Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected reports Thursday that he had accepted the terms of a ceasefire in Lebanon proposed Wednesday by French President Emmanuel Macron and U.S. President Joe Biden, among others.
As Breitbart News reported, Macron proposed a 21-day ceasefire at the United Nations — just as Israel had gained the upper hand against Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon. President Biden joined in, rather than backing Israel’s fight.
Notably, the proposed ceasefire does not mention Hezbollah, or its patron, Iran.
There were reports in the international media that Israel was considering the ceasefire, which led to an outpouring of criticism in Israel, especially from residents of northern Israel who have been displaced from the homes for more than a year due to Hezbollah attacks. Only opposition leader Yair Lapid, who is close to the Biden administration, accepted the idea of a ceasefire in Lebanon in principle, and even he said that a ceasefire should only be seven days.
Netanyahu, who is in the U.S. for three days to address the United Nations General Assembly, rejected the reports.
The Prime Minister’s Office issued a statement:
The report about a ceasefire is incorrect. This is an American-French proposal that the Prime Minister has not even responded to.
The report about the purported directive to ease up on the fighting in the north is the opposite of the truth. The Prime Minister has directed the IDF to continue fighting with full force, according to the plan that was presented to him.
The fighting in Gaza will also continue until all the objectives of the war have been achieved.
Israeli government spokesman David Mencer told reporters Thursday morning that while “of course, Israel is open to diplomacy .. that’s always our go-to option … Israel has yet to respond to this particular American-French proposal.”
He said that those who were pushing for a ceasefire now would find that it “works to the contrary of the objective I think we’re all trying to go for,” namely peace and stability in the region.
“It’s actually Israel that is creating the strategic and diplomatic realities” necessary for a long-term ceasefire with precision strikes on Hezbollah, he said.
“By hitting them in a way that really hurts, it’s actually Israel that is making the possibility of a political and diplomatic resolution much more realistic.”
He added: “Hezbollah simply won’t pull out of southern Lebanon because we’ve asked them to.
“Our requirements are very, very clear — and they’re reasonable as well … tens of thousands of our people who have been dislocated and have left their homes for a year now, that they’re able to return … this will be achieved when Hezbollah understands that it cannot attack Israel. Hezbollah cannot be physically along our border with southern Lebanon. So far, Hezbollah has said no to our proposal for an entire year.”
Israel’s attacks on Hezbollah mean that “we actually move closer to the reality that we all want — that is, facilitating a new security reality … based on understandings that we’ve already reached in the past, but never fully implemented.”
Mencer referred to United Nations Security Council Resolution 1559 (2004), which calls for the disarmament of non-Lebanese groups in Lebanon (i.e. Hezbollah), and Resolution 1701 (2006), which reiterates the disarmament clauses and calls for Hezbollah to withdraw from the Israeli border, north of the Litani River in southern Lebanon.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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