“Lebanon Debate”
The Lebanese-Israeli negotiations are progressing, amid clear indications that they are moving from the protocol stage to the stage of serious consideration of the basic files, in anticipation of an expected negotiating session at the US State Department on the 14th and 15th of this month, with the level of Lebanese representation being raised with the participation of Ambassador Simon Karam, after representation in the previous stages was limited to the ambassadors of the two countries within a preliminary and introductory framework.
This development places Lebanon on a very sensitive political and diplomatic path, especially with the intense American movement in Beirut, which was accompanied by the visit of the American ambassador and his meeting with Representative Ibrahim Kanaan at his home, at a time that coincides with the escalation of talk about redrawing negotiation maps in the region, from Gaza to Iran to Lebanon.
In a call with “Lebanon Debate,” Kanaan issued a decisive stance when he stressed that “the negotiating track in Washington will not stop and replacing it with another track is absolutely out of the question,” stressing that “the Lebanese state is the only legitimate party internationally to speak on behalf of Lebanon, and this reality will not change.”
Behind these words lies a political message that goes beyond the technical dimension of the negotiations. According to the political reading of Kanaan’s position, there is a real fear that any broader American involvement in negotiating with Iran will lead to the inclusion of the Lebanese file within a major regional negotiating basket, which may open the door to approaches that bypass the Lebanese state or marginalize its role in the interest of broader international and regional understandings.
Hence, his emphasis on the exclusivity of Lebanese representation in the state and the President of the Republic, in an attempt to block any parallel path or any attempt to extract the Lebanese decision-making power from its legitimate constitutional institutions. Fears, according to this logic, are not only related to the path of negotiation with Israel, but also to who holds the negotiating card and who will decide the future of security and political arrangements in the south and the region.
In his approach to the next stage, Kanaan considered that “the preparations taking place today in Washington must lead the Lebanese to establish a complete ceasefire, agree on Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon, and guarantee the borders on both sides, which means confining weapons to the state.”
Kanaan also linked this path to the expected visit of President Joseph Aoun to Washington, considering that “President Aoun’s visit and his meeting with US President Donald Trump as a first stop will give a strong impetus to achieving the Lebanese goals and reaching a lasting and just peace, fortified on the Lebanese, Arab and international levels.”
In conclusion, Kanaan’s positions appear to be a pre-emptive attempt to establish the official Lebanese authority before the negotiations enter a more sensitive and complex phase. Between the talk about direct negotiations, and the possible American connection between the region’s files, a fundamental question arises: Will Lebanon and its president succeed in maintaining its negotiating decision within its legitimate institutions, or will regional developments gradually push it to a table where major settlements are drawn up away from Beirut?
