America conditions its support for Lebanon on a direct meeting between Aoun and Netanyahu

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The U.S. Embassy in Beirut asserts that rapprochement between Lebanon and Israel could mark the beginning of a Lebanese national renaissance.

The U.S. Embassy in Beirut has made Lebanon’s access to “guarantees for its full sovereignty” contingent upon arranging a meeting between Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. This indicates that Washington is exerting significant pressure toward normalizing Lebanese-Israeli relations, an objective among those set by the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump despite the fragility of the truce agreement.

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In a statement, the embassy said that “holding a direct meeting between Aoun and Netanyahu, under the auspices of President Trump, would give Lebanon the opportunity to obtain tangible guarantees for its full sovereignty, secure humanitarian support and reconstruction, and fully restore the authority of the Lebanese state over its entire territory, with a U.S. guarantee.”

The statement considered that Lebanon “stands at a crossroads, and its people have a historic opportunity to reclaim their country and shape their future as a truly sovereign and independent state,” stressing that “direct engagement between Lebanon and Israel, two neighboring states that should never have been at war in the first place, could mark the beginning of a national renaissance.”

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It added that “the extension of the cessation of hostilities, achieved at the personal request of President Trump, has given Lebanon the space and opportunity to present all its legitimate demands, with the full attention of the United States government.”

The statement continued: “This is Lebanon’s moment to decide its own destiny, a destiny that concerns all its citizens,” expressing the United States’ readiness to stand by Lebanon as it seizes what the statement described as an “opportunity,” adding, “The time for hesitation is over.”

On April 17, a ten-day truce began in Lebanon and was later extended until May 17. However, Israel violates it daily through deadly shelling and widespread destruction of homes in dozens of villages in southern Lebanon.

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On April 23, the second round of negotiations between Lebanon and Israel was held in Washington, at the level of Lebanese Ambassador Nada Hamadeh and Israeli Ambassador Yehiel Leiter, similar to the first meeting held between the two sides at the U.S. State Department on April 14, the first such meeting in 43 years.

Before the truce, on March 2, Israel launched an attack on Lebanon that resulted in a total of 2,586 deaths, 8,020 injuries, and more than 1.6 million displaced persons—about one-fifth of the population—according to the latest official data.

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Last week, it was announced that there were plans to invite Netanyahu and Aoun to Washington soon, despite Hezbollah’s categorical rejection of any involvement by the Lebanese state in direct negotiations with the Hebrew state, let alone normalization of relations.

On April 15, the U.S. president said that the leaders of Israel and Lebanon would speak the following day for the first time at this level in more than three decades, without providing further details.

However, the conversation did not take place. On April 23, Aoun stated that any contact with Netanyahu had never been under consideration on his part.

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