Former US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman leveled harsh criticism on the newly announced Israel-Lebanon maritime deal that saw the two sides adjust the boundaries of its territorial and economic waters following years of US mediation efforts.
The deal has drawn heavy criticism from the Right, which has accused Prime Minister Yair Lapid of buckling under the pressure due to the threats of war from the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah.
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Hezbollah had even sent drones to the nearby gas-drilling facility to warn it might strike it if Lebanon and Israel reach a deal that was not on its terms, although Israel had no claims to the gas reservoirs north of its economic waters.
In an exclusive interview with Israel Hayom Friedman said that Hezbollah essentially extorted Israel when it pressured Lebanon to demand the entire disputed area.
"Do you want to be perceived as potentially overpaying, giving added value to a terrorist group to protect yourself with regard to your sovereign territory, and you can make a pretty strong argument that that sends a very dangerous message," Friedman said on the Israeli concessions, which he said departed from the US proposals when he served in the Trump administration.
"We were generally in agreement with Israel that this was going to be a very fair compromise for Israel, to give Lebanon 60% of the disputed territory and Israel would get 40%. Israel was prepared to do that, we thought that was extremely fair," he said, adding that he assumed the new Israeli concessions that resulted in the entire area being handed over to Lebanon were due to American pressure.
"Our experience was that the 60-40 split would have been acceptable to the Lebanese government but was not acceptable to the Hezbollah proxies, and that is why the deal didn't get done [during the Trump years]. To me, it seems that Hezbollah is in a very good position inside Lebanon to take credit for the better economics, for the better deal. If the whole idea here is to show that Lebanon has its own identity independent of Hezbollah, this proves just the opposite, it proves Hezbollah was a major negotiating party and was the party that was successful in obtaining the added concessions from where we were a couple of years ago."
Under the new deal, Israel agreed to hand over the disputed area, which includes some territorial waters but mainly economic waters. In exchange, it would get Lebanese "permanent" recognition of its existing border with the enemy state near the shore, as well as a share of the revenue from gas extraction in a field that lies in Lebanese waters if enough gas is found to have it extracted.
Friedman said that the deal "may be a good deal for Israel if its strategy is to placate Hezbollah to make sure that at least Karish [gas field] will go online, that is not an irrational calculation, and it seems to me that that is what they did: They overpaid on Qana [field] so that they could get some protection on Karish. But it does, to a certain extent reveal a weakness that Israel needs to make these types of concessions to avoid actions from Hezbollah; maybe it would work out and maybe it won't, I am not second-guessing that decision, but people need to understand the message from that decision has consequences, it tells the world that Israel is willing to overpay for protection."
Friedman warned that the US guarantees that are designed to ensure Lebanon abides by the deal might be problematic.
"As an American, I really could not understand the idea of what the American guarantee is to Israel. First of all, there is no guarantee. What is America going to do? Let's say God forbid the Lebanese walk away from all of this stuff...Look at the letter that [George W.] Bush wrote to Ariel Sharon [in 2005], look at the Budapest Memorandum, it's not like these pieces of paper are rock solid, but here it is even less, because what exactly is America's commitment in the event that a future Lebanon walks away from this agreement, what is America going to do? Are they going to defend Israel if Lebanon attacks Karish? History tells us it [the guarantee] doesn't mean very much, and more importantly, why is Israel looking for American guarantees on things like this? The whole point of the Israeli national security strategy is that it defends itself by itself, and never seeks to have America fight its battles... So now Israel is going to make a deal with a foreign country, and it's going to rely entirely on the United States to ensure performance, and if performance doesn't happen, what's going happen? Israel is going to start making demands to the US that the US may or may not be willing to make, and you create friction between two allies."
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