All eyes are on a fragile cease-fire in Gaza, but how about that other front? Will a cessation of fighting on Israel’s border with Lebanon hold? Can it? The deal, reached on November 27, following Israel’s attack on Hezbollah’s top echelon and the obliteration of much of its terror arsenal, is a throwback to 2006. The premise then, and now, is that the national Lebanese army would defang Hezbollah and chart a new course for the land of cedars. 

Yet, is the Lebanese Armed Force capable of such heavy lifting? Are the army’s commanders even interested in confronting what until  recently was the country’s most formidable and best equipped fighting force? For Israel, that question would have been moot, as the LAF was no match for Hezbollah, militarily. Now, though, ensuring that the Iran-backed organization remains weak and far from Israel’s border might be doable. 

What to make, then, of the LAF intelligence chief, Suhil Bahij Gharb, who leaked classified details from a meeting with American, French, and United Nations representatives to Hezbollah, as the Times reported Sunday? Relations between top Lebanese army commanders and Hezbollah counterparts are a Mideast open secret. In too many cases, an army officer would share a daily family supper with a brother who is a Hezbollah operative.

“We have long known about ties, including familial ones, between some in the LAF and Hezbollah,” an Israeli official tells our Benny Avni. While Israel wants to maintain the cease-fire, it is hoping to pressure the new Lebanese government and army to clean up its stables. Until recently the newly-elected president, Joseph Aoun, was the LAF top commander. His election was widely hailed as a “new beginning,” hope for Hezbollah-free leadership at Beirut. 

The Lebanese army, however, failed to fully deploy in the south, forcing the Israel Defense Force to stay in several Lebanese positions even after a deadline Sunday. Under American pressure, the ceasefire was then extended until February 18. Mostly-Shiite villagers marched toward the IDF troops, hoping to overwhelm them. They carried banners of Hezbollah, which reportedly paid them to defy the Israelis. Ah, that sense of déjà vu.       

Nearly 20 years ago, a Security Council resolution beefed up the UN Interim Force in Lebanon so it would help the LAF become the only armed force in a 20-mile area north of Israel’s border. Hezbollah, though, created a whole war machine there. Entire villages became arms depots. Rockets, drones, and missiles were hidden in plain sight right next to UN observation posts. Attack tunnels were dug to invade the Galilee and slaughter its residents. 

The current ceasefire is based on the same idea that guided the 2006 UN resolution: A revived Lebanese government, nominally untainted by a terror organization’s influence, would order its army to disarm all non-state militias. America, France, and others would shower Beirut with funds and train the LAF. Unifil would assist and observe. The scheme once collapsed when Beirut proved to be no match to Tehran. How about now?   

Current conditions seem more promising. The IDF demolished much of the Islamic Republic’s most reliable proxy army. Hezbollah’s rearming route, Syria, is largely unavailable following the Assad regime’s fall. The new Beirut government, as yet, includes no Hezbollah representatives. If America is to fund that government, as the ceasefire deal calls for, ensuring that no terrorists join it could be a good start. 

As our friends at the Alma research center, which watches Lebanon, write, America and others must now “exert maximum pressure on the Lebanese government” to exclude Hezbollah, sever ties with Iran, and cut the terror organization’s access to the banking system. The LAF, they add, “is ill-equipped to confront Hezbollah.” Israel is eager to avoid renewal of the Lebanon war. America could help by leaning on Beirut and pressuring Iran.