The impasse in Lebanon is about Hezbollah’s weapons, and for that there is no military solution, either by Israel or through the Lebanese Armed Forces. External support and external factors will always be important, but it is ultimately an internal matter among the Lebanese. The definitive test of the Lebanese political system is whether it can resolve this politically. The challenge is whether Hezbollah can to be convinced to give up its arms and connections with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and voluntarily join the Taif agreement that ended the civil war in 1989. Otherwise, the peace talks with Israel will go nowhere and the scenarios for everyone in the region are too horrible to imagine.

The Lebanese political system has always been based on such compromises between politicians and communities. The consensus has been building up over the last 100 years since the creation of the state in 1920 and its first constitution in 1926. After every crisis came new agreements and the consensus has been growing stronger. This time, including Hezbollah and its supporters in that consensus seems impossible, but this is also a country that believes in miracles.

The consensus is built on the National Pact of 1943, with Christians promising to stop asking for Western intervention and Muslims, mainly Sunnis, promising to recognize Lebanon as separate from the Arab world and give up wanting to join with Syria. Both sides gave up what they cherished most as a sacrifice to build a unified nation. This is what the Lebanese journalist George Naccache criticized as “two negations that do not make a nation.” For Naccache, founder of the French-language newspaper l’Orient and one of the organizers of the Kataeb party, this meant that the Lebanese knew what they did not want, but did not know what they wanted in common as a nation.

I believe Naccache was wrong in his criticism of the National Pact. Negations secure boundaries, addressing the concerns of the other partner, and allowing more freedom to believe what you want to believe. What we need now is a third negation with Hezbollah’s constituency joining in.

The principle of the 1943 pact survived even if both sides broke the promise several times. It took about 50 years for the National Pact to become a reality in the late 1980s with the Taif agreement and former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. One can safely say today that the two negations of the National Pact worked and resolved the main identity issues of the civil war between Christians and Muslims. The Taif agreement also called for dissolving all militias, but an exception was made for Hezbollah because it was considered a resistance that was necessary as long as there was an Israeli occupation. What is required now is a third negation with, broadly speaking, the Shiites giving up on Hezbollah and Iran. 

The task is not easy and has several dimensions: it is to wean the Shiites of Lebanon off Hezbollah and wean the organization off its relations with Iran’s IRGC and its status as a resistance group. It has been done before, to put it crudely, with the Sunnis and the PLO, but the country was destroyed first before people came to their senses.

Hezbollah defines itself as a resistance to Israeli occupation. This is why it is so opposed to Lebanese-Israeli peace talks. Resistance is addicted to occupation; without it, a resistance is nothing. To maintain its status as a resistance, Hezbollah needs an Israeli occupation or at least a credible threat of it. Even the Taif agreement acknowledged that. This is now easy with the current Israeli government. Pronouncements by Israeli ministers such as Bezalel Smotrich or Itamar Ben-Gvir vindicate Hezbollah’s narrative and confirm its necessity. There is little chance that the Israeli elections will change this.

Various attempts at agreements with Hezbollah have generally failed.

The first is an agreement with the Free Patriotic Movement of Michel Aoun in February 2006, known as the Mar Mikhail document. This was an agreement with one party and underlying it was also an electoral pact whereby the Free Patriotic Movement would get the Shiite votes. The 10 points included respect for the sovereignty and independence of Lebanon, and that Hezbollah would give up its arms when the Israeli threat went away and occupied land was liberated.

Just over six months later Hezbollah launched an attack on Israel, triggering what became known as the July war or summer war. The conflict ended with UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which called for no arms south of the Litani River and an expanded UN peacekeeping force. We now know that this was also never implemented.

Then came the Baabda Declaration in June 2012, resulting from a committee for national dialogue under President Michel Suleiman. This was, on the face of it, an agreement between all political parties in the country, but in reality it was a negotiation with Hezbollah. The main point was a call for neutrality toward the events in the Syria that had started the year before. This was again buried amid the usual jargon about national unity, coexistence, the application of the Taif agreement, of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, and of maintaining civil peace and avoiding belligerent language.

The neutrality did not last long. Hezbollah soon found an excuse to intervene militarily in Syria.

There were also informal track II-type meetings. Mohamad Chatah, former ambassador to Washington and minister of finance, was engaged in talks with Hezbollah following the Baabda Declaration. His proposal was also to isolate the points of disagreement over regional matters and allow the Lebanese state to function. He was assassinated when his car was blown up on Dec. 27, 2013. At the same time, Hezbollah’s role in the Syrian conflict and its threats of war with Israel intensified.

The mechanism to reach a third negation does not involve Hezbollah alone, even though it is the main player. The Shiite community has traditionally been the most diverse politically. In parallel with any talks with Hezbollah, there is an internal negotiation process involving the principal stakeholders in the community. Their homes and villages have been destroyed, and their young men sacrificed when Hezbollah triggered conflicts with Israel, or took part in useless wars to help the Assad regime in Syria, for example.

We have more questions than answers. Whether in meetings and conferences, or in the media and especially social media, the country is in continuous debate over Hezbollah’s weapons. This is more effective than formal dialogue between politicians. There are too many unknowns, but what we do know is that the transformation is bound to happen.