the Israeli military to be able to operate across the border in case of violations – a nonstarter for Lebanese officials.

“Is there any sane person who believes that we will agree to a settlement or a solution that serves Israel’s interests at the expense of Lebanon’s interests and sovereignty?” Lebanese parliament speaker Nabih Berri said Tuesday. Berri, a Hezbollah ally, has served as an intermediary in negotiations.

The person close to Hezbollah said the group’s “condition for progress remains clear: Israel must be prohibited from conducting operations within Lebanese territory.”

But Netanyahu – who has been accused by his critics of extending and expanding the war for his own political survival after being widely blamed for the security failures on Oct. 7 – appears to be betting that the political moment is ripe for a breakthrough.

“This was a deal that Netanyahu waited to give to Trump,” said Israel Ziv, former head of the Israel Defense Forces’ Operations Directorate, who remains in contact with high-ranking members of the security establishment. “But waiting had its price,” Ziv added, referring to Hezbollah having regained its footing in recent weeks, and killing more Israeli soldiers in the south, after a series of mortal blows to its senior leadership and communications network.

Following his meetings at Mar-a-Lago, Dermer met Monday and Tuesday with Biden officials in Washington, including Amos Hochstein, the president’s special envoy to Lebanon, according to a senior U.S. official.

The senior official noted that Netanyahu remains engaged with the administration on the cease-fire process in Lebanon. A second U.S. official said that all the work on a potential deal was still being done by Biden’s team and that progress had been made.

Netanyahu’s consultations with Trump before and after the election demonstrate how much he had staked on the results of the vote and how carefully he is calibrating his strategy for the new administration. But Ziv said the prime minister will need to weigh the “whims” of the president-elect – a notoriously unpredictable politician – against national security calculations, since “his entire leverage is Trump.”

And there appears to be a new X-factor in Israel’s peace plan for Lebanon: Russia, a country whose ties with Trump complicated his first term. According to the Israeli official, the proposal calls for Moscow to prevent Hezbollah from rearming via Syrian land routes, which for years have been the main conduit for arms from Iran, the militant group’s main patron.

Russian officials visited Israel on Oct. 27 to discuss the plan, according to the Israeli official. Dermer made a secret trip to Russia last week for follow-up discussions, the Israeli and U.S. officials said.

Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not respond to a request for comment. The U.S. official said Russia would not be involved in the implementation or supervision of a cease-fire agreement.

On the competing claims over Moscow’s involvement, Lowenstein said, “it’s possible that both are true: no role for the Russians now under Biden, but a big one later when Trump takes over.”

Russia, an ally of Iran, has maintained a presence in Syria since sweeping in during the country’s civil war in support of President Bashar al-Assad, working hand-in-hand with Hezbollah to brutally crush the armed uprising against his government. Now, Israel appears to be counting on Russia to pressure the Syrian president into cutting off Hezbollah’s supply lines.

“Hezbollah is cornered,” the person close to the group said.

Israel believes its foe’s fighting force has been weakened to the point of compromise. If Hezbollah accepts the deal, Ziv said, it will come into effect “very quickly, since there are expectations that attempts to violate it will also be immediate.”

In parallel with Dermer’s diplomatic blitz, the IDF is preparing for a second phase of its ground operation, according to an Israeli military official, in case talks fall apart. And in recent days, Israel’s air force has pummeled Lebanon with strikes.

“We have taken away Hezbollah’s ability to attack us” as it could have before the war, said the military official. But there is always more to do, he added.

Both the IDF and Hezbollah have asserted that the battlefield remains the main front in negotiations. It is the only factor, Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati said Monday, that can “change the political equations.”