Lebanon’s Foreign Affairs Minister Discusses Clashes in the Middle East

Amidst covert operations targeting members of Hezbollah and escalating airstrikes between the terror group and Israel throughout the past week, SIPA’s Institute of Global Politics (IGP) and the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies (SIWPS) co-hosted a conversation with Lebanon’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and Emigrants, Abdallah Bou Habib. The September 23 discussion, moderated by Page Fortna, Director of the Saltzman Institute and the Harold Brown Professor of US Foreign and Security Policy, covered domestic politics in Lebanon and Israel, the war in Gaza and potential of its expansion into neighboring countries like Lebanon, and how the international community can reduce violence and resolve the conflict.

“It’s very difficult to talk about the present if you do not go into the past,” Dr. Bou Habib told the audience of mostly students. He explained that in Lebanon, Hezbollah is a recognized political party which also has a resistance wing that is “responding to Israeli occupation.”

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He described negotiations between Israel and Lebanon that had settled a number of unresolved border disputes between the two countries from Israel’s 1978 invasion but had recently stalled. Dr. Bou Habib believes that peace would be precipitated by the settlement of the two countries’ border dispute. “We’ve tried many times in the past to resolve this border and make it like the one Israel has with Jordan and Egypt, but we haven’t been successful,” he said. Israel’s relationships with Egypt and Jordan may not be warm, “but the borders are peaceful.” While he was critical of Hezbollah for many things, he argued that the current level of violence between the two sides is the result of Israeli escalation.

He decried the killing of innocent Lebanese civilians after last week’s coordinated explosions of pagers and walkie-talkies belonging to Hezbollah fighters. The only country that can deescalate the situation between Israel and Hezbollah, he added, is the United States, citing the ability of past leaders like Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and President George H.W. Bush to nudge Israeli politicians toward regional diplomatic engagement.

To achieve peace, Dr. Bou Habib believes parties must be willing to negotiate with anyone, including the leaders of Hezbollah and Hamas. “Yasser Arafat was at one time a terrorist, but when there was a possibility for peace, he was at the White House more than once. He was accepted all over Europe,” he said. “We should not be scared of negotiating with who we now consider to be terrorists if there’s a possibility of peace.”

When asked by a student whether the Lebanese government has the resources it needs to protect displaced civilians, Dr. Bou Habib answered, “It’s a big mess, but the government was prepared for it. We were able to help a lot of people coming from the south.”

Another student asked whether the prospect for peace between Lebanon and Israel would be greater if it were not for the presence of Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. “If it was not Hezbollah, it would be some other group,” Dr. Bou Habib responded. “It’s not Hezbollah that created the situation, it’s the occupation that created the resistance.”