Lapid says Lebanon's leaders are 'barely on speaking terms'

Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid has reiterated that the U.S.-brokered sea border agreement with Lebanon is “historic,” describing Israeli opposition claims that he conceded far too much to Hezbollah and Lebanon as baseless.

“Everybody – from the (security) cabinet, through the government to the Supreme Court – (approved it),” he said in an English-language interview with Israeli newspaper The Jerusalem Post.

“This agreement was based on a lot of intelligence reports that couldn’t be exposed to the general public, and I will not do so even though it might be useful in terms of (electoral) campaigning. But I will say no one who has the facts is saying Hezbollah was behind this agreement. The fact that we have an agreement and the word ‘Israel’ is written in it 20 times is a huge blow (to Hezbollah). They were unhappy with it, but they don’t have a choice,” Lapid added.

“Lebanon needed this desperately, and therefore they did something they hadn’t done in years, which is bending Hezbollah’s arm,” the Israeli PM went on to say.

As for the timeline, Lapid said that it needed to be passed by the end of October because that is when Lebanese President Michel Aoun leaves office.

“It is unclear who will replace him, and he and the other leaders of the country – the prime minister and parliament speaker – are barely on speaking terms,” The Jerusalem Post quoted Lapid as saying.

“Since we felt this is the right thing to do for Israel security, the Israel economy, and Israeli policy, we were forced into the timetable. I knew that people were going to be suspicious about signing what I think is a historic agreement five days before the election, and therefore we let our justice system make the decision,” he said, referring to the Supreme Court rejection of petitions from right-wing organizations for an injunction against the deal.