The Israeli and Lebanese militaries held a meeting on Tuesday at a United Nations building in southern Lebanon. Israel’s prime minister’s office confirmed the parties “agreed to form three joint working groups” that will, among other issues, hold “discussions on the Blue Line and points still in dispute.” Media reports have clarified this means agreeing on an official land border. The Blue Line is the Israel-Lebanon ceasefire line that currently acts as a de facto border.

On Wednesday, Israeli officials told media the intention is for the border negotiations to turn into a peace agreement. A “political source” told Israeli medium N12 that “the discussions with Lebanon are part of a broad and comprehensive plan.” The source continued: “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s policy has already changed the Middle East, and we want to continue the momentum and reach normalization with Lebanon.” An “Israeli official” confirmed: “The goal is to reach normalization.”

Lebanon and Israel agreed to a maritime border as brokered by the United States under President Joe Biden in 2022. Biden marketed that as a diplomatic triumph, but this could be even bigger.

Lebanon has for decades been run by the terrorist group Hezbollah, what the Israel Defense Forces (idf) has called its “most complicated adversary.” Israel has fought wars with terrorist groups in Lebanon since the 1970s. Just last year, the idf was fighting Hezbollah on Lebanese soil.

Now Lebanon and Israel want to make peace. This could be Israel’s biggest geopolitical change since Egypt’s peace agreement in 1978.

Victory in War, Victory in Peace?

Israel’s war with Hezbollah last year was mostly successful. The current talks wouldn’t have been possible without it. In two months, Israel was able to neutralize the majority of Hezbollah’s arsenal of an estimated 150,000 precision-guided missiles and other projectiles. The idf gutted Hezbollah’s leadership, killing its longtime leader, Hassan Nasrallah, as well as most of the top brass of its elite Radwan Force. It killed thousands of terrorists and dismantled Hezbollah’s military infrastructure in southern Lebanon. It reversed years of billions of dollars’ worth of investment from Iran to its Lebanese proxy.

“Hezbollah decided to attack us from Lebanon on October 8 [2023],” Netanyahu stated when announcing the January ceasefire that ended the war. “A year later, it is not the same Hezbollah. We have pushed them decades back. We eliminated Nasrallah, the axis of the axis.”

Hezbollah’s demise has allowed Lebanon’s civilian government to retake control. Lebanon’s presidency had been vacant since 2022 because of Hezbollah’s interference. But in January, Lebanon’s parliament voted in Gen. Joseph Aoun as president despite Hezbollah’s opposition. In his first speech to the legislature, Aoun said he intended to disarm Hezbollah. That reference received the longest standing ovation of his speech.

Lebanon’s political establishment is evidently tired of Hezbollah leadership. It is also tired of fighting Israel. Even though Israel violated Lebanese sovereignty last year, the Lebanese Army did not join the fight—a foreign army crossed Lebanon’s border and the Army ignored it.

The fact that Israeli media can report on normalization talks without sparking international chaos is a sign itself. Israel was negotiating normalization with Libya in 2023. When Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said talks were ongoing, Libya denied it and its foreign minister fled the country. No similar problems are hitting Lebanon.

A November-December poll by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy suggested a majority of Lebanese believe “internal political and economic reform is more important for our country than any foreign-policy issue, so we should stay out of foreign war.” A majority of Christian and Sunni Muslim respondents also agreed to “political negotiations for a Palestinian-Israeli agreement,” implying they are comfortable with hypothetically recognizing Israel’s right to exist.

Donald Trump’s Peace

This initiative did not start with Israel or Lebanon. According to Axios, the U.S. under Donald Trump is prodding the two sides to come together. According to Axios, this is “to help stabilize the ceasefire brokered by the Biden administration last November.”

“The working groups will be led by diplomats from the U.S., Israel and Lebanon,” a White House official told Axios. “We hope that these negotiations will begin as early as next month.”

President Trump in his first term brokered agreements between Israel and four Arab states. The United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco all agreed to recognize Israel’s right to exist. Lebanon would be different from all of them. The U.A.E., Bahrain and Morocco have had warm though under-the-table relations with Israel historically. Sudan was an enemy but never an existential threat. A deal with a perennial threat like Lebanon would be more significant than any of these.

Does this mean the world will get an Israeli-Lebanese Camp David-style agreement? Are we about to see Israel convert a former archenemy into an ally?

Warning Signs

The Washington Institute for Near East Policy poll also suggested 79 percent of Lebanese had a positive view of Hamas, this included a majority among Christian respondents. Nearly all respondents, 99 percent, said the Arab world should “immediately break all contacts with Israel in protest against its military action in Gaza.

Hezbollah is also not out of the picture. Israel may have given it a harsh beating, but the terrorist group still exists. It is still in Lebanon and is trying to find ways to rebuild. And it still has high levels of support among Lebanon’s Shia Muslim population.

The current Lebanese government is not a friend of Hezbollah’s. It is in urgent need of reconstruction help from the outside community. It wouldn’t even be in power if it weren’t for Israel’s war against Hezbollah last year. The Lebanese government may see Israel as a potential partner, but that doesn’t mean the Lebanese people agree. And once Lebanon’s economy improves and the standard of living becomes less miserable, will the people still believe “we should stay out of foreign war”?

In other words, even if some people in Lebanon want peace today, can Israel trust Lebanon to want peace tomorrow?

After President Trump brokered his peace deals in his first term, Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry wrote in our January 2021 Trumpet issue:

We all want peace. But sadly, these recent peace pacts have a deadly flaw.

Biblical prophecy gives us deep insight into these agreements. It actually foretells that moderate Arabs will unite, somewhat like we are now seeing. But they are prophesied not to cooperate with the United States or Israel!

A prophecy in Psalm 83 exposes a hidden reality behind these peace deals. We are already in the beginning stages of its fulfillment.

The Hidden Reality

The prophecy he was referring to describes a coalition of Middle Eastern peoples allying “that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance” (Psalm 83:1-4). Neither biblical nor secular history record such an alliance forming, so this is a prophecy for our day.

The psalm continues: “For they have consulted together with one consent: they are confederate against thee: the tabernacles of Edom, and the Ishmaelites; of Moab, and the Hagarenes; Gebal, and Ammon, and Amalek; the Philistines with the inhabitants of Tyre; Assur also is joined with them …” (verses 5-8). Mr. Flurry explains in his free booklet The King of the South:

You must know who the modern descendants of these people are to understand just how timely and relevant this prophecy is. Here are the modern names of these nations, as taught at Ambassador College under Herbert W. Armstrong: The Ishmaelites are Saudi Arabia; Moab and Ammon both refer to Jordan; the Hagarenes anciently dwelled in the land known as Syria today; the Philistines are the modern Palestinian Arabs; Gebal and Tyre are Lebanon.

“While it seems that these nations are moving away from radicalism and violence,” Mr. Flurry wrote in his 2021 article, “we must look beneath the surface. After all, this prophecy reveals that they will take ‘crafty counsel’—subtle and shrewd dealing. This sure prophecy shows that these nations will ally to try to blot out the name of Israel forever! That is intense hatred!”

Mr. Flurry wrote this regarding the U.A.E. and Bahrain—countries that have never been at war with Israel. Lebanon, in contrast, has a long history of war with Israel. It is a security threat directly on Israel’s border.

Whatever happens with the negotiations, don’t expect Lebanon to remain Israel’s friend. Instead, expect Lebanon to contribute to the worst attack in Israel’s history. The more Israel—and the U.S.—go down this path, the more they are walking into a trap of their own making.

To learn more, read Mr. Flurry’s article “Deadly Flaw in Mideast Peace Deals.”