Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam warned, on Wednesday, of the “consequences” of dragging Lebanon into a new war, in a position directed at Hezbollah, which plunged the country into the war months ago after US-Israeli strikes on its supporter, Iran.
According to Agence France-Presse, Salam said in a statement after his meeting with President Joseph Aoun at the presidential palace: “In the face of the dangers of renewed war in the region, I repeat the warning against the consequences of dragging Lebanon into any new absurd adventure in the service of foreign interests and throwing it into confrontations whose consequences it does not have the luxury to bear.”
He stressed that “protecting Lebanon is a national responsibility that requires giving priority to its highest interest over any other account, and a commitment to making the decision on war and peace be exclusively in the hands of the state and its constitutional institutions,” adding: “We will not accept that a fate be imposed on the Lebanese people that they did not choose, or that their homeland be once again turned into an arena for the conflicts of others.”
Diplomatic efforts have been made in recent days to prevent renewed war in the Middle East, after the United States threatened to launch new large-scale strikes on Iran, despite US President Donald Trump indicating progress in negotiations with Tehran to end the war that has been ongoing for eight months.
On March 2, the war in the Middle East expanded to Lebanon after Hezbollah launched missiles at Israel, in response to the killing of Iranian guide Ali Khamenei on the first day of the US-Israeli raids on Iran.
Israeli raids and ground incursions resulted in the deaths of more than 4,300 people, according to Lebanese authorities.
The pace of violence in southern Lebanon has decreased since June after the United States and Iran concluded a memorandum of understanding, then Lebanon and Israel signed, under American sponsorship, a framework agreement that included the disarmament of Hezbollah and a gradual withdrawal of the Israeli army from the areas it occupied during the recent war in southern Lebanon.
There are still hundreds of thousands of Lebanese displaced from the south of the country, as the Israeli army occupies an area up to ten kilometers deep from the border, carries out bombings and bulldozing operations, and prevents its residents from returning to it.
The leaders of the “Change Bloc” in Israel agreed to assign the leader of the Yashar Party, Gadi Eisenkot, to form a “Zionist emergency” government, as an alternative to the government of Benjamin Netanyahu, but they did not agree on a clear way to achieve this, and while the dispute over cooperation with the Arab parties remained stagnant after most party leaders rejected this path, it appears that there is an attempt to win over the Haredi parties, who are the available and possible alternative to the Arab parties.
The Change Bloc, which won 48 seats in the Knesset, needs to reach 61 votes (i.e. 13 additional votes) to form the government, and the Arab parties have 19 votes. While the Haredim won 13 seats.
The five leaders of the Change Bloc, leader of the Yashar Party, Gadi Eisenkot, head of the Together Party, Naftali Bennett, leader of the Yisrael Beytenu Party, Avigdor Lieberman, leader of the Democratic Party, Yair Golan, and the number two in the Together Party, Yair Lapid, met in a hotel in Herzliya, a suburb of Tel Aviv, on Tuesday, a day before the start of consultations in the office of Israeli President Isaac Herzog, on forming the government, and they announced They supported Eisenkot’s appointment, and they agreed on one clear issue, which is “changing the October 7th government.”
Lapid said at the beginning of the meeting: “We will remove (Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu from the office.” At the conclusion of the meeting, Bennett said: “We do not have time. We will get the assignment first and we will work to form a Zionist correction government.”
Only an hour after the meeting, the party leaders issued a statement saying that they agreed “on the necessity of forming a Zionist government as soon as possible,” and declared “their full commitment to changing the current government (the October 7 government) with a national emergency government.”
The statement added: “According to the agreement of the party leaders, all parties will recommend granting Gadi Eisenkot the first mandate to form the government, with the aim of forming it as quickly as possible and preventing Israel from being dragged into additional elections.”
The agreement to authorize Eisenkot to form the government, and to work to obtain a presidential mandate for him to do so, came without the leaders of the Change Bloc providing any indication of how they would form the government without seeking the help of the Arab parties.
The Israeli elections did not result in a decisive victory (60 seats + one) for any of the main contenders. Netanyahu and Eisenkot. In the final tally of vote counting, Netanyahu’s camp topped the results by winning 53 seats, compared to 48 seats for Eisenkot’s bloc, while the Arab parties won 19 seats in a surprise described as “historic.”
Constant disagreements
Israeli media said that the leaders of the Change Bloc agreed on forming the government, but they differed on its form. Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper reported that after the meeting, which lasted an hour and 10 minutes, the party leaders agreed to remove Netanyahu from the office and oust Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana, but they did not agree on the mechanism for removing Netanyahu, nor on the identity of the Knesset Speaker. Maariv newspaper said that cooperation with Arab parties and the identity of the Knesset speaker are at the center of the dispute. Golan supports the alliance with the Arabs, but his efforts were rejected during the meeting.
According to Yedioth sources, Golan raised the issue of Arab parties, and asked whether the decision not to cooperate with them was final. Lieberman replied that the decision was final, and both Eisenkot and Bennett nodded in agreement with Lieberman's words.
Golan met in the morning, that is, before the leaders of the Change Bloc met with the leaders of the Arab parties, and discussed with Youssef Jabareen and Ahmed Tibi “the necessary steps to replace Netanyahu’s government and form a government of change.”
The Times of Israel newspaper said that party leaders did not provide any indication of how they would form the government without the Arab parties, which most Jewish opposition parties excluded as coalition partners.
But according to Yedioth and Maariv, Lieberman is pushing for a government that includes the Haredim, and said that it is possible to form an effective and stable government quickly without the need for Arab parties. A government with the Haredim would mean a government with a clear majority, not a minority government supported by Arabs in which they do not participate.
Yedioth confirmed that Eisenkot decided to focus, among other things, on the Haredi parties, but he did not publicly announce that he ruled out relying on Arab parties.
As for Bennett, he, like Lieberman, believes that it is impossible to rely on the votes of the Arab parties, and if Eisenkot goes in this direction, in his opinion, the government will not last, and Netanyahu will come back stronger in the long term in the context of repeated elections.
Control of the Knesset
The disagreement is not limited to the issue of the form of government, but also includes the issue of appointing the Speaker of the Knesset. Lieberman and Bennett want to give the position to opposition leader Lapid, while Eisenkot prefers that he or someone from his party take the position.
According to one of the attendees, the proposal to appoint Lapid as speaker of the Knesset was raised during the meeting, but Eisenkot asked to postpone the decision. Senior sources in the Change Bloc reported that what is immediately on the agenda is “taking control of the Knesset,” that is, replacing its speaker, Amir Ohana, forming an organizational committee, and abolishing the controversial legislation that the coalition led during the previous session. In addition, there are gaps regarding legislation that should be promoted during the transitional period.
The agreement to support Eisenkot to head a government came hours after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced, on Monday evening, his willingness to discuss the possibility of forming a broad unity government headed by him, which does not depend on Arab parties. But the Israeli broadcaster Kan said that Eisenkot would not join a unity government.
Kan confirmed that Eisenkot said in closed talks that he would not join a government headed by Netanyahu even if US President Donald Trump intervened. He added: “If Trump invites me, I will respect the president and attend, but I will stress that the matter is related to Israeli internal affairs, and I will prevent any interference.”
