Israel is floating the idea of a non-aggression pact with Lebanon. It isn’t at all likely to work. The odds are minuscule that Syria, Iran, and Hezbollah will go along. But Lebanon will hold an election in a couple of months, and the offer of a non-aggression pact should play well with Lebanese voters who are uncomfortable with or hostile toward Hezbollah’s vision of perpetual war with the “Zionist entity.”
Negotiating with implacable and inflexible enemies is foolish. No sensible person suggests that the United States negotiate with Al Qaeda, for instance. Peace talks with Damascus won’t get Israelis anywhere either. Syria’s tyrant Bashar Assad needs a state of cold war with Israel to justify the oppressive policies against his country’s own citizens, and bad-faith negotiations yield him some measure of international legitimacy he doesn’t deserve.
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