Tel Aviv’s goal is not just a demilitarized south Lebanon, but a permanently weakened Lebanese state unable to resist the encroachment of Israeli and western interests
The Cradle
While officially framed around Gaza and regional de-escalation, the meeting at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Miami will also address Israel’s broader strategic push: from weakening Iranian influence across the Levant, to reshaping Lebanon’s political and security order in a manner that dismantles the resistance axis and secures Tel Aviv’s northern front.
Lebanon’s fragile reality
Lebanon’s security reality today reflects decades of asymmetrical power, repeated violations of sovereignty, and the ongoing struggle of southerners to live free of occupation and foreign domination. Conditions along the southern border are both longstanding and intensified.
While the 2024 ceasefire between Beirut and Tel Aviv curtailed full-scale war, it has failed to produce lasting calm. Israeli violations continue, echoing earlier patterns dating back to Israel's 1982–2000 occupation of Lebanon. For many, these conditions are part of a broader pattern of coercive pressure that treats Lebanese land and life as expendable within a regional power calculus.
In this context, the Lebanese resistance remains central to the national narrative. Regardless of disagreement with its current strategies, it is broadly recognized that resistance grew out of necessity, not ideology: a response to a state that was either unable or unwilling to protect its people, and to an external aggressor capable of violating borders with impunity.
This reality has been implicitly acknowledged by actors spearheading the efforts to dismantle the resistance; recent comments by US envoy Tom Barrack cautioned that it is unreasonable to expect Hezbollah, Lebanon’s primary resistance force, to be forcibly disarmed, admitting the movement’s deep entrenchment within Lebanon’s political and security fabric.
His remarks reveal a long-standing paradox: calls for disarmament persist even when the conditions that gave rise to armed resistance – insecurity, a neighboring expansionist colonial entity, and compromised sovereignty – remain.
Yet Lebanon’s internal political order is nonetheless shifting alongside a broader transformation of the regional power balance. While most Lebanese reject any normalization with Israel – a constitutional crime – a small but vocal pro-Israel discourse has surfaced within elite far-right circles and select media platforms, often amplified through external funding or western-aligned outlets.
This, alongside the result of the 2024 war, which revealed the limits of military solutions to weaken the resistance, has created a rare strategic opening for Israel to shift its focus to a new policy beyond Hezbollah’s disarmament: towards reshaping Lebanon’s political structure to create lasting advantage and suppress active resistance to Israel.
Today, Israel’s strategy increasingly centers on influencing Lebanon’s political order from within, departing from the traditional objective of degrading Hezbollah militarily, towards a long-term strategic vision aimed at reducing Iranian-backed support through political change.
The aim is to reconfigure Lebanese institutions to undermine the social foundations supporting the resistance, redirect public frustration towards internal actors, and cultivate a political climate subordinate to Israeli and western interests.
In decolonial terms, this represents a familiar pattern: when direct domination becomes too costly, indirect influence is recast as “reform,” and the reshaping of political identity becomes an extension of military strategy. In this framework, political identity itself becomes a contested battlefield.
Reframing the disarmament agenda
Despite recent statements by UNIFIL leadership denying evidence of Hezbollah rebuilding in the south, there is growing Israeli consensus that the resistance movement is restoring its capabilities faster than they are being dismantled.
While this could be a premise to justify renewed Israeli escalation, it also functions as a pressuring mechanism against the Lebanese state, urging it to intensify efforts against Hezbollah. Israeli analysts frequently frame Hezbollah’s remaining arsenal as an existential threat, emphasizing that “being safe” and “feeling safe” are not the same.
Despite extensive efforts to dismantle Hezbollah-linked sites across the border, many northern Israeli settlements remain largely abandoned, showing that military action alone fails to deliver the security Israel seeks.
At a deeper level, Israeli strategists acknowledge that Hezbollah cannot be reduced to a conventional militia. It is embedded within Lebanon’s political system and is an indispensable faction of Lebanese society. Even if forcibly disarmed, its political influence and organizational capacity would allow it to rebuild.
Furthermore, an aggressive othering campaign has targeted Lebanon’s Shia community – the backbone of Hezbollah’s support – before, during, and after the 2024 war. This, coupled with the rise of far-right pro-Israel rhetoric, has presented Israel with an opportunity to exploit internal divisions and undermine Hezbollah not only militarily, but also to obliterate it politically, socially, and ideologically.
What Tel Aviv actually wants from Beirut
Israeli officials have long hinted at wanting a “responsible, effective government” in Beirut. While Israel publicly avoids describing how Lebanon’s internal politics should look, its long-term interests are clear.
Lebanon’s current political leadership is now widely considered the most openly anti-Hezbollah in the country’s history. Israel has welcomed this, viewing the state as aligned with its goals to weaken the resistance movement and create favorable conditions.
Given the Sanaa government’s de facto status in Yemen, Hezbollah remains Iran’s most capable non-state ally. Any shift in Lebanese politics away from Tehran would serve Israel’s long-term security. The current climate has occasionally created opportunities for Lebanon to distance itself from Iran and allow for greater influence from western, Persian Gulf, and other international actors.
A system that avoids confrontation and limits Hezbollah’s power would lower the likelihood of future conflicts. In this context, the Lebanese state has increasingly yielded to US-Israeli pressure, at times overlooking or even violating constitutional principles governing Lebanon’s stance toward Israel.
For Tel Aviv, a stable northern frontier reduces the risk of miscalculation and opens opportunities for potential economic cooperation, such as the 2022 maritime border deal, which showed that cooperation is possible even without formal normalization.
Influence, not invasion
Israel has rarely intervened openly in Lebanon’s domestic politics, largely due to its failure to instill a friendly government in 1982. Today, however, the perceived window of opportunity has encouraged a more cautious but multifaceted approach employing both direct and indirect tools.
Country-wide strikes on alleged Hezbollah-linked infrastructure continue. However, the aim of much of these remains two-fold: to disrupt any effort of regained normalcy amongst Hezbollah’s support base, and to exert pressure on the Lebanese state to adopt harsher policies toward the group, in hopes that its support – and therefore legitimacy – will eventually deteriorate.
Israeli messaging increasingly underscores the claimed economic and social costs of Hezbollah’s anti-Israel stance and its ties to Iran, while simultaneously floating promises of prosperity and security to communities outside the resistance axis. This dual campaign aims to erode public support by portraying the resistance as an obstacle to national well-being.
Though indirectly, Israel is simultaneously advocating for ‘reforms’ of Lebanese financial institutions in line with US guardianship over Lebanon. Proposals such as the ‘economic zone’ across southern border villages further incentivize the state to increase pressure on Hezbollah. These dynamics are reinforced by a US policy blatantly prioritizing Israeli objectives, a diminishing French role, a UNIFIL under pressure, and sustained Gulf leverage over Lebanon.
Replacing resistance with subservience
Lebanon’s current trajectory – prioritizing Hezbollah’s disarmament over more pressing security needs – suggests increasing alignment between the US-backed state and Israel’s long-term vision.
After decades of conflict and shifting regional dynamics, and a rare window to not only eliminate Hezbollah as a military force but also reshape Lebanon’s trajectory toward Israel, Israeli decision makers understand that a US-influenced Lebanese state that limits Iranian reach and hostile rhetoric toward Israel is essential for Israel’s long-term security.
With the fast-approaching US-imposed deadline for Hezbollah’s disarmament, some fear that Israel’s impatience could trigger a renewed offensive. However, this is unlikely – at least for now – since the previous war had clearly shown the limits of Israel’s military action.
Alternatively, the deadline could be pushed back to give the state more time. Regardless, the plan rests on replacing the resistance with the state, while the latter’s submissive posture, coupled with continued Israeli aggression, yields only opposite results: demonstrating the state’s impotence in the most crucial field – that of defense.
Concerns remain that political paralysis and internal tensions will exacerbate instability. Given the inability to disarm Hezbollah, a more likely scenario involves attempting to bolster the existing ceasefire mechanism with more military and civilian personnel as an alternative to achieve disarmament – an approach that will further inflame tensions between the state and the Shia community.
Yet, many misinterpret Hezbollah’s strategic ambiguity amid these upheavals. They also overlook how this very same heavy-handed pressure can backfire, pushing Lebanese factions to rally around Hezbollah under the banner of national unity against a blatant Israeli agenda.
Despite the undebated weakening of Hezbollah and Shia groups across the region, the depth of Shia political and religious identity in Lebanon remains one of the most enduring sources of resistance. The real sense of siege and threat will likely drive a return to identity politics, recreating the conditions that enabled Hezbollah’s emergence.
Moreover, US-Gulf efforts to pursue disarmament without reconstructing war-torn Shia-majority areas are more likely to remobilize the community toward resistance rather than deter it – a dilemma that Israel, the US, and their Gulf allies have yet to grasp.
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