Israel and Hezbollah Ceasefire Agreement in Lebanon Holds Despite Skirmishes
Everyone watching Mideast politics connected the November 11th visit of Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer to President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home just a day before Dermer sat down to discuss a potential ceasefire agreement with Biden’s Secretary of State Tony Blinken.
President Trump’s resounding win in the November 5th U.S. election changed things.
Without doubt, Israel watched the final weeks of the election and saw Arab and Muslim-Americans supporting President Trump specifically because Trump has expressed very publicly the bloodshed must stop, and it must stop quickly. President Trump won Michigan in part due to that support.
“Just stop the killing” is a message President Trump has repeated frequently, and not just about the middle east. The pragmatic and forceful Trump demand to stop killing people and get to the negotiating table also looms heavily over Ukraine and Russia. However, in the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict, both sides want to be well positioned when President Trump takes office.
That backdrop, the scale of Trump’s presence in the geopolitical dynamic, is admitted by even the most severe of President Trump’s critics at the Washington Post, New York Times and Politico. The domestic political media may not like Donald Trump, but they cannot deny the impact of his doctrine when it comes to stopping senseless violence and halting hatred. Both Israel and Lebanon understand this dynamic. Even Iran knows it is in their best interests to restrain Hezbollah, as the Trump horizon dawns again.
Israel and Hezbollah, through Lebanon, agreed to a 60-day ceasefire which began yesterday, Wednesday November 27th. So far, despite some small skirmishes as Israel withdraws, the ceasefire agreement has held.
The steadfast stare behind “just stop the killing,” won the election in the USA, and so they stopped.
If you stand back and think about the dozens of people on average being killed every day in the conflict, President Trump is saving lives right now and he hasn’t even taken office yet. It is quite a remarkable dynamic.
WASHINGTON DC – […] It can be dubbed the Trump effect — and his nominees for the top jobs in his administration haven’t been shy of citing its impact on bringing forth the cease-fire. “Everyone is coming to the table because of President Trump,” Florida lawmaker Mike Waltz, Trump’s pick for national security adviser, declared on social media site X Tuesday, shortly before the Israeli cabinet signed off on the truce.
“His resounding victory sent a clear message to the rest of the world that chaos won’t be tolerated. I’m glad to see concrete steps towards de-escalation in the Middle East,” Waltz added. And the boast doesn’t seem to be just bravado either. Trump’s electoral win appears to have concentrated minds enough to get the cease-fire over the line.
For one, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu didn’t need to guess what Trump wanted for Lebanon. The president-elect and his allies assiduously courted Arab-Americans on the campaign trail — especially in the key swing state of Michigan, where Trump pushed the line that he could arrange peace and “stop the wars.”
Lebanese-American businessman Massad Boulos, the father-in-law of Trump’s daughter Tiffany, was also a key emissary, exploiting the disillusionment of Arab-Americans furious with the current administration’s policies on Gaza and the war in Lebanon. If Trump wins the election, he’ll “act immediately to end the war in Lebanon and won’t wait until his inauguration in January,” he told the Saudi-funded Al-Arabiya new outlet.
[…] “Trump expects a cease-fire on Lebanon soon — even before he’s inaugurated,” an Israeli official familiar with the matter, granted anonymity to speak candidly, had said.
The question now is whether the truce can hold. There’s a lot that can go awry — particularly since Hezbollah didn’t directly participate in the talks, leaving it to a political ally, the Speaker of the Parliament of Lebanon Nabih Berri, to act on its behalf.
Under the agreement, the Israeli military will slowly withdraw forces from southern Lebanon, while Hezbollah moves north of the Litani River, as it was meant to do under the U.N. resolution that brought the 2006 war to an end. Lebanon will reinforce the area south of the river, deploying an additional 10,000 troops throughout the transition period of 60 days. (read more)
I think we all note the obvious. The Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire duration is timed to coincide with President Trump taking office on January 20, 2025.
Yes America, elections have consequences.
Thank God.
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