On Thursday, April 9, at 6:47 p.m. local time, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that he had instructed his cabinet to begin direct negotiations with Lebanon "as soon as possible." [1] The statement was four sentences long. It contained the words "peaceful relations" and "disarming Hezbollah" in the same paragraph. It was, by any historical measure, extraordinary.

Israel and Lebanon have been in a state of war since 1948. Seventy-eight years. No peace treaty. No diplomatic relations. No embassy. No consulate. No direct telephone line between heads of state. Lebanese law makes it a criminal offense to communicate with Israeli citizens. Israeli maps do not recognize Lebanon's claim to the Shebaa Farms. The last time officials from both countries sat in the same room was the 1983 May 17 Agreement, brokered by the US, which Lebanon's parliament never ratified and which collapsed within a year.

Now Netanyahu says he wants to talk.

The Washington Post reported that the State Department will host the first round of negotiations in Washington next week. [2] The format is direct — Israeli and Lebanese delegations at the same table, not the indirect proximity talks that characterized the 2022 maritime border agreement. Euronews confirmed that Netanyahu's cabinet received formal instructions on Thursday, with the stated objectives of "disarming Hezbollah and establishing peaceful relations between the two countries." [3]

The objectives are worth parsing. Disarming Hezbollah is not a negotiating position that Lebanon's government can deliver even if it wanted to. Hezbollah holds 13 seats in the 128-member parliament, controls the southern third of the country, and operates a military apparatus larger than the Lebanese Armed Forces. Asking Lebanon to disarm Hezbollah is like asking Belgium to disarm NATO. The entity being disarmed is larger than the entity being asked to do the disarming.

And then the timing. On April 8, the day before Netanyahu's announcement, Israeli strikes killed 254 people in Lebanon, according to Al Jazeera's count. [4] The Dahieh strikes alone killed 47 in a single residential block. Netanyahu's own office confirmed there is "no ceasefire in Lebanon" — he said it explicitly, on the record, the same day he offered to negotiate peace.

You do not typically extend a hand while the other hand holds a bomb. But this is 2026, and the diplomatic grammar has changed. Netanyahu is offering talks with a country he is actively bombing, and the US is preparing to host them. The Lebanese government has not yet responded publicly. It is difficult to respond to an invitation delivered over the sound of airstrikes.

-- YOSEF STERN, Jerusalem