Lebanon’s half-formed peace plan may be Gaza’s best chance Argument by Justin Ling

In his new piece for Foreign Policy, Justing Ling ponders over Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati's peace plan for Israel-Hamas war. Caliber.Az reprints the article.

Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati has a plan for peace in Gaza and Israel. If it has any hope of becoming a reality, he’ll need Western backers. Thus far, he doesn’t have any.

It’s time for Western leaders to step up.

As the death toll in Gaza grows, now over 10,000, Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister has been trying to win allies for his three-step peace plan. First, Mikati proposes, would come a five-day pause in hostilities, during which Hamas would release some of its Israeli hostages and Israel would open its border crossings to more humanitarian aid. If the peace can hold for those 120 hours, negotiations would begin for the release of the remaining hostages in exchange for prisoners held by Israel. As that happens, work on an international summit for a permanent two-state solution would begin.

If it can get off the ground, Mikati’s proposal would channel the worst violence Israelis and Palestinians have seen in decades into the most serious peace effort since the collapse of the Oslo Accords.

It is a plan that is as ambitious as it is unlikely to succeed. But as Israel’s brutal incursion into the Gaza Strip continues, with indications that it could last indefinitely, Mikati’s plan may be the best one we have, and its odds of success are directly correlated with who chooses to join the effort. And it’s certainly better than the modest, fragmented, and incoherent positions of Western leaders to date.

While Mikati has been hobbled by political and economic catastrophe in Lebanon, he sits at a uniquely positioned nexus between various Arab powers. On Wednesday, Mikati met with the Iranian ambassador in Beirut, highlighting his ability to serve as an interlocutor with Tehran. On Saturday, he met with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who has become the guarantor for aid deliveries to the Gaza Strip. Days earlier, Mikati met with the emir of Qatar, whose country has hosted Hamas’s senior political leadership for the past decade.

Getting these Arab leaders on board will be crucial, but it is also achievable. Lebanon is particularly anxious about avoiding broader regional conflict, particularly as it would likely involve Hezbollah, an armed group with 100,000 fighters that operates independent of Mikati’s government. But they’re not the only ones. Destabilization in the region could be ruinous for Iran’s regime, already facing pressure from years of domestic unrest. Qatar, meanwhile, is keen to flex its regional leadership.

Speaking to the Economist, Mikati was bullish on the idea that he could untangle the complex Arab politics, at least. “If we have [an agreement on] international and comprehensive peace, I am sure [Hezbollah] and Hamas will lay down their weapons,” he said. He further predicted that “the Iranians will be part of a comprehensive peace.”

Mikati may have connections, but he lacks clout. A staple of Lebanese politics for the past few decades, he is viewed as a vestige of an old political order and—given his $2.6 billion net worth—kleptocracy. “Nobody believes Mikati’s leadership is sustainable even in the medium term,” Anchal Vohra wrote in Foreign Policy in 2021, Two years on, amid total political dysfunction, he remains a caretaker prime minister. And now he is trying to do the hardest job in the world: creating lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

And his plan, thus far, has floundered. Mikati has found no converts in the West, at least so far. Given that Lebanon has no formal diplomatic relations with Israel—a reality that is unlikely to change, given that Beirut is pursuing war crimes charges for the deaths of civilians in Gaza—it will need to win over Israel’s friends.

On Saturday, he met face to face with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and the two discussed the need for a pause in hostilities to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza. But while Mikati pressed on the need for a cease-fire, Washington’s position is unchanged. “That’s not policy we’re pursuing,” a State Department spokesperson said on Tuesday.

The U.S. position is no great surprise. The Biden administration has tried to leverage its close position to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to de-escalate the situation. On Wednesday, Blinken filled in more of his administration’s position, insisting that forcible displacement is not an option. “No reoccupation of Gaza after the conflict ends. No attempt to blockade or besiege Gaza. No reduction in the territory of Gaza,” he said following a G-7 foreign ministers’ meeting in Japan. Washington, however, has been supportive of Israel’s current operation and has resisted any calls for a cease-fire.

While critics have demanded the Biden administration go further, the soft diplomacy seems to be netting some results. The White House announced Thursday that Israel had agreed to a daily four-hour “humanitarian pause” to allow civilians to evacuate. It shows Israel is not intractable and that foreign advocacy can make a real impact.

Four hours of peace a day, however, is simply not good enough. Israel’s operations in Gaza threaten not only widespread destruction but potentially an even more aggressive occupation or blockade, which will only worsen a long-standing humanitarian crisis in the territory. It will be critical that other leaders put forward a more ambitious—and permanent—path to peace. And Mikati’s proposal is the only one on the table right now.

Unfortunately, the United Kingdom and European Union have staked out quixotic positions on the matter. France is focusing on organizing international aid delivery to Gaza while delivering completely contradictory messages on whether it supports a cease-fire. London has refused to stake out a real position while musing whether a humanitarian pause is even possible. Germany has only edged toward supporting a modest humanitarian pause in recent days.

With the United States committed to its own position, and the EU unlikely to coalesce around a plan, it will fall to the world’s middle powers to pick up Mikati’s challenge.

Norway, as mediator of the original Oslo Accords, would be a logical quarterback for the Lebanese proposal. “Norway has a duty to speak up about the fact that the military actions against Gaza have gone too far,” Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide wrote in Al Jazeera this week. Aside from some sweeping calls for what Israel, Hamas, and the international community must do, Eide offered no particular road map for how to get there and did not mention Lebanon’s plan. It is a position shared by the leaders of all the Nordic countries.

Canada would, similarly, be an ideal champion for the proposal. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, to date, has supported only a humanitarian pause—despite abstaining from a vote calling for exactly that at the United Nations—but domestic support for a cease-fire is mounting. Trudeau is facing an internal revolt from within his Liberal Party over his soft stance on the conflict, while a sizable majority of Canadians support an immediate cease-fire. Australia finds itself in a similar spot.

Neither the Norwegian nor the Canadian foreign affairs offices responded to a request for comment.

Mikati may find supporters for his plan outside the normal corridors of political power—he met with representatives from Brazil on Monday—but it seems certain that he will need at least one G-7 nation to take up his plan.

There are limitations to Lebanon’s proposal. It offers little clarity about what would happen to Hamas and its fighters as the cease-fire is implemented. Israel has been steadfast that the militant group must be destroyed entirely after its massacre of civilians on Oct. 7, but former Palestinian Authority official Muhammad Dahlan has warned that governing without Hamas is impossible. Mikati has not detailed how to ensure the cease-fire holds, given that Hamas has a long record of breaching such agreements.

But even if Lebanon’s peace plan is far from perfect, the world is currently bereft of better options. The only meaningful attempt for talks thus far was supposed to bring Biden together with representatives from Egypt and the Palestinian Authority, but that was scuttled after the horrific blast at Al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City.

Rather than relying on more perfectly measured statements and speeches from European capitals or via G-7 communiqué, the world’s middle powers need to help Mikati build a plan for peace.