For Israel, It Pays to Be a Winner

A core misconception about Israel’s policy since Oct. 7 is that the country has favored military action at the expense of diplomacy. The truth is that it’s Israel’s decisive battlefield victories that have created diplomatic openings that have been out of reach for decades — and would have remained so if Israel hadn’t won.

In Beirut on Monday, Tom Barrack, the U.S. ambassador to Turkey and special envoy for Syria, said he was “unbelievably satisfied” by the response he got from President Joseph Aoun of Lebanon on U.S. proposals to disarm Hezbollah, reportedly in exchange for critical financial aid after a six-year economic crisis. Aoun’s government is the first in the country’s history to make progress in disarming Hezbollah’s strongholds near the Israeli border — a basic condition for Israel to withdraw from five military outposts it still occupies in southern Lebanon.

Hezbollah is not a group that will go quietly — not if it has any other option. But it’s because Israel destroyed it as an effective fighting force last year that it’s now possible for the Lebanese state to again possess the most basic form of sovereignty, a monopoly on the use of force within its borders. And it’s only because of Israel’s victory that there’s a realistic prospect of a peace agreement between Jerusalem and Beirut as part of an expanded Abraham Accords.

There’s a similarly hopeful story in Syria, where last week the Trump administration lifted sanctions on the government of President Ahmed al-Shara. The United States has been a step ahead of Israel in warming to al-Shara, who once led a branch of Al Qaeda and whom some Israeli leaders still see as a closet jihadist. Now there are reports of talks between Jerusalem and Damascus aiming at a de facto peace agreement.

Where that goes remains to be seen. But it’s unlikely that al-Shara’s insurgents could have come to power if Israel hadn’t first destroyed Hezbollah, depriving the regime of Bashar al-Assad of one of its most effective military arms. And neither Jerusalem nor Damascus might have been amenable to talks if Israel hadn’t first destroyed many of Syria’s remaining weapon stockpiles in December, giving al-Shara an incentive to seek a diplomatic outcome and Israel confidence that it wouldn’t face another menace to its north.

Then there’s Gaza. After President Trump’s White House dinner with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel on Monday, Israeli officials suggested they were close to a deal that would pause the fighting in exchange for Hamas’s release of more hostages. Trump has speculated that an agreement could happen this week.