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The break seems complete, at least at the current stage, between President of the Republic Joseph Aoun and Hezbollah. In response to the smear campaign waged against him by pro-Iranian party circles, who practically treat him as a “traitor” due to the direct negotiations initiated with Israel, the Head of State responded directly to his detractors on Monday, in front of a delegation from Arkoub and Hasbaya. He thus stated, quite aptly and with complete frankness, in a clear allusion to Hezbollah, that “true treason is that of which those who drag the country into war to serve foreign interests are guilty.” This is the first time in many years that a President of the Republic has so frankly attacked Hezbollah's course of action. The tension between the authorities and the pro-Iranian party openly emerged when the Executive explicitly asked Hezbollah not to engage in a possible war that would be launched against Iran, affirming that the government would react very firmly if the pro-Iranian faction embarked on this path. Hezbollah ignored the government's warning, and at dawn on March 2, 48 hours after the launch of the American-Israeli attack against the mullah regime on February 28, it took the initiative to open the Southern Lebanon front by launching six rockets at northern Israel, in all likelihood at the instigation of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. The day after the outbreak of hostilities by the Shiite party, the Council of Ministers made the decision to consider Hezbollah's militia-security apparatus illegal. Since then, tension has steadily grown between the government and the ally of the Pasdaran, particularly after President Aoun's decision to engage in direct negotiations with Israel, under the aegis of the United States. These direct talks were strongly condemned by Hezbollah, and just this Monday, April 27, the secretary-general of the pro-Iranian party, Sheikh Naim Qassem, asked the government to halt direct negotiations with the Jewish state. He took the opportunity to reiterate his refusal to hand over his party's weapons to the state, reaffirming that “the resistance continues.” On social networks, Hezbollah supporters practically unleashed themselves against President Aoun, even uttering threats against him and accusing him of colluding with Israel due to the direct negotiations with Israel. It is in this tense context that the Israeli air force continued its bombings against Hezbollah's infrastructure and positions in Southern Lebanon on Monday. In this regard, the pan-Arab channel El-Hadath reported on Monday that the Shiite party asked the residents of the Nabatiyeh region to leave their homes because it intends to turn this area into a battlefield against Israel. The standoff with Iran On the front of the conflict in Iran, Iranian diplomatic chief Abbas Araghchi traveled to Moscow for consultations with Russian leaders. However, these diplomatic negotiations are not reflected in an easing of tensions in the direct US-Iranian talks, which appeared to be at a complete standstill on Monday due to the fact that the Iranian side (guided by the Pasdaran) is imposing new conditions on the dialogue. These notably include the payment of financial compensation at the end of the war, the recognition of Iran's right to enrich uranium, the lifting of the maritime blockade imposed by the United States, and the postponement of any discussion on the nuclear program to a later stage. Conditions that in all likelihood reflect the radical position of the Pasdaran, who have reportedly succeeded in taking control of the decision-making center in Tehran. This hardline position is openly denounced by European countries. President Emmanuel Macron thus invited the Iranian regime to make concessions, while the Quai d'Orsay emphasized that Iran has “crossed all red lines” in the current conflict. At the same time, a British Minister of State stressed on Monday that maritime traffic in the Strait of Hormuz must be conducted “without hindrance and without the imposition of a toll,” as demanded by the Iranian regime, in violation of international Conventions which stipulate that the Strait of Hormuz cannot be subject to a toll due to the fact that it is a natural passageway, not a man-made work, and therefore must be open to all ships, unhindered. It should be noted in this context that Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated on Monday evening that Iran wants to negotiate in order to “get out of the chaos into which it is plunged.”

Lebanese people often repeat a formula that has become almost axiomatic in describing their crisis: Lebanon is trapped between an "extremist" triad, doctrinal and religious in nature, embodied by Israel, Iran and the United States of America. This expression condenses a profound sense of siege and pressure, and reflects a popular awareness that the country's fate is no longer shaped from within alone. Yet the strength of this narrative lies in its simplicity, while its weakness lies in the risk of concealing the complexity of reality and the multiplicity of its layers. In practice, these three powers cannot be placed in the same category under the heading of "religious extremism" without falling into oversimplification. Religion does play a varying role in the policies of these actors, but it is neither the sole factor nor, in some cases, even the primary one. The more appropriate approach is to understand each party within its own structure, and then to read how these structures intersect on the Lebanese scene. In the case of Israel, the religious dimension manifests clearly in the rise of religious nationalist currents that lend the conflict a doctrinal character, particularly in matters of land and identity. Yet despite this presence, the Israeli establishment remains in its essence governed by a rigorous security doctrine. Lebanon, in this vision, is not a religious arena so much as a potential source of threat, especially given Hezbollah's existence as a military force operating outside state authority. Israel's conduct toward Lebanon is therefore better understood from the angle of deterrence and risk management than from that of a strictly religious project. Iran, for its part, presents a different model, one in which the religious and the political are structurally intertwined. The regime rests on the authority of the wilayat al-faqih , which makes religious ideology an integral component of decision-making. In this context, support for Hezbollah becomes an extension of a broader vision holding that the conflict in the region is not a mere rivalry between states, but a confrontation with doctrinal and political dimensions. To confine the Iranian role to this framework alone, however, would be to overlook an essential dimension: Tehran also operates according to a logic of interests, using this ideology as a tool for consolidating its regional influence. The United States, by contrast, appears relatively removed from this religious classification. It is a state founded on a secular system that does not invoke religion as an official reference point for its foreign policy. This does not mean religious influence is entirely absent; certain currents, such as evangelical conservatives, do play a role in shaping particular positions, especially regarding Israel. But the fundamental determinant of American policy remains pragmatism: protection of interests, ensuring the stability of allies, and balancing the influence of adversaries, chief among them Iran. It thus becomes clear that "religious extremism" is not an equal common denominator among these powers, but rather an element present to varying degrees, sometimes deployed as a tool of mobilisation or justification. The more accurate formulation would be that Lebanon stands at the intersection of three major projects: a security project led by Israel, an ideological project led by Iran, and a project of global influence led by the United States. These projects do not operate in isolation from one another; they intersect and collide, leaving the Lebanese scene exposed to constant tensions. Focusing on these external projects, important as it is, remains incomplete without pausing to consider the internal factor. Lebanon did not become an open arena solely because of the strength of external actors, but also because of the weakness within. The Lebanese state has suffered for decades from a structural crisis manifested in the absence of a monopoly on arms, the fragmentation of political decision-making, and the persistence of a confessional system that deepens divisions rather than addressing them. The confessional communities have often become channels of connection to the outside, to the point where each regional axis now has its extensions within Lebanon. This reality was not imposed entirely from without; internal forces contributed to it, seeing in alliance with these powers a means of strengthening their position domestically. In this way, the local and the regional became intertwined, and the state lost its capacity to act as arbiter among its own constituents. Within this framework, the formula "Lebanon is trapped between an extremist triad" becomes an expression of a consequence rather than an explanation of a cause. It describes a state of siege, but does not explain why Lebanon became susceptible to that siege in the first place. The deeper reason lies in the absence of a unifying national project capable of redefining the relationship between the state and its citizens, and between Lebanon and its surrounding environment. The way out of this reality passes not only through a change in the behaviour of external powers (which lies beyond Lebanon's capacity), but begins with rebuilding from within. This requires fundamental steps: re-establishing the concept of sovereignty by confining arms to the hands of the state, so as to reunify the security decision; reforming the political system toward reducing confessionalism and strengthening citizenship, thereby reducing susceptibility to external polarisation; building strong and transparent institutions that restore citizens' confidence and limit dependence on traditional networks of loyalty; adopting a balanced foreign policy that seeks to reduce engagement in axis conflicts rather than aligning fully with any one of them. In the end, Lebanon cannot insulate itself from its regional and international environment, but it can limit that environment's hold over it. The difference between "arena" and "state" does not lie in geographic position, but in the capacity to manage that position. And when Lebanon comes to possess that capacity, the simplistic narratives, including the narrative of the "extremist triad", will lose much of their force, because they will no longer reflect an imposed reality, but a stage that has been left behind.

President Donald Trump's various statements and U-turns will alter relations with the Europeans, NATO, and US allies. They will trigger reactions from Pacific and Middle Eastern countries. Westerners are advocating moderation and want to assume a role in securing the Strait of Hormuz after the cessation of hostilities. Will the United States be sidelined in the region? On February 28, 2026, the United States and Israel launched a military operation against Iran without prior notification to the heads of state and government of Western countries and NATO members. In the aftermath, however, US President Donald Trump requested their support, notably for securing the Strait of Hormuz, but also to provide direct backing to American operations. However, the vast majority of heads of state and government rejected this request. President Trump's reaction was clear, although incoherent at times. Denouncing a "gross mistake" and "cowardice," he asserted that he did not need them and would act alone, being "the strongest in the world." He even mentioned a possible disengagement from NATO, thus brandishing the threat of relieving himself of his membership duties, as stipulated in Article 5 of the organization's treaty. He also mentioned the possibility of partially withdrawing American troops stationed in Europe. For him, deprived of the United States, it would be a "paper tiger." To properly frame the meaning of his statements, he said he blamed the allies for not supporting the United States in times of crisis and for taking advantage of a one-way alliance. Consequently, why should he automatically guarantee their defense? All these criticisms did not prevent him later from requesting the participation of Europeans in the naval blockade he imposed on Iranian ports. After expressing their refusal, successively, some countries banned their airspace to American aircraft participating in military operations against Iran. A defensive and non-aggressive action In his statements, President Trump therefore lacks consistency. A need for support, or even active participation, is followed by a contemptuous lack of interest and the assertion that the United States is capable of winning this war alone. The concept of war is thus the subject of debate. According to Donald Trump, NATO members should respect their obligations in accordance with the founding treaty. Except that he himself started this war, incited by Israel, which thus becomes a co-belligerent. He is therefore the aggressor. However, the transatlantic organization is "defensive." In this specific case, Article 5 therefore does not apply. The text in question stipulates that an armed attack against one or more members in Europe or North America is considered an aggression against all, which justifies military intervention or collective defensive action. And if NATO has ever intervened, it was only on the basis of a UN mandate. The President of the United States actually expected active support from his allies, without however placing it within the formal framework of the transatlantic Alliance. However, this situation has had the effect of raising a doubt about the reliability of the declared and formalized American guarantees, where the United States plays a protective role. NATO countries and Europeans are not the only ones expressing these doubts. Other Pacific countries, primarily Japan, Australia, and South Korea, can now only doubt the assured American support in the event of a Chinese intervention. To these countries are added Taiwan, Indonesia, the Philippines, and the coastal states of the Arab-Persian Gulf, notably Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and the Sultanate of Oman. When a head of state, "primus inter pares" within NATO, triggers a conflict that could lead to a world war, he cannot ask the members of the concerned organization to support him and actively participate, blindly, in military operations. From all this, it becomes clear that the members of the Alliance, despite the lack of unanimity and some disagreements, are rallying around a single position adhered to by several Pacific countries. The project of ensuring the security of the Strait of Hormuz after the cessation of hostilities thus brings together many of them. Throughout the world, including in the Near and Middle East, and therefore in Lebanon, the restraint of Russia and China is appreciated. However, it would be naive to believe that they are not acting behind the scenes according to their own interests. But their position, similar to that of the Europeans and the allies of the United States, marked by non-participation in military operations, distances the risk of a drift towards a global-scale confrontation. The general line adopted by European governments, NATO countries, and the main concerned Pacific countries is to be approved, certainly, without forgetting nevertheless their principled commitment to securing the Strait of Hormuz. This should, however, be extended to the Arabian Sea and the Arab-Persian Gulf, and then to the Red Sea. Should this happen, there would be reason to commend their wisdom. One question remains: Is it illusory, or even utopian, to think that this common attitude could be taken into consideration by the Iranians during eventual peace talks? One might be tempted to see, in Lebanon, the extension of the same conflict: the protagonists seem, at first glance, identical. On one side, Hezbollah remote-controlled by Iran; Israel as the master of the game; and, in the background, the United States which, for the time being, positions itself as a moderator. On the other, Iran, a central actor whatever one says; the United States, other masters of the game; and Israel which, from initial instigator, then reined in, has become a follower. However, perspectives differ significantly regarding the evolution of these two theaters. One remains within a strictly regional framework while the other takes on a global dimension. One excludes Europe, and especially France. The other marginalizes, for now, Europe and the envisioned coalition of about forty countries, including several from the Pacific. The Iranian problem seems insoluble as long as the - justified - demands of the United States go against those firmly defended by the Revolutionary Guards, now masters of the country. Beyond these demands, which are for the moment irreconcilable, Donald Trump's behavior in terms of analysis, diplomacy, and mastery of negotiations of this nature seems far removed from what this kind of situation would require. He seems, for the time being, to limit himself to the use of violence. If he maintains this attitude, it would not be ruled out to see the Russians and the Chinese intervene. What follows will largely depend on the choices he makes: regarding the evolution of the crisis, the conduct of international affairs, or the settlement of disputes between countries. It is quite possible that Donald Trump wins. But at the cost of what sacrifices? Who and what will he sacrifice before November? In the long term, Iran could appear as the true winner. On the scale of risks, the probable outweighs the possible. Could a profound questioning of the reliability of American protection by the Gulf countries result in a replacement of American bases? But by which protector? China and Russia would benefit from it. If France decides to support Lebanon with the firmness shown by its president, it will have to do so with conviction and determination. Half-measures no longer have a place in such a context. It is therefore a matter of two different wars whose resolutions must be coordinated. One could be treated in isolation, the other not. Will President Trump take this into account during the final "round" of negotiations with the Revolutionary Guards? "What has changed the most over there is not China, it is not Russia, it is Europe: it has ceased to count there" (A. Malraux). Rather than having eyes only for Ukraine and approaching the Middle East solely from the angle of the price of oil, Europeans, especially France, should set themselves the ambition of promoting a "firm peace" in Lebanon.

Nazi Germany was indeed defeated, but the victory of the Allied armies does not correspond to the victory of their states, with the sole exception of the United States. This is what the experience of the Suez War demonstrated, which ended with a single statement by the American president, to cite but one example among many. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was perhaps realistic in accepting the American nuclear security umbrella and the arrangements that came with it, while General Charles de Gaulle chose to bear the burden of an independent course for French policy, a course that reflected the suffering he had endured at the hands of the Allies during the war, namely the marginalisation to which he was subjected despite his exceptional politico-military role. Washington, for its part, offered no resistance to the French ambition and simply regarded it as a state wishing to exercise self-governance in the nuclear domain, nothing more. In our part of the world, we construct the narrative of political independence on an amplified account of the role played by our struggling peoples in Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon, detached from the American perspective on the new world order and its crown jewel, the United Nations. In Europe, by contrast, the transformations were more visible: the decline of the empires that had once dominated the Mediterranean shores manifested with considerable clarity, as those same powers became Atlantic nations rebuilding their economies within the framework of the American Marshall Plan. The European Union The shared defeat, hunger and poverty of the continent's peoples made the period of mourning and enmity relatively brief. After West Germany, France, Italy, Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands took the initiative of founding the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951, a declaration that transcended the economic dimension and carried on its wing a mechanism of reconciliation grounded in shared economic interests, this foundation contributed to the success of the Maastricht Treaty in 1992 through a long democratic process, paving the way for the European Union as we know it today: a union that developed its charters, internal treaties and relations with the world's states on a solid foundation of humanist thought rooted in international law, and equipped itself with the finest products of contemporary thinking across many fields, including the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership Agreement pertaining to our region. Yet this renewed 'Mediterraneanism' does not correspond in absolute terms to what prevailed before the Second World War, all the more so as President de Gaulle had established a position opposing the Israeli aggression against Egypt, Syria and Jordan in the war of 5 June 1967, thereby opening wide the doors of France to the Arab world, overcoming the 'Suez moment' and bringing an end to the French colonisation of Algeria. The Gaullist French stance in support of the rights of the Palestinian people produced a deep positive effect, helping Europe to return to a Mediterranean presence in the region within a framework of new and balanced criteria that did not negate Palestinian rights, while ensuring the protection of a State of Israel capable of defeating the Arab armies collectively when necessary. The European Union was subsequently able to reformulate its collective and bilateral relations with the Arab states according to a modernist model and a vision of shared interests satisfactory to both parties, to the point where 'Mediterraneanism' appeared as a choice no less important than 'Atlanticism' or the options bound up with international groupings such as the G7, the G20, and so on. This dynamic is further reinforced today by the war unfolding between Iran, the United States and Israel on one side, and the fierce Iranian aggression against the Arab states, particularly those of the Gulf, on the other. What is currently taking place in the Middle East, and its profound impact on the lives of the European peoples, is no less significant than that of the Balkan War before it or the still-raging war in Ukraine. Indeed, the widely acknowledged inability of the European Union to produce an independent solution to the Balkan crisis (Kosovo-Serbia) appeared with even greater force and clarity in its inability to independently manage the Ukraine-Russia crisis before it reached the catastrophic scene of today. It can be said that Atlantic Europe is no longer able to persist under the sole bilateral equation of 'Europe-United States,' and that the peace the continent has enjoyed under the American umbrella cannot be considered firmly established, following a review of the outcomes of three wars: in the Balkans, in Ukraine and in the Middle East. It is essential to undertake the reconstruction of Euro-Mediterranean relations on new foundations, foundations that incorporate a degree of European humility and a willingness to transcend short-term utilitarian policies, so as to build a balanced, participatory Mediterranean strategy that respects the interests of all peoples according to criteria free from double standards, given that a truncated peace is, at its core, no peace at all. This is precisely what the old continent has obtained, what it now complains of, and what it is attempting to remedy through its relations with the states of the Middle East. If Europe wishes to preserve its role as the guardian of Western civilisation and culture, it must construct a new equation for world civilisation, not merely Western civilisation, and for a globalised culture open to the Mediterranean cultures that have harboured the foundations and origins of Western civilisation since first the Sumerian and Egyptian civilisations, rather than clinging to the unscientific belief in the Greek miracle. Continental Protests Under the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership Agreement and the duties and commitments it contains, the question of human rights, fundamental freedoms, the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary occupies the foremost position and acts as a gateway among the agreement's clauses with any country seeking to build a partnership. Yet in political practice, one observes disparities that range between rigour and strictness in the application of these clauses and a leniency or flexibility that, in the Israeli case, reaches the level of outright indifference. And if Arab protests may appear to lack credibility, the European protests emanating from certain states or from the popular level across the continent can hardly be dismissed on the same grounds, especially when accredited European and United Nations bodies have recorded in their reports published through the United Nations Human Rights Council widespread Israeli violations of international humanitarian law, forced displacement operations against Palestinians and Lebanese, systematic violations of human rights.. Along with the expansion of settlement, annexation and Judaisation of the occupied territories in the West Bank, the disregard for the ruling of the International Court of Justice in its characterisation of the 'genocide war' against the people of Gaza, and what is unfolding today in the visual landscape of the West Bank, whose streets and villages are being covered with Israeli flags and symbols so that Judea and Samaria, as they appear in the Torah, may seem as though Palestine does not exist . Confronted with these shortcomings, and with the accumulating images of repression, death and bloodshed, a petition recently signed by more than one million Europeans explained how the Israeli government contravenes the core provisions of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership Agreement. And yet the European Union has taken no meaningful action in this regard, since condemnations and declarations fail to reach the ears of Israel's rulers, who openly vie with one another in killings, ethnic cleansing, displacement, annexation of territories and the use of disproportionate force, while employing water, food and medicine as weapons of war against the Palestinians of Gaza to this very moment. The messages of more than 350 former diplomats, the objections of artistic and academic elites, and the memorandum of the 'seventy civil society organisations' have unanimously demanded that the European Union commit to a European foreign policy grounded in respect for international law, while warning against the continued maintenance of the Union's current relations with Israel despite these violations, which they characterise as complicity and a breach of its legal and moral obligations . Given that the demand to suspend the Partnership Agreement between the European Union and Israel, and the demand for legal and economic measures such as a ban on trade with settlements, a review of military and scientific cooperation, the guarantee of international accountability for crimes committed and the protection of Palestinian civilians, have all become the demands of several European states, major recognised organisations and European elites in general, the European decision-maker is bound to review his calculations with precision, because the Mediterranean partnership that the continent urgently needs, more than ever and in the midst of the war raging in the Arab Gulf, must be a just Mediterranean partnership, built on the principles and criteria enshrined in the agreement itself. Only then can it be said that Europe's Mediterranean policy will genuinely contribute to extricating Atlantic Europe from its impasse. Once again, the Mashreq welcomes Mediterranean Europe on these foundations and according to these criteria, and it is then that we will acknowledge it as the guardian of human civilisation and culture .

The negotiations between Iranians and Americans, which are in limbo after this long week of back-and-forth in Islamabad, were overshadowed Sunday morning (Levant time) by the news of a failed assassination attempt on US President Donald Trump at the White House Correspondents' Dinner. President Trump, in an initial gut reaction, indicated he did not know whether the war in Iran is linked to this assassination attempt. The White House Correspondents' Association dinner, an annual tradition, was expected to unfold peacefully in the presence of President Donald Trump, members of his administration, and numerous political figures. But a (new) assassination attempt against the most powerful man in the world took place in this prestigious, highly secure environment of the Washington Hilton. A man armed with 'multiple weapons', according to initial reports, was able to bypass all security barriers to approach the hall where practically all the country's top leaders were gathered, and open fire. The incident left two injured, including an officer, and the man was captured alive: he is a 31-year-old American teacher from California, Cole Thomas Allen. The lone wolf theory seems to prevail for the moment, but others cannot be ruled out. During a press conference he held shortly afterwards at the White House, Donald Trump stated that he did not yet know whether the war with Iran was connected to the attack. He nevertheless insisted that this would not push him to give up on this war. Deadlock in Islamabad Far from this incident, the past week was marked by missed appointments in the negotiations between Iran and the United States. Early in the week, all eyes were focused on the April 22 deadline, the last deadline in the ceasefire conceded by Trump to the Iranians two weeks earlier. At a time when the Iranians announced their refusal to travel to Islamabad for a second round of negotiations, a surprise came from Washington just hours before the deadline expired: the US President himself announced the extension of the ceasefire with Iran 'until further notice' in order to give negotiations a chance. Interpretations of this decision were varied: was the American president feeling trapped by this war, or was he preparing a surprise attack?... The week passed to the rhythm of statements from both sides, notably from the Iranian side, which persists in refusing to attend negotiations that lead 'nowhere'. Clearly, the Iranians, furious about the blockade imposed by the United States, continue to resist American demands concerning ballistic missiles, nuclear energy, and armed proxies in the region... However, reports of serious dissensions between the centers of power in the Iranian regime are beginning to emerge, culminating in the resignation of the Iranian Parliament Speaker, Mohammad Calibaf, from the negotiating delegation. Is this American reprieve aimed at allowing time for these dissensions to settle? On Friday, the Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Abbas Araghchi, traveled to Islamabad, taking care to specify that he was only going there to hold talks with his Pakistani counterparts. He actually conveyed a new Iranian roadmap intended for the Americans, the content of which prompted President Trump to cancel the trip of his two envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, to Pakistan, clearly signaling that he would only greenlight this trip if the Iranians showed more involvement in these talks. On the level of military operations, the American blockade of Iranian ports continues, and it appears to be effectively asphyxiating what remains of the Iranian economy, hence the growing aggressiveness of the Revolutionary Guards, whose rhetoric of threats against the US military and neighboring countries is crescendoing. The Strait of Hormuz remains de facto closed, with all the foreseeable consequences for the global economy. In this context, an incident involving Iraq was reported on Saturday: while the ceasefire has loosened the grip on the Gulf countries, targets of Iranian missiles since the beginning of this war, drone strikes, presumably from a pro-Iranian group in Iraq, hit border posts in Kuwait. Although Iraqi authorities strongly condemned the incident, it showed the lack of control Iraqi leaders have over the militias still operating on Iraqi territory. Second round of negotiations at the White House The week in Lebanon was more eventful than in Iran, particularly on the diplomatic front. The second direct Israeli-Lebanese meeting took place on Thursday in Washington, once again between Lebanese Ambassador Nada Moawad and Israeli Ambassador Yechiel Leiter. This second meeting, however, took on a different dimension from the first, as it took place at the White House, in the Oval Office, rather than the State Department, and what is more, in the presence of President Trump, Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and the US Ambassador to Beirut, Michel Issa. What can be taken away from this meeting, described as 'historic', is the extension of the ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel for a period of three weeks (Lebanon had asked for 60 days), as well as an announcement by Trump, who indicated that ending Iranian funding to Hezbollah would become a 'non-negotiable' condition in the Iranian-American negotiations. Beyond this moment, the continuation of these direct negotiations between Lebanon and Israel raises several question marks: how far can Lebanese President Joseph Aoun go, knowing that the American president seems in a hurry to achieve a diplomatic success, insisting once again on the need to bring Aoun and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu together at the White House, an eventuality that the former continues to rule out? How can Joseph Aoun bypass the strong opposition of the Shiite duo to these negotiations? In any case, the Lebanese president expressed his determination to continue on this path 'to save the country' and to restore the Lebanese state's full sovereignty over decisions of war and peace, as he emphasized during his participation in a European summit in Cyprus on Friday. On the domestic scene, Hezbollah continued its verbal attacks against these negotiations, asking the state to put an end to them. For his part, the Speaker of Parliament and head of Amal, Nabih Berri, declared in essence this week that he is not against the negotiations, but that he prefers them to be indirect. Consultations in Cyprus The diplomatic ballet concerning the situation in Lebanon was also intense this week. In Cyprus, President Aoun held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa and other Arab leaders. Prime Minister Nawaf Salam was received at the Élysée on April 25, and his speech in Luxembourg before the Council of Europe matched the firmness of tone of President Aoun's in Cyprus. As for the Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, he was received by President al-Sharaa in Damascus on Saturday. Furthermore, the Saudi role was revived this week with the mission to Beirut of the envoy Yazid bin Farhan, following a visit by an envoy of Mr. Berri to Saudi Arabia a few days earlier. In any event, attention is focused on a meeting scheduled for Monday among the three pillars of Lebanese power, Joseph Aoun, Nabih Berri, and Nawaf Salam, at the Baabda Palace, to discuss the modalities of the negotiations, according to information from al-Jadeed. Will it be the beginning of a united common front on this issue, or will it cement the existing dissensions? Resumption of raids in the South Regarding the situation on the ground in South Lebanon, the week ended with the position of Mr. Netanyahu, who gave the order to the Israeli army to attack Hezbollah positions in Lebanon 'with force'. The IDF air force immediately resumed its raids against facilities of the pro-Iranian party in the southern region of the country, without, however, extending its attacks deeper and to the southern suburbs. On Saturday night, fifteen raids were thus carried out. Airstrikes continued throughout the day on Sunday, notably in the Nabatieh and Bint Jbeil regions. The end of the week was further marked by an Israeli drone attack that claimed the life of a journalist from the pro-Hezbollah daily al-Akhbar , Amal Khalil, in the village of al-Tiri, in the Bint Jbeil district. This tragedy was particularly poignant as the journalist, along with a colleague, was pursued by the drone into the house where she had taken refuge, and rescue workers were prevented from reaching her for several hours. Lebanon is expected to file a complaint with international bodies, according to the Minister of Information. Two other serious incidents took place, moreover, in Greater Beirut on Saturday evening: a brutal intervention by State Security against a generator owner (an official in Saad Hariri's Future Movement) in the Sakiet al-Janzir neighborhood ended in riots and road closures in several Sunni neighborhoods of Beirut. The officer who led the State Security unit that engaged in this untimely intervention is close to Hezbollah, which explains the popular revolt witnessed in the Sunni neighborhoods. Following this tension, the government commissioner to the military court opened an investigation and interrogated the officer in question and the security service agents involved in the case. Another serious incident occurred on Saturday evening: the assault suffered by a municipal agent of Fanar and the priest of the Fanar parish at the hands of two Hezbollah supporters, causing intense tension among the population of this Beirut suburb. The two attackers were apprehended and handed over to the Internal Security Forces' Intelligence.

Editor's note: The following study is not meant to be read in one sitting, but in segments. The author apologizes in advance to the reader, but the academic approach followed could not allow for a split into several articles or a summary that would weaken its substance and nuances. Mea maxima culpa, therefore. In early April 2026, Israel circulated a “new” map of southern Lebanon, highlighting a zone of approximately ten kilometres north of the border inside Lebanese territory, coloured in yellow, representing the geographic space that its army has occupied since the beginning of its military offensive in March. This demarcation line, which by default has come to be called the “Yellow Line”, is presented by Israeli officials as a ground reality under the control of the IDF, accompanied by a prohibition on the return of residents to fifty-five Lebanese localities. The model, by the Israeli military commanders’ own admission, is the one already applied in Gaza. Experience speaks for itself: Israel does not improvise tactically. Symbolically, the map is not without crystallising the resurgence of a territorial imaginary that runs through the history of Zionism from its origins, and which the conjuncture of 2024–2026 — with the collapse of Hezbollah as a first-rank military force, the disintegration of the Iranian empire, and the paroxysmal symbiosis between Donald Trump and Tel Aviv — reactivates with an audacity not seen since 1967. Even on the eve of the November 2024 truce, Israel was close to consolidating a horizontal buffer line stretching from Naqoura to Kfarshuba, some one hundred kilometres wide and between seven and ten kilometres deep, amounting to roughly 452 square kilometres of Lebanese territory under effective Israeli control. Beyond this first line, Israeli military planners were developing a second defensive perimeter between the Litani and the Awali rivers, designated internally as a “hunting and pursuit zone”. Netanyahu himself declared: “Every terrorist position — and there are many — is simply being flattened”, adding that the Israeli army had “expanded its presence in Lebanon beyond the five positions established in 2024” to constitute, in his own words, “a solid, deeper security zone.” And it is evident, to judge by the declarations of Israeli leaders, that they have no intention of withdrawing from this zone in the months, or even the years, ahead. The systematic demolition of entire villages is irrefutable proof of this. It is a demographic void that Tel Aviv is engineering — and this comes as no surprise. Israel has been a master of this practice since 1948… Beyond a simple strategic occupation for security purposes, the “Yellow Line” is not without arousing the dread of outright annexation as part of a much older and wider imperialist project. The Geography of Desire To understand this legitimate apprehension, and the accompanying perception of the Israeli logic underlying these operations, it is necessary to return to the ideological matrix of the Zionist project itself. Israel’s territorial ambition has no doubt varied according to trends and periods, yet it has always been there — and it proves necessary, for the purposes of this study, to attempt to trace its genealogy. Eretz Yisrael HaShlema — the “Land of Israel in its entirety” — is indeed an expression carrying multiple and evolving biblical and political meanings. In the flux of nationalist or Zionist movements, territorial obsessions have varied across periods and currents — Labour Zionism, Revisionist Zionism, Religious Zionism — but two primary definitions emerge: one, narrower, designating Israel together with the Golan Heights, the West Bank, and Gaza; the other, maximal, designating the vast region stretching from the Nile to the Euphrates. Theodor Herzl, founding father of political Zionism, himself traced this perspective during a conversation with Max Bodenheimer, noting in his diary that the Jewish state should extend “from the Brook of Egypt to the Euphrates.” Since then, the formulation has reappeared regularly in Israeli political literature and in the declarations of officials — including, in 2024, the activist Daniella Weiss, who asserted: “We know, from the Bible, that the real borders of Greater Israel extend from the Euphrates to the Nile.” It is, however, between these two poles — biblical maximalism on one hand, the pragmatism of stages on the other — that the real strategy of the Hebrew state has been constructed. And never was this dialectic formulated with such clarity as in the celebrated letter that David Ben Gurion wrote to his son Amos on 5 October 1937, in the aftermath of the Peel Commission. Just “the Beginning” Dispatched in the wake of the outbreak of the Great Arab Revolt in 1936, the British Royal Commission on Palestine, tasked with proposing modifications to the British Mandate over Palestine, had proposed in 1937 the abolition of the Mandate and the partition of Palestine into two states — an Arab State in the south and a Jewish State in the north. Ben Gurion, to the surprise of many of his comrades who championed “Greater Israel”, accepted it. Yet this acceptance was more a matter of tactical pragmatism than a renunciation of Zionist ideology. In his letter to his son, Ben Gurion wrote: “My assumption — and this is why I am an ardent advocate of a state, even though it is now linked to partition — is that a Jewish state on only part of the country is not the end but the beginning. (…) For this increase in possession matters not only in itself, but because through it we increase our strength, and every increase in strength helps in the possession of the entire country. The establishment of a state, even on only a portion of the land, is the maximal reinforcement of our strength at the present time, and a powerful boost to our historical endeavours to liberate the whole country.” This cold logic of accepting today what can be obtained in order to prepare for tomorrow’s desires constitutes the keystone of Zionist strategy from its origins. It explains, consequently, why every gesture — whether ceasefire, agreement, partial withdrawal, or otherwise — has always been presented as provisional by the proponents of Greater Israel. Time is not the static time of obfuscation, but that of a continual narrative, in constant elaboration. In 1954, the journals of Moshe Sharett reveal that Ben Gurion described Lebanon as the “weakest link” of the Arab League, proposing the creation of a separate political entity and the annexation of the South as far as the Litani. Moshe Dayan, for his part, advocated exploiting Lebanon’s internal divisions to facilitate intervention and eventual control — something that was attempted, with the relative success that history records, through the use of both actors sympathetic to the project (the Lebanese Front of the 1970s and 1980s, then Saad Haddad) and those ostensibly hostile to it (Hezbollah…). But it was Assad who would perfect the technique. From the early 1960s, Yitzhak Rabin in turn identified the Litani as the ideal northern border. As for Netanyahu, one need only listen to the declarations of his ministers — Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, for example — to understand that in the Israeli political imagination, at least a portion of Lebanon belongs to Israel. The Obsession with the Litani In surveying the literature on Israel’s posture towards Lebanese territory, it becomes clear that the question of the Litani is one of the oldest and most constant obsessions of Israeli geopolitics, dating back to the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. Thus Chaim Weizmann and David Ben Gurion had, at that Conference, submitted a map of the desired borders of the future Jewish state that included the Litani. But the Sykes-Picot Treaty of 1915, by which Britain and France had already fixed the border between Lebanon and Palestine, put paid to their plan. At France’s insistence, the Litani therefore remained Lebanese. The Israeli claim, however, did not disappear. Ben Gurion would still affirm: “It is necessary that the water sources upon which the future of the country depends should not lie outside the borders of the future Jewish homeland. This is why we have always demanded that the Land of Israel include the southern banks of the Litani, the headwaters of the Jordan, and the Hauran region.” In 1978, Israel would name its invasion of southern Lebanon “Operation Litani”, the stated objective being to reach the river. And since 2025, an Israeli settler movement called Uri Tzafon has been openly campaigning for the annexation of southern Lebanon as far as the Litani, asserting that “southern Lebanon is simply northern Galilee.” The hydraulic dimension of the project is not incidental. Water is a strategic resource in an arid region, and after the 1967 war, Defence Minister Moshe Dayan declared that Israel had achieved “provisionally satisfying borders, with the exception of the one with Lebanon.” That is to say, the Litani — within reach, yet always out of reach. Not anymore. It goes without saying that the discovery of offshore gas south of the Litani has done nothing to calm Israeli appetites. Quite the contrary… The Yinon Plan and the Doctrine of Fragmentation Ben Gurion’s letter of 1954 constituted a kind of declaration of intent and a structural, progressive plan by stages. The celebrated document published in 1982 by Oded Yinon in the Hebrew journal Kivunim represents its most explicit and systematic strategic translation. A reputed former adviser to Ariel Sharon and a former official of the Foreign Ministry, Yinon published in February 1982 an article entitled “A Strategy for Israel in the 1980s”, in which he analysed the weaknesses of Arab states and concluded that Israel must work towards the fragmentation of the Arab world into a mosaic of ethnic and confessional groupings. “Every form of inter-Arab confrontation”, he argued, would be advantageous to Israel in the short term. The plan operates on two fundamental premises: to survive, Israel must become a regional imperial power, and must bring about the division of the region into small states through the dissolution of all existing Arab states, the size of these entities being a function of the ethnic or sectarian composition of each territory. Lebanon occupies a particular place in this plan: Yinon saw the contemporary events in Lebanon as a harbinger of future developments across the Arab world as a whole, whose convulsions would constitute a precedent for guiding Israeli strategies in the short and long term. He seems, to say the least, to have been widely heeded… The Yinon Plan has naturally prompted multiple rereadings since 1982, with certain commentators arguing that it describes, in prophetic or programmatic fashion, what has in fact unfolded across the Middle East over the past forty years — notably the establishment of buffer zones inside Lebanon, the annexation of Syrian territory beyond the Golan, the support for the Alawite regime in Syria against the Sunni majority, the empowerment of the Iranian regime in the Near East to destabilise Arab regimes, the removal of the bulwark constituted by Saddam Hussein in Iraq, support for Druze and Kurdish groups favourable to a fragmented Syria, strikes on Iraq and Yemen, and even the emergence of Hamas to weaken Fatah… All these developments would have put in place, for various analysts, a new version of Sykes-Picot centred on the Yinon Plan. The problem, obviously, would be to fall into a conspiratorial logic that confuses Israel’s capacity to steer political events in the direction that serves its interests with a grand scheme devised half a century in advance — rather like the famous Kissinger plan for Lebanon, whose latent function is to relieve the protagonists of responsibility for their own tactical and strategic errors, in the name of inexorable fate… Rather too convenient. Netanyahu and His Cartographic Confession If one characteristic is particular to Benjamin Netanyahu, it is his capacity to pass without any inhibition whatsoever from ideology to practice, not without a certain euphoria of ostentation. The man and the aforementioned ministers of his government are far from practising the art of rhetorical subtlety, diplomacy, or even duplicity. His passion for geographical maps is documented since 1990, and one would readily wager that, far from being accidental, it is entirely calculated — a mode of symbolic governance, by image. On 22 September 2023, two weeks before the Hamas attack, Netanyahu had presented before the United Nations General Assembly a map entitled “The New Middle East”, which included neither the West Bank nor East Jerusalem nor Gaza, incorporating de facto these territories into the body of Israel. Earlier in the same speech, he had also shown a map of Israel in 1948 that included the Palestinian territories within the new state. Whatever indignation was expressed proved to be short-lived… and the attack engineered by Sinwar and his associates served to erase the monumental insult dealt to international law before the General Assembly. And it is remarkable that, at a time when certain European countries are over-zealous in curtailing civil liberties with legislative proposals such as the so-called “Yadan law”, the world managed to overlook Bibi’s display, which had erased Palestine with a map, thus connecting “the river to the sea.” That display was certainly no diplomatic accident. Before his departure for Washington in early 2025, Netanyahu had already, in a statement, pledged to “redraw” the map of the Middle East, in reference to his government’s plan to create a “Greater Israel” encompassing the entirety of the Palestinian territories and significant portions of neighbouring states. Within this government, the most explicit faction is represented by Smotrich and Ben Gvir. On 23 March 2026, Smotrich appeared before his parliamentary bloc in the Knesset and explicitly invoked the Litani as the line delimiting a northern sphere of Israeli expansion, mirroring developments in Gaza and Syria. Does the complete disappearance of entire southern Lebanese villages — doubtless forever erased from the map in the Israeli perspective — obey purely security considerations? The question must be posed with acuity, and necessarily raised within the context of negotiations by a Lebanese state intent on preserving its sovereignty and territorial integrity, and on defending its rights against occupation. The Golan as Laboratory for Permanent Annexation It is no doubt the trajectory of the Golan that offers the most accomplished and instructive precedent for the progressive annexation process that characterises the Israeli method. Occupied in 1967, unilaterally annexed in 1981 in a gesture that the international community refused to recognise for decades — and which Assad readily conceded to his tacit ally in exchange for his perpetual retention of power in Damascus — the Golan saw its Israeli sovereignty recognised de facto by Donald Trump in 2019, the first act in a series of normative reconfigurations whose effects continue to unfold. Since the collapse of the Assad regime in December 2024, Israel has extended its military presence into Syrian territory beyond the buffer zone established in 1974, creating new facts on the ground. This model, which follows the pattern of occupation / settlement / fait accompli / deferred recognition, is precisely the one that the Yellow Line in southern Lebanon appears to seek to replicate, with the adaptations imposed by a different context and a resistance of a different character. The Logic of “Thresholds”: from Founding Myth to Political Programme It is necessary, once again, to introduce a nuance indispensable to the analysis — at the risk otherwise of falling into the trap of conspiracy where one should rather read the structural tension between founding myth and political decision. The term Eretz Israel HaShlemah did not enter common political usage until after the 1967 war. During the Mandate era (1920–1948), the Zionist camp was divided. Some supported the militant Ze’ev Jabotinsky, who argued that both banks of the Jordan had been promised to the Jews in the Balfour Declaration. Others, following Ben Gurion, accepted the framework of the British Mandate over western Palestine. With the rise of Likud, heir to the Jabotinskyan revisionist current, the term Eretz Israel HaShlemah became more popular, and the project of complete annexation became the central objective of the ruling coalition. If the territorial dreams of the Zionist right once seemed to be nothing more than colonial fantasies without a future, current events in Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria show that the hopes of an Israeli far right in full ascent are closer to realisation than ever before. The border between myth and reality has never been so blurred. It is probably appropriate to situate this epidermic resurgence of “Greater Israel” within the context of this wind of “nostalgia for a mythical golden age” that stirs all the calls of empire — as Samir Frangieh noted in an interview shortly before his death. From Putin and Ukraine and the Baltic states, to Trump and Venezuela and Cuba, through China and Taiwan, or Erdoğan’s Turkey and the demons of the Ottoman Empire, without forgetting the theocratised empire of Darius III currently expiring under Israeli-American bombs… it is a blizzard of megalomania sweeping the entire world. The imperialist myth constitutes, in this framework, a horizon of desire that structures the strategic thought of a significant part of the Israeli establishment, calibrating its ambitions according to the opportunities offered by the regional and international balance of power at any given moment. The new map is certainly not that of the Euphrates to the Nile. But it may well constitute a stage towards it. And Ben Gurion warned, in 1937, that the stages were precisely what mattered. He was not lying. And today, Netanyahu is not bluffing. At some point, it will be necessary to move beyond the local adversarial posturing that continues to believe Israel is an exhausted power, on the verge of collapse, moribund. Tel Aviv has been at war for three years, and, this close to its objective, why would it renounce it — especially when it has never enjoyed such unconditional support from its American ally? What the “Yellow Line” May Announce At the conclusion of this exposition, it is appropriate to answer the question of whether the “Yellow Line” is purely of a security nature, linked to the primary principle of ensuring the permanence of northern Israel against potential attacks. While it is naturally impossible to answer this question with full certainty, the rhetoric and conduct of Netanyahu and his ministers are nonetheless manifest and virtually transparent on the subject. Why not simply listen to them? Moreover, if Tel Aviv now holds golden arguments — the pretext for reprisals graciously provided by Hezbollah through its desire to avenge Khamenei — along with total impunity and an unprecedented alignment of political stars to realise its project, why would it not act, especially within a regional and global context entirely destabilised, in which the United Nations and international law no longer count for much? The opportunity may well be unique. The de facto annexation of southern Lebanon is undoubtedly an attempt to solidify a territorial fait accompli in the absence of any recognised international legal framework, drawing on the Gaza precedent and the political support of the Trump administration. The American envoy Tom Barrack has even floated, on his side, the creation of a “Lebanese economic zone” that would replace the centuries-old border villages. As in Gaza. The formalisation of dispossession in all its splendour, with the delights of progress and development dangled as incentives. A peculiar “positive” propaganda founded on human misery. The destruction of homes, the demolition of infrastructure, the prohibition on the return of populations… all of this is not without tracing the outline of a project that exceeds security concerns and manifestly touches — evidence in hand — on demography, human geography, and the durable modification of the border space. From the Peace Conference of 1919 to the internal debates of the 1950s, from the Yinon Plan to the speeches of the current coalition, Israel’s northern border has never been considered definitively drawn. Some voracious Israeli appetites fantasise their annexationist pleasure as far as Tyre. Others, perhaps, even further. Who knows? In an imploded world that deliberately looks away, imagination and delirium know no limits. What the “Yellow Line” may well reveal, in sum, is that the dream of “Greater Israel” — in its various forms and shifting iterations — is being lived in the present tense. Just as, for that matter, the dreams of other fallen empires. Lebanon, in 2026, is without doubt — as Gaza was in 2025–2026 — the most immediate and most painful theatre of this. At the risk of progressively suffering the same fate. Done with a Lebanese Myth Yet — and it seems necessary to conclude on this inescapable clarification — nothing of the foregoing can justify the current rhetoric defended by the champions of moumana’a, namely that Israel’s cupidity proves the war would have happened regardless, and that one must cease holding Hezbollah responsible for what is occurring. It is time to be done with this master-key of argumentation that seeks to justify everything the Hezb does — and, in a grotesque paradox, everything Israel does as well — through a pseudo-law of inevitability. This reading dismisses, through ignorance or bad faith, a whole set of factors. Without wishing to enter into all the sterile sophisms developed to justify Hezbollah’s war, it is worth pausing at just one: if “resistance” is legitimate against a state that continues to covet its neighbours’ territory, the decision to resist can belong only to the Lebanese state, not to a paramilitary group subordinated to Iran, which for twenty-five years has been dictating what it wishes — not only war and peace, but also what may be said and done, and who deserves to live or die — to the other components of Lebanese society, on the basis of an imperialist political project in which Lebanon is merely a province and the Lebanese mere cannon fodder. And if the state has thus far been unable to play this sovereign role, it is specifically because, from within, the Iranian Trojan horse was unwilling to restore this prerogative to it, out of blind fidelity to Iranian hegemonic will. The experience of Hezbollah’s “Islamic resistance” has been a national catastrophe on every level — and it is not yet over. “Greater Persia”, of which Hezbollah is merely an outgrowth, has never been mandated by the Lebanese people to confront the project of Greater Israel. Only Greater Lebanon can do that — symbolically and practically, by all legitimate means, beginning with diplomacy. So: to Greater Israel, Greater Lebanon. And only that.