Israel and Hezbollah may be close to a cease fire deal...

 

Airstrikes in Beirut. Axios/AFP/Getty. 

Israel and Hezbollah may be close to a cease fire deal for the war in Lebanon. Axios. Israel has been at war with Hezbollah for awhile now and a peace deal would not only stop the fighting but allow thousands of people on both sides of the border to return to their homes. The agreement would have Israel withdraw from southern Lebanon and be replaced by troops from the army of Lebanon. Hezbollah would remove their heavy weapons north of the Litani river. The United States would be consulted before Israel made any strikes against Hezbollah in the future, assuming the Lebanese army didn't deal with the problem before hand. An announcement may be made later in this week, but there are still a few issues to work out. 

My Comment:

Some rare positive news out of the Middle East. While the war against Hezbollah in Lebanon has always been the side show to the war against Hamas in Gaza, ending the war there would be positive. A lot of folks on both sides have died and some of the most defining moments of the war have happened on that front. 

How this squares with the massive rocket attack Hezbollah just launched today, along with Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon, is a mystery. It's possible that those attacks will derail this attempt at a cease fire. But it's also very possible that both sides wanted to get a few more attacks in before the war ends in what would be by all accounts a draw. 

It does seem like the war has bogged down and neither side is accomplishing much. Hezbollah has probably taken the worst of it, with much of their leadership dead in the radio/electronic attacks and airstrikes, but both sides have to be hitting war exhaustion. And Lebanon is probably sick of both sides and just wants the war to end. 

Hezbollah probably wants the war to end before Trump takes office as well. Trump is a lot more pro-Israel than Biden has ever been and would likely not give Hezbollah a deal as good as they are getting now. Getting rid of the war would be a good idea for them. And if anything happens in the cease fire period before Trump gets in, Biden isn't likely to authorize Israel to launch strikes. 

Of course the real problem for the region remains Gaza. Hamas has largely been defeated but without giving up their hostages the war is unlikely to end. And that means the war in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden won't end anytime soon either. Ending the war between Hezbollah and Israel is a start but it's absolutely not the end. 

And that, of course, depends on this deal actually being accepted. If the massive tit for tat strikes between Hezbollah and Israel today don't derail it, it's possible something else will, like whatever the couple of sticking points are for Israel. We can't count our chickens before they hatch. 

Finally, I do have to point out that this is both from Axios and from anonymous sources, both of which are red flags for me. I don't really trust Axios, they have been very biased in the past, and I am always suspicious when folks won't go on the record. Still, I kind of want the story to be true, getting rid of one of the worlds many flashpoints would be good. But I'd be remiss to not point out that there could be problems with this story...