‘Will not leave’: Is Israel killing the US-Iran MoU by staying in Lebanon?

A day earlier, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz also said Israel’s military will not withdraw “a millimetre” until Hezbollah is disarmed. But the Israeli stance is squarely at odds with the first clause of the US-Iran Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), which provides for an immediate, permanent halt to fighting on “all fronts”, including in Lebanon where Israeli forces have occupied approximately one-fifth of the country since early March. That provision has since been undercut by a separate US-brokered framework agreement between Israel and the Lebanese government, which doesn’t require Israeli forces to leave southern Lebanon or halt attacks – a deal Hezbollah has denounced. The result has been an entrenchment of Israel’s military presence in Lebanon, even as strikes have eased to avoid reigniting direct conflict with Iran. That leaves an open question: Is Israel’s position bluster for a domestic audience, or a hard line that could unravel the fragile MoU? We spoke to analysts to find out.

Behind Netanyahu’s combative language is an embattled prime minister managing a difficult balancing act, Cyrus Schayegh, professor of international history and politics at the Geneva Graduate Institute, told Al Jazeera. On the one hand, domestic politics has made Netanyahu reluctant to be seen as backing down from the war with Hezbollah, which began firing rockets into northern Israel soon after the first US-Israeli strikes on Tehran on February 28, in which Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed. Israel responded with force and has launched near-daily strikes, as well as an expanding ground invasion, ever since. With elections expected around October, a hasty withdrawal from Lebanon could look like capitulation – and worse, an implicit admission that he only fell into line because of pressure from US President Donald Trump. But the other side of that “lose-lose” is Washington. Netanyahu, Schayegh says, understands exactly what Trump wants from him: to prevent the Israel-Hezbollah conflict from becoming a broader regional war that forces the US to intervene.