US envoy dismisses ‘fantasy’ of deal that would include IDF buffer zone in Lebanon
Amos Hochstein says Lebanon would never agree to Israel occupying country’s south, making ceasefire impossible and thereby keeping Israel’s north in danger
Jacob Magid is The Times of Israel's US bureau chief
The US architect of the Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire on Wednesday dismissed as “fantasy” the notion that Jerusalem could have secured a better deal in which it would have been able to maintain a buffer zone inside Lebanon to better defend against potential attacks from the Iran-backed terror group.
During a round of interviews hours after the ceasefire came into place, US special envoy Amos Hochstein was presented with criticism voiced by former prime minister Naftali Bennett, who said the agreement’s lack of planned buffer zone in Lebanon will allow Hezbollah to rebuild homes along the border that the terror group can use as a staging point for a future invasion of Israel’s north and as launchpads for the many anti-tank missiles it still has in stock.
“Yes, there are fantasy deals that are utopia where you get a ceasefire agreement with a security zone, but those won’t ever happen,” Hochstein responded to Channel 12.
The senior adviser to US President Joe Biden maintained that a buffer zone would require Israel to remain in Lebanon as an occupying force — something that no sovereign country would accept.
“If you choose to have a dead zone or a demilitarized zone, then you are there as an occupier, and you are not there in agreement; which means that while you may have two, three, four or five kilometers inside Lebanon, there won’t be an agreement to stop [Hezbollah from] shooting at Israel from longer ranges,” Hochstein said.
Some supporters of the buffer zone idea have said forces other than the IDF could be tasked with enforcement.
The deal brokered by the US managed to secure a commitment from Hezbollah to stop its rocket fire while also empowering the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) to prevent the terror group from rebuilding its infrastructure, the US envoy explained.
Skeptics of the deal have questioned whether the LAF will be capable of standing up to Hezbollah, given that it has been unable to do so to date, but US officials argue that Western and Arab allies have now agreed to provide the LAF with more money, equipment and training.
Hochstein has also touted the ceasefire deal’s boosting of an existing enforcement mechanism that was utterly ineffective in preventing Hezbollah’s rearmament after the 2006 Second Lebanon War. The US and France will be taking charge of the tripartite enforcement committee that previously only included Israel, Lebanon and the UNIFIL observer force.
From here on out, the committee will be able to respond in real-time to complaints of violations of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which requires Hezbollah to disarm and retreat beyond the Litani River, some 18 miles north of the Israel-Lebanon border.
Also new under the deal is the LAF’s agreement to immediately deploy across south Lebanon, gradually replacing Israeli troops over the next two months in order to ensure that Hezbollah is unable to refill the vacuum as it did after the Second Lebanon War 18 years ago.
The international community will also be involved in rebuilding south Lebanon, rather than abandoning the country immediately after the war as it did in 2006 when Hezbollah was the only force offering to assist in the effort, allowing it to maintain its foothold in the border towns, Hochstein explained.
Asked by Channel 12 why he thought the deal had come into fruition now, Hochstein credited the gains Israel has made on the battlefield over the past two months, which convinced Hezbollah to “delink” from the ongoing Gaza war after refusing to do so for over a year.
After roughly a year of near-daily Hezbollah cross-border attacks, which began, unprovoked, a day after Hamas’s October 7 onslaught, Israel significantly intensified its retaliatory strikes in September, killing almost all of Hezbollah’s military and political leaders before launching a ground invasion that dismantled much of the terror group’s infrastructure throughout southern Lebanon. Israel’s assault on Hezbollah also featured a mass detonation of Hezbollah communications devices that injured thousands of its operatives.
As to whether Israel should have continued in its efforts to degrade Hezbollah militarily with the terror group at one of its weakest points ever, Hochstein told Channel 12, “At some point, you have to get to a deal itself.”
During a briefing with Jewish American community leaders earlier in the day, Hochstein pointed out that Israel had never established a war aim of fully dismantling Hezbollah. Israel’s stated goal for the northern front is to make it safe for the tens of thousands of displaced Israeli residents to return to their homes near the Blue Line, which would be possible without a deal, he said.
Hochstein was pressed on reports that he had also given Israel a “now or never” ultimatum that ultimately convinced Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to agree to a deal.
He denied having made such comments but did acknowledge having told Netanyahu earlier this month that the window of opportunity to reach a deal was shutting and likely wouldn’t open until after the next administration gets settled into office, in March or April of next year.
Hochstein was also asked in a subsequent Channel 13 interview about claims from Netanyahu’s office that the US pressured Israel to agree to the deal with Lebanon by threatening not to veto a UN resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire along the Blue Line and threatening to withhold weapons shipments from Israel.
“There were no demands by the United States related to weapons or a veto at the UN. There were no threats whatsoever… Those ideas never came up in discussions at any point,” he said.
“I have known Prime Minister Netanyahu and the government of Israel for a very long time. I have never known them to cave into deals that they thought threatened the security of Israel,” Hochstein maintained.
Earlier in the evening, Netanyahu’s office issued a statement criticizing Hochstein for comments made in another interview, with CNBC, in which he characterized the ceasefire in Lebanon as “permanent.”
“Contrary to what was attributed to Hochstein, fighting can restart at any moment, as we saw today,” said the premier’s spokesperson hours after IDF troops fired warning shots at people trying to approach several southern Lebanon villages on the first day of the ceasefire.
“Israel will act firmly against any violation of the ceasefire, and is prepared militarily for any scenario,” the Netanyahu aide added in a statement.
Hochstein’s characterization of the deal was the same as the one used by Biden when he announced the ceasefire on Tuesday.
Netanyahu’s office apparently preferred criticizing the Biden aide, rather than the president himself, as it seeks to contend with frustration over the deal from the premier’s hardline base, which according to polls overwhelmingly opposes the ceasefire and wants Israel to continue fighting Hezbollah.
