In less than 24 hours, the US administration presented two different accounts about the same event.
US President Donald Trump went out to the world through his account on the “Truth Social” platform, announcing that he had made contact with Hezbollah “through high-level representatives.” He even went further when he confirmed that the party had agreed to a ceasefire and that Israel had agreed in return not to attack it.
But the American ambassador to Beirut, Michel Issa, presented a different narrative after the end of the Lebanese-Israeli negotiation session in Washington, when he said, “President Trump did not communicate with Hezbollah, but rather with the Lebanese ambassador to Washington, Nada Moawad.”
Here the question becomes legitimate: If Trump spoke about “high-level representatives” of Hezbollah, while his ambassador confirms that communication took place with the Lebanese ambassador, then who was the party that the American president was referring to in his post?
The irony does not stop there. The American President spoke about an understanding reached with Hezbollah through its representatives, while his ambassador came to present a different story, without any clarification or explanation for this discrepancy.
In politics, many details can be hidden, and intermediaries and back channels can be used, but when two different narratives are issued by the same administration within a few hours, public opinion has the right to ask: Which of the two narratives is more accurate?
Did Trump exaggerate in his description of what happened to show himself as an appeaser? Or did the American ambassador later provide a more accurate account of what happened? Or does Washington not want to reveal the nature of the channels it used to communicate with the Lebanese parties?
So far there is no official answer from the White House.
But what is clear is that the statements of the US President and his ambassador opened a wide door to questions about the diplomatic scenes that preceded the announcement of the truce, and about the party that conveyed the messages between Washington and the Lebanese parties in those sensitive hours.
In a region where wars and settlements are built as much on words as on missiles, the contradiction sometimes becomes bigger news than the event itself.
