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More than four years ago, a CUFI Action Fund staff member warned in an op-ed that America’s - to that point - $2 billion investment in the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) had failed to achieve the desired results. Around the same time, we met a senior policy maker with a leading voice on defense issues and discussed our view that swaths of the LAF are married to Hezbollah. Our warnings were dismissed.

**Beirut’s Cowards**

On Sunday, the Speaker of the Lebanese Parliament declared that Hezbollah has a right to rearm itself. This comes less than two months after the Lebanese Government agreed to plans that would see Hezbollah disarmed by the end of the year.

Truth is neither of these is going to happen. Beirut remains unwilling to do the hard work necessary to extend full sovereignty over their country, and Israel is not going to allow Hezbollah to reconstitute itself as a strategic threat to the Jewish state.

For the people of Lebanon, who, unlike Gazans, do not consistently support war with their Jewish neighbors, Beirut’s cowardice is a tragedy. And for Israel, this is a challenge that must be dealt with; it is quite literally a matter of life and death.

So where do we go from here?

**Conflict on the Horizon?**

Well, that depends on how far Iran and Hezbollah seek to push the Jewish state, and how much they underestimate Israel’s resolve to ensure another 10/7 Massacre is impossible.

The mere effort to reconstitute a threatening force in southern Lebanon indicates that neither Tehran nor the current leadership of Hezbollah – such as it is – understand that Israel

**will** violate all those diplomatic niceties that enabled Hamas’s and Hezbollah’s pre-10/07 buildup.

Jerusalem’s acquiescence, so to speak, to the world’s fantastic delusions about Beirut’s and the LAF’s unwillingness to disarm Hezbollah is not in the cards.

That leaves things in a highly precarious position. If the world is unwilling or unable to convince Beirut to disarm Hezbollah, Israel’s attacks on the terrorists’ smuggling efforts, weapons depots and the like, will only increase in quantity and intensity.

**The UN and “Palestine”**

On Monday, the UN Security Council voted to advance a resolution that creates a “Board of Peace” that is mandated with overseeing administration and rebuilding of the Gaza Strip over the next two years. In the coming weeks, we’ll be examining what this Board does, and seeking to ensure obvious mistakes are not made.

For example, it would be an obvious mistake to invite soldiers from the terrorist sponsoring state of Turkey into the Gaza Strip. In fact, that error, putting Israeli troops in close proximity to soldiers whose leadership is allied with terrorists, could most obviously result in direct conflict between Ankara and Jerusalem.

There are numerous other unforced errors the Board of Peace and its associates need to avoid; we won’t go into all of them here but rather, will work to ensure they are avoided by engaging directly with those responsible on the American side.

The other allegedly newsworthy item from the Security Council resolution is that it makes mention of a potential Palestinian state in the future. It’s a throwaway line meant to appease Europeans and others who forgive every Palestinian sin and blame all the Middle East’s woes on Israel. It’s harmful in that it is one more lie the international community is selling themselves and the Palestinian people, and such lies lead to massacres and terrorism.

But other than that….? Well, there’s nothing new under the sun, and as we’ve said for some time: especially after the horrors we’ve witnessed over the past two years, there is no space for serious discussion about a Palestinian state.

Sincerely,

The CUFI Action Fund Team

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