JERUSALEM – Israel and Lebanon, two neighbors that are still technically at war, signed a US-brokered agreement on Thursday to demarcate their shared maritime border and stipulate their rights to offshore gas reserves. The move comes amid a heated debate in Israel over the terms of the deal and the chances of easing – or conversely, easing future conflict.
The leaders of Lebanon and Israel signed separate agreements in limited ceremonies in their respective countries, which have no formal diplomatic relations. The event offers a rare moment of harmony, based on shared interest, but it also shows the limitations of breakthrough.
Prime Minister Yair Lapid of Israel, presented the agreement on Thursday as a political achievement, saying, “It is not a day that an enemy state recognizes the State of Israel, in a written agreement, according to the international community’s point of view.” Lebanon’s chief negotiator, Elias Bou Saab, also hailed the deal as the beginning of “a new era”.
But the Lebanese government has also insisted that agreement, reached earlier this month After more than a decade of negotiations, which do not signal normalization of relations with Israel and are much less important than the agreements to establish full diplomatic relations between Israel and the three Arab states by 2020, or Israel’s earlier peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan.
In Israel, the maritime agreement has been variously portrayed as a historic achievement that will enhance prosperity and stability in the region – or as a shameful surrender to the threats posed by Hezbollah, the organization The Iranian-backed Lebanese organization waged a brutal months-long war with Israel in 2006. killing more than 1,500 people, most of them Lebanese.
Hezbollah has vowed to disrupt all Israeli efforts to drill at the underwater gas field, Karish, near the long-disputed border between the two countries, before an agreement is signed. Earlier this year, the Israeli military shot down several drones that Hezbollah had sent as a warning about an oil rig at the Karish site, raising fears of a broader escalation if the attacks negotiations broke down.
Mr Lapid said Thursday at the start of a special cabinet meeting to ratify the deal: “The State of Israel won today – in terms of security, economy, diplomacy and energy.
The leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, said on Thursday that his group was standing on the gas issue. Now that the maritime deal has been completed, he said in a televised address, “the task of the resistance is completed and all the special measures taken by Hezbollah have ended. ” A Hezbollah spokesman said that meant its forces, which had been temporarily put on full alert, were no longer preparing for an impending war.
The agreement, brokered by a US envoy, Amos Hochstein, establishes a maritime boundary between the two countries’ territorial waters and delimits their exclusive economic zone in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. The agreement allocates production rights to Lebanon at a disputed gas field, Qana, located between the two economic zones and confirms Israeli control of the Karish field on the Israeli side to the south.
Israel has maintained control of its existing security line that stretches three nautical miles off its coast and has compromised in accepting Lebanon’s position regarding a stretch of more than nine nautical miles out to sea.
U.S. Secretary of State Anthony J. Blinken praised the agreement in a statement, saying it “meaningfully represents the United States’ vision for a safer, more integrated, and prosperous Middle East.” Lower-level delegations of the two sides submitted the agreement hours after it was signed at the headquarters of the United Nations peacekeeping force in Naqoura, on the Lebanese side of the border.
Supporters of the deal say it removes the threat of immediate conflict with Hezbollah over gas reserves and potentially reduces Lebanon’s dependence on Iranian oil.
Mr. Lapid announced on Thursday that gas production had begun a day earlier from the Karish platform and that Israel would receive 17% of future profits from Lebanon’s Qana field. Royalties will be paid by the French company looking there.
The agreement was signed just days before new Israeli elections – which take place on November 1 and the country’s fifth in less than four years – and the debate in Israel over the deal has been highly politicized. degree, with opponents of Mr. Lapid’s transitional government questioning motives and timing.
Benjamin Netanyahu – Israel’s former prime minister and longest serving in office – is fighting Mr Lapid in a resolute bid to return to office. He vehemently rejected the deal, calling it “a historic surrender” to Hezbollah. He initially threatened not to honor the deal if he returned to power.
Mr. Netanyahu declared: “Lebanon gets 100%, Israel gets 0”, asserting that Mr. Lapid has given in to demands he has long refused.
However, Mr. Netanyahu has played down his criticism somewhat, as opinion polls show many Israelis in favor of the deal.
Independent Israeli experts have generally described the deal as a support for Lebanon’s position – but one that also comes with advantages.
Sarit Zehavi, a former officer in the military intelligence corps, said: “The deal is a concession if you look at it from the Israeli point of view, and describes it as giving a ‘victory’ moral and spiritual aspects” for Hezbollah.
But it does give Israel time, she said, adding, “I’m not sure this deal will prevent war, but I’m pretty sure it will help delay the next conflict.”
Yaakov Amidror, Israel’s former general and national security adviser under Mr Netanyahu, said there was “no question that Israel had surrendered” about where the line should be. But at least in the short term, he said, “Israel gets the tranquility it needs to extract gas from Karish.”
The main conflict between Israel and Hezbollah has never been about gas, but about Hezbollah’s ideology, weapons building, and pro-Iran agenda, Mr. Amidror noted.
Hezbollah was born after Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982, followed by Israel’s 18-year occupation of parts of southern Lebanon. This group is currently considered the most powerful military force in Lebanon.
While the maritime gas deal could be good for Israel economically, it could be a bad deal strategically, said Amidror, now a fellow at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security and the Institute of Israel. Thai is based in Washington for the National Security of America.
The question, he said, is how Mr. Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, read the situation.
Mr. Amidror said that if Mr. Nasrallah reneged on the deal to which the Israelis had made threats and were unwilling to confront Hezbollah, “it could even speed up the timetable for the next conflict.”
Hwaida Saad contributed reporting from Beirut, Lebanon, and Edward Wong from Washington.
