Hanin Ghaddar, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute and an expert on Shi’ite politics in the Levant, suggests that a new agreement between the two countries could involve modifying the previous deal to include stronger assurances from Lebanon.
But Ghaddar says that Hezbollah will never agree to disarm, as the group itself has pledged in the past. That, she explains, is ”something that is linked to their ideology, their existence.”
“The question is not with Hezbollah, the question is with the [Lebanese] army,” Ghaddar tells TIME, noting that the army will have to confront Hezbollah head-on if Israel’s top condition is to be met.
“Israel’s at war with Hezbollah, and is negotiating with Lebanon. And there’s a problem there,” says Daniel Byman, who served as a senior advisor to the State Department and is director of the Warfare, Irregular Threats, and Terrorism Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
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