As Lebanon prepares to conduct direct negotiations with Israel, the May 17, 1983 agreement between the two countries, which at the time remained a dead letter, returns to the forefront. President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam are facing sharp criticism from Hezbollah, which rejects any settlement, waving veiled threats.

Published on: 04/22/2026 - 18:30

Since the announcement of a new round of direct negotiations between Lebanon and Israel that will take place on April 23, after a first meeting in Washington on April 14, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam have been facing a campaign of criticism and smear led by Hezbollah supporters.

Aoun, who is counting on negotiations to reach the withdrawal of the Israeli army from southern Lebanon and a final demarcation of the borders with the Hebrew state, faced threats from Shiite party officials that even indirectly amounted to death threats.

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Beirut took this threat seriously because of Hezbollah's past, a number of whose members were convicted in the case of the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in 2025, by a special United Nations court.

In an interview with Hezbollah's Al-Manar channel, Nawaf Moussawi, one of the party's leaders, warned on Saturday, saying: "If the president takes decisions unilaterally, he will not be more important than Anwar Sadat," referring to the former Egyptian president who was assassinated in 1981, three years after signing the Camp David Accords with Israel.

Mousavi added that any negotiations or agreement between Israel and Lebanon would be "rejected, not recognized, and thrown in the garbage, just like the May 17, 1983 agreement."

An agreement remained on paper

This security agreement, which was never implemented, was officially signed between Lebanon and Israel under the auspices of the United States in the Khaldeh area near Beirut at the height of the Lebanese war (1975-1990). It was the country of the cedars, and at that time it was headed by Amin Gemayel (between 1982 and 1988), under Israeli and Syrian occupation.

Under the supervision of the American envoy Maurice Draper, Deputy Secretary of State in charge of the Middle East, Ambassador Antoine Fattal was at the head of the Lebanese negotiating delegation at the time, while diplomat David Kimsh was heading the Israeli delegation.

After 35 meetings between the Lebanese and Israelis that began on December 28, 1982, and were organized in Lebanon and Israel, a 12-item agreement was reached that was supposed to open the way to a permanent peace between the two countries.

The agreement declared in its preamble “the end of the state of war” between the two countries, and the second clause stipulated the two countries’ commitment to “resolving differences between them by peaceful means.”

The agreement stipulated the establishment of a security zone in southern Lebanon, a timetable for the withdrawal of Israeli forces, and each party’s commitment that its territory not turn into a base for “terrorist or hostile activities” against the other. The agreement even stipulated subsequent negotiations “to reach agreements on the movement of goods, products, and people.”

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This agreement, which was approved by the Lebanese Parliament, was never signed by President Gemayel. In March 1984, the Council of Ministers canceled the text under pressure from Syrian President Hafez al-Assad and his Lebanese allies at the time, including Druze leader Walid Jumblatt and Nabih Berri, head of the Amal Movement, who were hostile to any agreement with Israel.

The main opponent of this agreement, Hafez al-Assad, told Amin Gemayel somewhat ironically that canceling the agreement was “a victory for the people of Syria and Lebanon and the entire Arab nation” and that Damascus “will remain alongside Lebanon in its struggle for independence and sovereignty” at a time when the Syrian army was an occupying force in Lebanese territory.

Gemayel recently confirmed, in an interview with the Lebanese newspaper L'Orient Le Jour, that Israel also "did not, in fact, want to implement the May 17 agreement" and accused it of adding "items to the agreed upon text at the last minute." In particular, a clause requiring the simultaneous withdrawal of Israeli and Syrian forces from Lebanon. “This was a way to grant veto power to Syria,” says Gemayel, adding, “especially since we were not able to control the decision to withdraw the Syrian army.”

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After the Syrian checkpoint, an “Iranian veto”?

Comparing the 1983 agreement with the current situation, Sami Nader, director of the Institute of Political Science at Saint Joseph University in Beirut, points out that the current regional context is completely different.

He mentions that “in 1983, Egypt, led by Sadat, was the only one that signed a peace agreement with Israel, but today several Arab countries preceded Lebanon on this path, as the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan in particular signed the Abraham Accords under the supervision of Donald Trump, and Jordan preceded them with a peace treaty (Editor’s note: the Wadi Araba Treaty in 1994). Today even Syria, which was the main obstacle to the May 17, 1983 agreement, is ready To sign an agreement with the Israelis.

The current Syrian authority, led by Ahmed al-Sharaa, said last Friday, in a diplomatic forum in Turkey, that it is open to direct negotiations with Israel regarding the occupied Golan, if the two countries reach a security agreement stipulating Israel’s withdrawal from the Syrian lands it recently occupied.

“In 1983, Hezbollah, which was newly established, had no real influence in Lebanon. Today, it is the main obstacle to these negotiations, just like its Iranian supporter, who opposes regional efforts to normalize relations with Israel.” Sami Nader adds: “Direct negotiations between Lebanon and Israel will deprive Iran of a means of pressure: The Islamic Republic wants Lebanon, through Hezbollah, to remain a tool in its hand. While Iran is negotiating with the Great Satan, which the United States calls it, it wants to prevent Lebanon from negotiating with the Lesser Satan, which, in their opinion, is represented by Israel.”

Yellow line "raises suspicions"

Finally, Sami Nader points out a “fundamental difference” between the Israeli invasion in 1982 and the situation today “because of the yellow line drawn by the Netanyahu government, which isolates a part of Lebanon’s territory that was destroyed and evacuated of its population.”

Israel says it wants to draw a "yellow line" deep into southern Lebanon with the aim of protecting the population of northern Israel from Hezbollah strikes.

From the Lebanese side, this “buffer zone,” which extends over hundreds of square kilometers from the Mediterranean in the west to the borders of Lebanon and Syria in the east, is seen as a border drawn unilaterally by Israel. In Gaza, the yellow line established by Israel after the ceasefire last October separates the Palestinian Strip from north to south, between an area controlled by Hamas and another area practically controlled by Israel.

Sami Nader stresses that this yellow line “raises doubts about Israel’s intentions.” He explains: "Because it reminds of a scenario that was previously developed in the Syrian Golan, that is, an annexation scenario, and no observer can rule out this hypothesis with an extreme right-wing government ruling Israel."

Nader adds: “More than Amin Gemayel in 1983, President Aoun seems to believe that the only way for Lebanon to avoid the possibility of such a scenario is to negotiate, that is, to seek peace and thus somewhat disarm Hezbollah in exchange for the restoration of the occupied territories.” Sami Nader concludes, saying: “Because the other option, which is the military option adopted by the Shiite party, allows Israel to justify the occupation of southern Lebanon.”

Original article in French

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