After historic Lebanon-Israel meeting in Washington, both sides signal optimism but remain far apart on substance
Peloni: The Lebanese govt is a fake peace partner. They have no agency, and no enforcement capacity for anything they might commit to agreeing upon. Meanwhile, it appears that the same disregard for this fact which has infected Washington has come to make Netanyahu’s govt complicit in this shell game of accountability where agreements are made which will only serve to hamper Israel’s freedom of action, embolden and strengthen Hezbollah over time, and make believe that the Lebanese govt is acting independently when they failed to even enforce the removal of the Iranian ambassador from his current position in their country. This peace negotiating gambit is not just foolish, it is dangerous. Netanyahu should have refused to enter into such a ruse at making peace with a fake peace partner. No good can possibly come from this denial of reality by all sides so as to safeguard Trump’s Iran negotiations which are themselves a further breakdown in critical reasoning.
Israeli envoy Leiter: ‘Lebanese made it very clear that they will no longer be occupied by Hezbollah’
| Published: April 15, 2026
The Israeli and Lebanese ambassadors to the U.S. met in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday, in the first high-level meeting between representatives of the two governments since 1993.
The meeting, described by both sides as a preliminary step toward formal negotiations, was hosted at the State Department by Secretary Marco Rubio, Ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz, and U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Michel Issa.


The Grand Mufti of Palestine received by Hitler. Photo by Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1987-004-09A / Heinrich Hoffmann / CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, 


Blast site where Khamenei and dozens of the Iranian leadership were eliminated. Screengrab via X


