The Washington Statement, issued after the fourth round of U.S.-mediated Lebanese-Israeli negotiations, appeared less as a finalized agreement and more as an attempt to halt the slide toward a far more dangerous reality in southern Lebanon. By “dangerous reality,” we mean the emergence of a so-called “Yellow Zone”: an area imposed by Israel through military force and one it is seeking to entrench as a military and demographic area. In this zone, villages are being systematically shelled, razed, and emptied of their residents, with their depopulation gradually becoming an established reality. 

From the Lebanese perspective, the story does not begin with the statement itself, but with the atmosphere that preceded the talks. According to sources familiar with the negotiations, “it was clear from the very first moments that the Israelis did not want the negotiations, and that the Americans had brought them to the Washington meetings almost by force.”

This characterization does not suggest that Washington was a neutral mediator, nor that U.S.-Israeli relations had undergone any fundamental shift. On the contrary, the same sources describe the Lebanese delegation as facing a “U.S.-Israeli alliance.” Yet the delegation sought to operate within the narrow space created by the differing priorities of Washington and Tel Aviv. The United States wants a ceasefire that contains the conflict in Lebanon and prevents it from jeopardizing its broader track with Iran, while Israel seeks to preserve its military gains on the ground, even if doing so comes at the expense of diplomacy.

It was in this context that the Washington Statement emerged, described by informed sources as an attempt to “reverse the trajectory currently unfolding in the south, marked by bombardment, destruction, and occupation.”

During the talks, the Lebanese position centered on several key demands: a comprehensive ceasefire, an Israeli withdrawal, and the return of displaced residents. The Israeli position, however, was fundamentally different. Israel sought to consolidate military control over a broad swath of southern Lebanon, enforce Hezbollah’s withdrawal from south of the Litani River, and tie any de-escalation to security arrangements that would effectively grant Israel the ability to continue exerting military pressure.

This is where the idea of “pilot zones” emerged. On the surface, it was a phased arrangement: designated areas where hostilities would cease, Israeli forces would withdraw, the Lebanese Army would deploy, and no armed actors other than state forces would be present.

From the Lebanese perspective, however, the proposal was far more than a technical security arrangement. It was an attempt to counter the Israeli plan of turning southern Lebanon into a depopulated security belt.

According to the sources, Lebanon proposed that the pilot initiative begin in the town of Bint Jbeil, precisely because it lies within the area Israel is seeking to establish as a buffer zone. The message was as much political as it was security-related: the solution cannot be based on emptying villages of their inhabitants, but rather on the return of residents, the deployment of the Lebanese Army, and the start of reconstruction.

When the Israelis rejected this proposal, discussions shifted to alternative locations around Beaufort Castle and its surroundings, given both the site’s symbolic significance and its strategic position overlooking the road to Nabatieh.

Lebanon’s concern over Beaufort Castle is far from symbolic. According to the sources, Israel’s control of the fortress has raised serious fears that the next step could be an advance toward Nabatieh. In the Lebanese collective memory, Beaufort Castle is not merely a military position. It is a site that encapsulates the history of Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon and one of the most emblematic locations in the battles that preceded Israel’s withdrawal in 2000. For Israel to return to it today suggests that the war is not only reclaiming geography, but also reviving the language and logic of the former occupation.

The sources say that Israel has “bulldozed the area from the Blue Line to the foothills of Jabal Amel” and is attempting to transform a strip of land between eight and ten kilometers deep into a zone “without people or stones.” Israel’s stated justification for this depth is tied to the range of Hezbollah’s anti-tank weapons and short-range rockets. Israeli officials argue that pushing these capabilities roughly ten kilometers away from the border would reduce the threat posed to northern Israeli communities.

From the Lebanese perspective, however, this rationale extends well beyond immediate military necessity. The widespread destruction, displacement, and prevention of residents’ return go beyond the logic of security and enter the realm of punitive demographic engineering: the deliberate removal of the social environment in which a new “resistance” could emerge.

During the negotiations, the Israeli delegation reportedly sought to introduce the figure of 2,700 Hezbollah fighters in the area, arguing that their departure should be a precondition for a ceasefire. Lebanese sources regard the number as greatly exaggerated and view it as part of a broader Israeli negotiating strategy that inflates the problem to obstruct a solution. When the challenge is raised to an unattainable level, continued military occupation can then be presented as a security necessity.

Yet Lebanon’s predicament extends beyond Israel. Washington itself is not a neutral mediator but a party with its own priorities. For the United States, Israeli security comes first, containing Iran second, and preventing Lebanon’s collapse third. This hierarchy leaves Beirut facing exceptionally difficult negotiations.

“The Lebanese state’s only weapon at the moment is its position,” the sources say. In other words, its ability to resist the return of formulas that have shaped Lebanon’s fate for decades, foremost among them the principle of the “linkage of tracks” (talazum al-masarat). Reviving that logic would effectively mean that Lebanon is not negotiating on its own behalf, but rather having its future tied once again to the trajectories of others, namely Syria in the past and Iran today.

This issue lies at the heart of the political battle surrounding the negotiations.

During the 1990s, Lebanese decision-making operated under Syrian tutelage. Following the 1991 Madrid Peace Conference, Arab-Israeli negotiations began on both bilateral and multilateral tracks. Lebanon participated in those talks carrying a clear international mandate in the form of United Nations Security Council Resolution 425, which called for Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanese territory. The problem, however, was that Damascus viewed southern Lebanon as a bargaining chip within its own negotiations over the Golan Heights and broader regional interests. As a result, any attempt to separate the Lebanese track from the Syrian one was met with accusations of unilateralism or political concession.

This is why the revival of the slogan “Jezzine First” is particularly significant. The proposal was originally advanced by Simon Karam in the early 1990s. At the time, the idea was to begin with the withdrawal of the South Lebanon Army, commonly known as the Lahad Army, from Jezzine as a first step toward a broader Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon.

Karam, then Lebanon’s ambassador in Washington, participated in part of those discussions. The proposal was conceived as a pilot initiative: a localized breakthrough in the wall of occupation that could eventually lead to a full withdrawal. But the plan ran into Syrian opposition and a Lebanese official structure unable to act beyond the limits imposed by Damascus. At that moment, even an independent Lebanese initiative aimed at Israeli withdrawal could be perceived as a threat to those who controlled the southern Lebanon file at the regional level.

In this context, Simon Karam’s return as head of the Lebanese delegation appears to be far more than a procedural detail. The man who, in the 1990s, experienced the limits of Lebanese diplomacy under the weight of Syrian tutelage now returns to a negotiating table that may look different in form but is governed by a similar question: Is Lebanon negotiating on its own behalf, or as a card in a broader regional game?

In the “Jezzine First” initiative, the attempt to create a Lebanese opening in the wall of Israeli occupation collided with Syrian pressure that rejected any separation of the Lebanese track from the Syrian one. It was a harsh lesson in the cost of the “linkage of tracks,” as Lebanon was effectively compelled to keep its south as a bargaining chip in Damascus’s hands.

Today, Ambassador Karam appears determined to ensure that the same lesson is not repeated under an Iranian rather than a Syrian framework. His firmness at the negotiating table stems not from a desire to make a political statement, but from an understanding that the greatest danger facing Lebanon is that the ceasefire, withdrawal, and return of displaced residents will be postponed while awaiting others’ settlements and compromises.

In the accounts of many who have known or worked with him, Karam emerges as a principled and patriotic figure, deeply committed to the state and the public interest. Yet the significance of these qualities lies not in their personal dimension but in their political function today: that the Lebanese delegation is led by a negotiator who does not act as the spokesperson of a regional axis, nor as the representative of a sectarian constituency, but as someone seeking, within an exceptionally difficult balance of power, to preserve a minimum degree of Lebanese independence in the negotiating process.

In the current context, the same dynamic appears to be repeating itself, albeit with a different regional actor. Syria is no longer the power shaping Lebanon’s negotiating track; Iran, through Hezbollah, has assumed that role. Just as Damascus once sought to keep Lebanon as a bargaining chip in negotiations over the Golan Heights, Tehran seeks to preserve Lebanon as a card in its broader negotiations with Washington.

This does not mean that Israel is merely a victim of this equation or a party simply reacting to Iran. Israel remains an occupying power engaged in bombardment, destruction, and displacement, using its overwhelming military advantage to impose new boundaries and new realities by force. It does mean, however, that Lebanon finds itself caught between two projects in which it is not the central concern: on one side, an Israeli project that prioritizes the security of northern Israel, even at the expense of southern Lebanon; on the other, an Iranian project that seeks to retain the Lebanese card as leverage in its larger bargaining process with the United States.

For this reason, the Lebanese-Israeli negotiations today present a painful paradox. They are the only available path for the Lebanese state to secure a ceasefire and end the occupation, yet they are taking place within a profoundly unequal balance of power. They offer an opportunity to reclaim Lebanese decision-making from Hezbollah and Iran, but they unfold under U.S.-Israeli pressure that recognizes Lebanese sovereignty only insofar as it serves Israeli security arrangements. They are an attempt to return residents to their villages, yet they risk becoming a vehicle for normalizing “pilot zones” unless they are explicitly linked to a comprehensive withdrawal, the right of return, and reconstruction.

According to the sources, tensions in Washington escalated to the point that Simon Karam, head of the Lebanese delegation, threatened to walk out of the room during discussions over a ceasefire. The dispute was not a matter of wording. It concerned the very foundation of the process: should negotiations begin with a ceasefire, or with Israel’s security conditions? And can Lebanon negotiate arrangements for the south while villages are being bombed and bulldozed and residents are prevented from returning?

“The return of the people is a central priority for the Lebanese negotiator,” the sources say.

On the Israeli side, the publicly stated position does not suggest serious enthusiasm for a settlement. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz continue to insist that disarming Hezbollah and dismantling its infrastructure are prerequisites for security. Yet developments on the ground suggest that Israel seeks more than that. It appears to be pursuing a security belt and perhaps a prolonged period of indirect occupation under the banner of preventing the re-emergence of a future threat.

Israel’s internal political crisis is also weighing heavily on decision-making. Talk of early elections and the possibility of Netanyahu losing power has increased incentives for a harder line. In moments such as these, war becomes as much a domestic political instrument as it is a security policy.

From the Lebanese side, the picture is no less complicated. President Joseph Aoun has adopted a direct message toward Israel: let us sit down and talk, because military solutions do not produce lasting security. At the same time, he has delivered unprecedented criticism of Iran, arguing that the Lebanese people are paying the price for Tehran’s interests. Prime Minister Nawaf Salam has taken a similar position, stating that Lebanon cannot continue to serve as an arena for other people’s wars.

Hezbollah, meanwhile, rejects the Washington framework in its current form. The group insists on a complete ceasefire and an Israeli withdrawal before any withdrawal from south of the Litani River can be discussed. At the same time, Nabih Berri, widely regarded as the principal channel of communication with Hezbollah, has advanced a formula suggesting that the party’s military posture can be contained if a ceasefire and Israeli withdrawal are secured.

At this point, the negotiations become a test of the Lebanese state before they become a test of Israel. Can Beirut declare that decisions of war and peace are no longer in Iran’s hands? And can it simultaneously prevent Lebanon’s weakness from becoming an open-ended license for Israel to occupy, bomb, and displace? This is the most difficult equation of all: there can be no legitimacy for weapons outside the authority of the state, and no legitimacy for an occupation justified by the existence of those weapons.

The future of the negotiations remains uncertain. The Washington Statement referred to the resumption of both the political and security tracks during the week beginning on June 22. Yet informed sources say there is still no certainty that another round will actually take place, given the deterioration in U.S.-Iran relations and in light of the equation Tehran attempted to impose through the recent exchange of missile strikes with Israel, following Israel’s bombardment of Beirut’s southern suburbs days earlier.

What is certain, however, is that Israel is moving on the ground faster than diplomacy can keep pace with; Hezbollah is betting on time and regional developments; Iran wants Lebanon to remain part of its negotiating package with Washington; and the United States is seeking an outcome that prevents the war from expanding, not necessarily one that delivers a fair settlement for Lebanon.

Between “Jezzine First” in the 1990s and “Bint Jbeil First” today, the same question resurfaces: can Lebanon wrest a small concession from within an overwhelmingly unequal balance of power and then transform it into a broader path toward sovereignty?

The first attempt failed because Lebanese decision-making was effectively held hostage by Syria. This time, the danger is that the process could be derailed because decision-making is trapped between Hezbollah’s weapons, Iran’s strategic calculations, Israel’s overwhelming military advantage, and Washington’s priorities.

Yet, as the sources argue, the alternative to negotiations is not national dignity but rather “what is currently unfolding in southern Lebanon: bombardment, displacement, and the systematic destruction of villages and homes.” For that reason, however harsh they may be, the negotiations appear as an effort to prevent the catastrophe from becoming permanent.

The negotiations are neither a victory nor a guarantee. But they may be the only remaining space in which to prevent the “Yellow Zone” from becoming a new border, and to ensure that southern Lebanon does not once again become a permanent testing ground for the wars and calculations of others.