Amos Hochstein, during an interview for IMI Media. (Credit: Instagram/@hadleygamble)
Former U.S. envoy Amos Hochstein on Monday called on the international community to give as much importance to reconstruction in southern Lebanon as it does to Gaza, and to focus on Lebanese economic prosperity before pressing Lebanon on disarming Hezbollah.
He noted that after the Hezbollah-Israel 2006 war, rebuilding was carried out by “Hezbollah and Iran,” and said to avoid a repeat of that scenario, other countries should “get involved with real money and a real approach” to reconstruction.
"We're paying a lot of attention to reconstruction in Gaza (...), but we need to do it for Lebanon too," he said. "We need to show the people in the South that the international community doesn't only show up when there's bombings, that we also show up to rebuild the farms, to rebuild the roads, to rebuild electricity."
“Vacuums are never filled in the Middle East by good people,” he continued during an interview with journalist Hadley Gamble for the Emirati media outlet IMI, when Gamble asked him if the South would remain a "vacuum" if not rebuilt.
After recent remarks by U.S. envoy Tom Barrack, who called Lebanon a failed nation-state and threatened, again, an Israeli offensive should there be any stalling on Hezbollah’s disarmament, his predecessor, Hochstein, advocated instead for a "realistic" approach.
“Instead of looking at what they're [Lebanese government] not doing right, let’s be realistic about what we can achieve,” he said. “The best way to combat them is not to focus singularly on the disarmament of Hezbollah, but to do it in a dual track: build out the economy to bring in investment and support the Lebanese Army.”
“When Lebanon is prosperous, Hezbollah is weak,” he added.
The United States has tied any potential funding for reconstruction of the South, devastated by Israeli attacks, to a complete disarmament of Hezbollah.
For its part, Hezbollah and its ally, Parliament Speaker and head of the Amal Movement Nabih Berri, are calling for the government to take the lead, without publicly admitting they lack the same material resources they did in 2006.
The government acknowledged that while it is committed to rebuilding villages and infrastructure, it too lacks the means to do so, as Lebanon, since 2019, has been facing one of the worst recorded economic crises worldwide.
A meeting on reconstruction is scheduled for Tuesday in Msayleh, southern Lebanon, under Berri’s supervision. The Israeli army regularly targets any reconstruction efforts in the South, including equipment, engineers and a storage site for excavators and cranes.
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Israel's tough approach “counterproductive”
Hochstein said Israel should “understand that the muscular approach, and the more pressure … sometimes gets to a point of diminishing returns and [becomes] counterproductive,” as its army carries out daily attacks against southern Lebanon and continues to pressure the Lebanese government on disarmament.
He called for “giving the government an inch” and allowing the army to be deployed so it can do its job.
“You can't blame them for not doing something while not giving them the opportunity to do it,” he insisted, as Israel and Barrack have recently criticized the slowness of the process, with Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz even accusing President Joseph Aoun of “dragging his feet.”
Hochstein, who mediated the 2022 agreement on the delineation of the maritime border between Tel Aviv and Beirut, considered it important to build on “significant regional momentum," toward an agreement on the land border and eventually “a non-aggression pact.”
Hochstein argued that Hezbollah is “politically at its lowest point, not as low as six months ago, but still weak in a country that doesn't want them,” while militarily it is “too weak to fight Israel, but strong enough to fight Lebanon.”
He said it's “unbelievable” that the Lebanese government is working to disarm Hezbollah. “That's a great moment,” he said. “Now, we have to implement it.”
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