Joseph Aoun says Lebanon is “no longer an arena for anyone’s wars.

[0:00] Lebanon's president says his country can no longer be considered an arena for anyone's wars. [0:05] In a televised address, Joseph Aoun said his government's negotiations [0:09] with Israel this week were not a sign of weakness. [0:16] Pain cannot remain our destiny, and I pledge that we will not reach any agreement that may [0:20] undermine our established rights or harm the dignity of our steadfast people, [0:25] or give up a grain of soil of our homeland. [0:28] Our objective is clear, to put an end to the Israeli aggression on our people and our homeland, [0:33] the total withdrawal of the Israelis, for our authority to prevail, [0:37] and the return of all Lebanese with dignity and freedom. [0:41] President Trump has made remarks on Lebanon, saying in a social media post that the U.S. [0:46] will separately work with Lebanon and deal with the Hezbollah situation in an appropriate manner. [0:53] Israel, he says, will not be bombing Lebanon any longer. [0:56] They are prohibited from doing so by the USA. [1:00] Enough is enough. [1:02] Let's speak to Abed Abu Shehari about this. [1:04] He's a political commentator joining us from Jaffa in Israel. [1:07] Quite the strong language there from the U.S. president against Israel. [1:13] Israel forbidden from bombing Lebanon. [1:16] How is this going down in Israel? [1:18] A lot of confusion. [1:22] Everything about the current ceasefire surprised everyone. [1:26] And it's quite obvious that the Israeli government doesn't want to anger the American president. [1:34] If you go through the Twitter accounts or ex-accounts of the Israeli cabinet ministers, [1:40] none of them said anything against Donald Trump. [1:43] None of them said anything against the ceasefire. [1:48] And we're seeing how Israel is acting extremely cautious, not trying to upset the American president. [1:54] This came by surprise a day after the cabinet decided not to agree to a ceasefire. [2:02] And then both them and the Israeli public were informed about the ceasefire through the President Donald Trump social media. [2:10] But for President Trump to use the word prohibited and enough is enough, that's a huge blow to Israel and Netanyahu in particular, isn't it? [2:24] It shows the power dynamic. [2:26] It shows which country is the superpower. [2:30] But again, we've seen it in the past with the genocide in Gaza. [2:34] It's not the first time that the American president, Donald Trump, forces a ceasefire, [2:39] whether it was with Iran the last week and whether it was in Gaza forcing the second stage of the ceasefire. [2:48] But at the end of the day, America pushes its own interests. [2:51] And this time, it didn't align with the Israeli interests. [2:56] What's more interesting is that Trump is focusing on a peace, a longstanding peace between the two countries. [3:03] It looks like he's trying to also gain some sort of another new normalization project between Israel and another Arab country, this time being Lebanon. [3:11] But still, there are significant issues, whether Lebanese or Israeli. [3:16] In the Lebanese case, nobody has any answer concerning disarming Hezbollah. [3:21] And in Israel, nobody's talking about or nobody's thinking about pulling back from the northern Lebanon—sorry, southern Lebanon from the 8 to 10 kilometers that they reached in the past couple of weeks. [3:40] So we need to see how it works out. [3:41] But apparently, the Israelis have also a lot of internal problems on this issue. [3:46] So when they meet in the U.S. in a few days, the Lebanese president and Prime Minister Netanyahu, as was announced by President Trump, what are they going to be talking about? [3:55] What are they going to be agreeing on? [3:59] From the Israeli perspective, it's the question of disarming Hezbollah and how you disarm Hezbollah. [4:05] Nobody has a proper answer to this question. [4:08] The Lebanese, obviously, is the withdrawal. [4:11] Now, there is also 13 points on the Israeli-Lebanese border, but it's not extremely significant. [4:17] There is going to be negotiation on this. [4:20] But now, the two main issues is the Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon and disarming Hezbollah. [4:28] Both of them look extremely difficult for both sides. [4:31] So do you think the ceasefire can last, or will Netanyahu sabotage it? [4:38] Again, it depends on the American president. [4:41] There is pressure in Israel against the ceasefire. [4:44] Today, Kiryat Shimon, the mayor, declared as a protest against the ceasefire that he's planning [4:51] to go on a strike, the municipal strike, including school, as a protest. [4:55] And they were starting to talk about a national protest against the ceasefire. [5:01] The Israeli public wasn't promised peace. [5:03] The Israeli public was promised absolute victory. [5:06] These are not the same. [5:09] They're not expecting peace with Lebanon. [5:11] They're extremely skeptic about it because of their past experiences with peace project with Lebanon. [5:18] And now, they don't have any proper answer concerning Hezbollah. [5:22] And it's also the question of Iran's role in the background that it's still not clear for the Israeli public. [5:29] Thank you so much for talking to us about this. [5:31] Thank you for bringing us a view there from Israel. [5:33] Abed Abu-Shahari, a political commentator, joining us from Jaffa.