Trump Said to Warn Israel Not to Remain in Southern Lebanon Beyond 60-Day Ceasefire

Peloni:  Should this report, which is based on unnamed sources, prove to be accurate, it will be very damaging to the peace agreed upon in the North.

By | Jan 19, 2025

In southern Lebanon, a 60-day ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah is now in force. Both sides made certain solemn commitments. The Israelis said that they would remove their troops from Lebanon within 60 days, provided that Hezbollah honored its pledge to pull its own troops and weapons out of southern Lebanon and to redeploy them north of the Litani River. The ceasefire began on November 27, and already there have been violations by Hezbollah, which has been caught by the Israelis moving troops not out of, but rather, into different positions within southern Lebanon. It has also been found smuggling in more weapons from Syria and also trying to place rockets still in southern Lebanon into new hiding places, thereby violating its promise to remove all weapons from the area. Israel naturally responded by tank fire on suspects carrying weapons in. a car, and on Hezbollah military structures near the border with Israel.

There is continued worry in Israel about continued violations by Hezbollah, and about the very slow pace of the Lebanese Army in moving into southern Lebanon. As a consequence, the Israelis have said that they may be compelled to remain in southern Lebanon beyond when the ceasefire is due to end (January 27) if they are convinced that the Lebanese National Army has not exerted full control over Hezbollah operatives and made sure they have been entirely removed, along with their weapons, north of the Litani River. Much will depend on whether the Lebanese Army, bolstered by the appointment of a vehemently anti-Hezbollah president, Joseph Aoun, and provided with more than $100 million in American funds that were originally meant for Egypt ($95 million) and Israel ($7.5 million), that will allow it to pay for more soldiers and more weapons, and allow it to act more forcefully to compel Hezbollah to move all of its men and weapons north of the Litani.

Having announced its attention to remain, if it deems it necessary, in southern Lebanon beyond the 60 days of the ceasefire, the IDF must have been unpleasantly surprised to learn from Trump’s men that he has “warned” Israelis about letting the “ceasefire agreement collapse.” It’s an unfair and bizarre charge. The IDF had been scrupulously fulfilling its own withdrawal commitments, but has now slowed down it movement out of Lebanon — and indeed has attacked several Hezbollah operatives in response to the terror group’s repeated violations of the ceasefire. More on Trump’s ill-considered “warning” to Israel about his not wanting “the ceasefire agreement to collapse” can be found here: “Crisis between Israel, US? Trump warns against collapse of Lebanon ceasefire – exclusive,” by Amichai Stein, Jerusalem Post, January 

Senior Israeli officials have indicated their intention to remain in southern Lebanon beyond the 60-day ceasefire, due to the slow deployment of the Lebanese army, raising concerns in Washington, The Jerusalem Post learned on Thursday.

Sources close to US President-elect Donald Trump have reportedly conveyed a warning to Israeli officials: “We don’t want the ceasefire agreement in Lebanon to collapse.”…

Nor does Israel want “the ceasefire agreement…to collapse.” But what should the IDF do when it discovers that Hezbollah is violating its commitments under the ceasefire, by moving weapons to new hiding places in southern Lebanon, or even smuggling in new weapons south of the Litani River, or has been placing its operatives in new hideouts, in villages where they had not been placed before? The Lebanese National Army is still outgunned by Hezbollah, and has been proceeding slowly in its attempts to push Hezbollah’s forces north of the Litani. Two hopeful signs: first, the Biden administration has provided an immediate infusion of $102.5 million to strengthen the LNA; second, the new president of Lebanon, Joseph Aoun, is an avowed enemy of Hezbollah, unlike his predecessor Michel Aoun, a Christian who always supported Hezbollah. President Aoun is well aware that the IDF has severely degraded Hezbollah’s military strength, having destroyed at least 80% of the vast arsenal — some 150,000 rockets and missiles — that it had when it attacked Israel. But it will take a while to for the LNF to feel it is strong enough even to take on a weakened Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, and enforce the ceasefire. The more the LNF does to keep Hezbollah on the straight and narrow, the less that the IDF will have to do.

The IDF does not deserve any criticism from the Trump administration over its commitment to the ceasefire with Hezbollah. The only reason the IDF may be compelled to remain longer than the original 60 days in southern Lebanon is to ensure that Hezbollah, which is trying to hide both men and weapons, does in fact pull out of southern Lebanon to positions north of the Litani River. The IDF will be delighted when the LNF has been strengthened enough to fully take control. Embattled Israel has several other fronts to worry about right now — Syria, with its new jihadist government, the Houthis who are continuing to lob missiles at Israel, and of course Iran, with its headlong rush to acquire nuclear weapons that is the greatest threat to the Jewish state’s existence.

Instead of warning Israel on the need to remove its troops at the end of 60 days, no matter what, the Americans should show that they understand the problem is not Israel, but Hezbollah, which is trying in every deceptive way it can to keep both some fighters and weapons south of the Litani. In such circumstances, it would be madness for Israel to pull all of its own forces back inside Israel. Trump should not be “warning” Israel, but making clear that he understands and sympathizes with Israel’s attempt to make sure that the withdrawal from south Lebanon will not be unilateral.

He might deliver — or have Secretary of State Marco Rubio deliver, a statement like this:

“When Israel and Hezbollah signed a ceasefire agreement on November 27, it was assumed that both sides would scrupulously adhere to the requirement that they both pull their forces from the area between the Litani River and the Israel-Lebanese border. Unfortunately, there have been several incidents in which Hezbollah was caught by the IDF both smuggling more weapons into southern Lebanon, to replace those it was ostentatiously removing, and moving weapons already in the south from one hideout to another. Hezbollah operatives have also been detected moving themselves to new positions in southern Lebanon. Because of this, the IDF understandably will find itself forced to remain in southern Lebanon beyond the sixty days originally contemplated, and will stay unless, and until, Hezbollah stops trying to violate its commitments under the ceasefire agreement. Hezbollah must stop playing games. Otherwise, as I have said before, all hell will break loose.

There. That’s more like it.

January 19, 2025 | 14 Comments »

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14 Comments / 14 Comments

  1. In one of his first acts as president, Aoun nominated Nawaf Salam, the head of the International Court of Justice, as Prime Minister of Lebanon after winning the majority of votes by the members of parliament.[

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Aoun

    On 6 February 2024, he was elected as the President of the ICJ.[29][30] Salam’s appointment as President of the ICJ in February 2024 coincided directly with the first hearing on South Africa’s genocide lawsuit against Israel in January 2024. Salam took over the case brought by South Africa against Israel.[31]

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nawaf_Salam

  2. @fquigley

    Reader
    Answer as best you can, honestly, why do many on this site dodge and weave, and do not stand proudly to answer you…and often me obviously

    So you noticed that, too, that usually my posts are ignored, and often – yours, too.

    There is, actually, a censorship trick for that but I don’t want to say what it is and give anybody ideas in case it is not that and others simply think that my posts are not worth bothering with.

    What do you think about my response to Raphael on this thread:

    This explains WHY in detail but it’s a long read:
    https://franciscogilwhite.substack.com/p/system-test-part-2-research-question-development

    BTW, what happened with Ted Belman?

  3. @Raphael

    Why does Trump seem to be sticking it to Israel?

    Well, the simplest answer is that presidents of the US are supposed to promote its interests, and, if so, it is supposed to be in the US’s interests that Israel must be eventually destroyed.

    Every president of the US does something to make sure that Israel remains a country under siege, pretends that Israel’s worst terrorist enemies are just another side of a serious conflict and are Israel’s legitimate negotiation partners and entities capable of building a democracy and deserving to have their own (24th Arab) state on Israel’s historic Biblical territory.

    In the meanwhile the US is perfectly aware that the TSFS will make Israel indefensible and that Israel’s enemies swore to destroy it together with its Jews, and yet the TSFS remains the most important issue the US keeps trying to force on Israel by hook or by crook.

    How much more evidence is needed to figure out why?

  4. @fquigley

    …Jews were forced to see reality of the present… …they see their saviour Trump doing the double-cross

    IF ONLY!

    The vast majority are in DENIAL!

    This cannot be happening/this too shall pass/people are good at heart/it can never happen again/he is just saying this because [fill in the blanks]/he is under enormous pressure/he knows nothing about this [recall “Stalin doesn’t know!”]/this is his advisers/the Deep State, etc., etc./don’t tell me ’cause it hurts/there is nothing anyone can do/we must save America/we must save the Western Civilization (but Israel will, somehow, manage while we are saving everybody else)/keep on keeping on, etc., etc.

    Gil-White has a recent essay about Trump (par1, Part 2 is forthcoming) on his (new) website which I am tempted to post but keep restraining myself because of the expected violent reaction from his fans.

    The term “conspiracy theory” is a smear designed to shame anyone who dares to think outside the consensus into sticking to it instead.

    Of course, I do think that such ideas like “our elites are reptiloids” are idiotic (this is NOT from Gil-White) but, lately, I’ve been wondering about it occasionally.

    I hope it brings you some comfort that American anthropology follows the Marxian model of societal development (this is from a retired professor of anthropology), other than that, if the theory will revive, it will be only after the catastrophes of WWIII if there is anyone left alive then.

    Have you read The Iron Heel by Jack London?

    I should give it another try, I started reading it years ago but it felt kind of outdated.

  5. October 7 was so traumatic because Jews were forced to see reality of the present

    And they were peering into the pit that is emblematical of the Pogrom once more

    Ref the woman and two babies on the edge of the pit

    But nothing at all like the present and increasing terror and unrelieved fright…because they see their saviour Trump doing the double-cross

    To cap all of that feeling they have nowhere to go because they are INDOCTRINATED against Marx’s theory

  6. Reader

    I’m with you until like Gil White you enter into conspiracy

    “But, like I already said, it was all agreed upon in advance, and Israel WANTS to be pushed int land giveaways and, eventually, into the TSFS (GOD FORBID!) ”

    By introducing conspiracy you are introducing at best diversion

    As I said before unlike Marxism and Trotsky…these are weak people and a weak ideology

  7. Reader

    But Israel didn’t confront the world

    You have broken the arrangement the arrangement is off the table.

    Tell bully trump start again

    Israel doesn’t earn respect by words but ACTION

  8. Raphael

    I’ll answer you though you don’t to me. Trump and Biden were consumed by hatred. Both are psychopaths. I suspect Biden from catholicism Trump from Protestantism. And Trump hates the hapless Netanyahu with a hate so deep because he cannot express it and has to keep it suppressed. Plus Bibi is a LOSER and does not want that to tarnish dancing glamour boy

  9. I just don’t get it. Why does Trump seem to be sticking it to Israel? I don’t think that he is “anti-Israel”, so I’ve got to think that he’s playing a bigger game, and that he’s got Israel’s back. If not, as Uncle Mordechai said to Hadassah, “For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your family will not endure.” Let Israel also remember Tehillim 146, where it says, “Do not put your trust in princes, in mortal man, in whom there is no help….Happy are those whose help is the G_d of Jacob.”

  10. Reader

    Answer as best you can, honestly, why do many on this site dodge and weave, and do not stand proudly to answer you…and often me obviously

  11. @peloni

    it will be very damaging to the peace agreed upon in the North.

    Hochstein has been negotiating with Lebanon/Hizballah for months to give Lebanon parts of the Golan Heights and possibly other areas in the North.

    By evacuating 120 thousand people from there for “humanitarian reasons”, Israel made it a no-man’s land.

    To me, this makes the demand for the IDF to get out of the Southern Lebanon regardless of whether Lebanon/Hizballah keeps to its side of the agreement very ominous.

    And this is a friendly to Israel administration?

    We may be crying for Biden soon!

    But, like I already said, it was all agreed upon in advance, and Israel WANTS to be pushed int land giveaways and, eventually, into the TSFS (GOD FORBID!)

  12. The more Israel gives in, the harder they push:

    Trump: Israel-Hamas truce ‘better hold,’ or ‘all hell will break out’

    https://www.jns.org/trump-israel-hamas-truce-better-hold-or-all-hell-will-break-out/

    Trump said he had told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, “Just keep doing what you have to do. You have to have—this has to end. We want it to end, but to keep doing what has to be done.”

    Netanyahu said on Saturday night that Trump has given Jerusalem full backing to resume the war if talks with Hamas on the second phase of the ceasefire agreement prove futile…

    ,,,The deal “is the result of Israel’s cooperation with the outgoing administration of President [Joe] Biden and the incoming administration of President Trump,” said Netanyahu.

    Deja vu all over again.

    Does anybody think That Trump is so dumb that he doesn’t know what this deal costs Israel?

    No other country in the world would release thousands of terrorist murderers like this, and no other country in the world would allow itself to be pushed into this kind of a deal.

    And no one would DARE to try and push any other country into this kind of a deal.

  13. Surprised by the report of Trump’s demand not to break the ceasefire in Lebanon? Don’t be. Surprised that the demand was made to the Israelis? Don’t be.

    There was a ceasefire on 06 October 2023 and, if memory serves me correctly, it was Hamas which broke it, not Israel.

    But if you are an American administration, why let a pesky fact get in the way?

    Why indeed!