When Refusing to Negotiate Becomes Ignorance or Betrayal

At this hour in Lebanon's life, the debate is no longer about technical matters — will negotiations with Israel be direct or indirect? Will they precede a ceasefire or follow one? These are secondary questions beside the real one, which imposes itself with irresistible force: why negotiate at all, and what does it mean for a state to refuse to do so?

In its most elementary definition, negotiation in international relations is neither a sign of weakness nor a surrender. It is the natural instrument states use to manage conflicts when the cost of war exceeds their capacity to bear it. This is how rational states operate. Wars themselves always end in negotiation — after the bloodshed, after the destruction, after the warring parties discover that force alone neither solves problems nor produces lasting stability.

This is why states that have waged devastating wars have nonetheless negotiated. The United States negotiated with Vietnam after a long conflict; Egypt negotiated with Israel after two major wars; European powers, after centuries of confrontation, eventually built a new political order across their continent. Negotiation is not an exception in political history — it is the rule.

This is precisely why the refusal to negotiate, in a devastated country where hundreds of thousands of citizens have been displaced, constitutes a morally unacceptable and scarcely explicable position. In such moments, refusing to negotiate is not a heroic stance — it is one of the following: ignorance of the nature of international relations, evasion of responsibility, contempt for human lives and for the country's fate — or else, the one blocking negotiations is unable to consent to them without the approval of his guardian authority, Iran, and it is he who embodies the true Vichy government, not the Lebanese government, thus turning against himself the very accusation that Mahmoud Qomati — a member of parliament, incidentally — had levelled against the state.

Lebanon is living today through one of its most perilous hours since the end of the civil war. More than eight hundred thousand Lebanese have fled their homes in the South and in other regions, and nothing indicates clearly whether — or when — they will be able to return. Entire villages have become ghost towns. An economy that was barely breathing before the war now stands at the edge of total collapse. And yet, the debate in the country continues as though the matter were merely a theoretical disagreement about the form of negotiations.

But the truth — simple, bitter, unflinching — is this: this war was not decided by the Lebanese Republic. It was not declared by the Council of Ministers, ratified by parliament, or demanded by the people. The one who chose to open this front is Hezbollah — a military force that has for years operated outside the state, dominating it from within, strategically bound to Iran and absorbed into its regional conflicts.

This is where the fundamental knot lies. For the Party, the war is not a war against Israel nor a defence of Lebanon — it is a fragment of Iran's regional battle. This is why its leaders call it an "existential battle." But in reality, it is existential for the Party itself and for its regional role, not for the Lebanese people nor for the Lebanese state, which pays the price in destruction, displacement, and economic collapse.

Faced with this logic, Israel approaches the war from a radically different perspective. For Israel, what is unfolding is perhaps an opportunity that may not come again — the chance to liquidate the military threat Hezbollah represents on its northern border. It is therefore unrealistic to believe that Israel will easily halt its operations, or that it will settle for a temporary ceasefire that restores the previous situation. Israeli military and political logic holds that this may be the last opportunity to alter the equation in Lebanon.

Between these two logics, Lebanon — the state — finds itself in a condition of near-helplessness. A state that did not decide the war but pays its price. A state asked to negotiate when the decision to fight does not belong to it.

This is why the head of state advances the idea of negotiation. Not because negotiation is a comfortable choice, nor because the circumstances are ideal, but because the continuation of the war means simply pushing Lebanon toward total ruin. To negotiate, in this context, is not a political luxury — it is a national necessity to protect what remains of society and of the state.

But the problem does not lie in the principle of negotiation itself — it lies in the political context that surrounds it. In a country where the state holds neither the monopoly on arms nor that on military decision-making, negotiation becomes a near-impossible task. How can a state negotiate an end to a war when an internal party continues waging it, retains the capacity to reignite it at will, and does so according to regional calculations bearing no relation to the direct Lebanese interest?

This is precisely where the gravest danger emerges. Lebanon could find itself in the worst of possible scenarios: a protracted war it cannot resolve, and a humiliating settlement imposed from outside after far greater destruction. This is not a theoretical hypothesis. Lebanon's contemporary history is marked by situations that were endured, accepted when it proved unable to decide for itself.

The real debate Lebanese people must engage in today is not about the form of negotiations, but about the state's recovery of its decision-making power over war and peace. A state that does not hold this power cannot protect its people, nor even negotiate on their behalf.

In the end, no state in the world can live indefinitely under conditions of open-ended war, and no society can endure the displacement of hundreds of thousands of its people without any horizon of return. This is why negotiating is not a moral or ideological choice — it is a political and ethical duty toward citizens.

As for transforming the refusal to negotiate into a heroic banner, while the people pay the price of war with their lives, their homes, their livelihoods, and the future of their children — that is not heroism. It is, at best, a dangerous political illusion; at worst, a contempt for the fate of an entire country and a betrayal of those who had placed their trust in them for protection.

The question that will determine Lebanon's future is no longer: do we negotiate or not?

The real question has become simpler, and more urgent:

What is Lebanon's fate?