JERUSALEM — Jonathan Conricus has spent years explaining Israel’s wars to the world. Now he sees something else: a possible exit. The former IDF international spokesman, now a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, pointed to the Lebanon track as the real story.
“The big news of the weekend,” he called it. It gave him, he said, “a glimmer of hope that maybe the future will be different.” Different from the near-constant war Israel has faced over the last almost three years.
Different from a regional picture that looks to many like one long, unbroken crisis. Conricus sees the Middle East as a series of collisions, not a single conflict. One moment the conversation is about attacks in the Strait of Hormuz and US retaliation.
The next, it shifts to Iran, Bahrain, and a threat from President Trump to “complete the job.” Then there is the question of whether that memorandum of understanding was really an MOU at all. But he keeps coming back to Lebanon.
A peace deal between two sovereign states would cut against the usual grain of regional alignments. Conricus noted it is “very interesting to see, very telling to see, who is for a peace deal between two sovereign states and who’s against it.” In his view, the divide exposes something fundamental.
Those truly committed to sovereignty, democracy, and peace should be welcoming a roadmap between Israel and Lebanon, not reflexively resisting it because it weakens “Iran and Hezbollah.” He cast the moment as a quiet rebuke to those who have spent years claiming to care about human rights while opposing any development that might reduce violence. Conricus made clear this is not a simple peace announcement but a process.
Asked about criticism from Israeli hard-liners, he dismissed National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir as “a” — the report cuts off there, but the tone is unmistakable. Ben-Gvir and his allies have long opposed any territorial compromise or diplomatic opening with Israel’s northern neighbor.
The Lebanon deal, if it holds, would represent a sharp break from the pattern of the last three years. For families across the region, this matters. Not as a headline.
As a lived reality. Conricus’s comments come as communities across Asia watch the Middle East.
The picture has often looked like one long, unbroken crisis. He sees it differently. He sees a series of collisions, and now a possible turning point.
The question is whether the deal can survive the opposition it has already drawn. Iran and Hezbollah have reasons to oppose any normalization between Israel and Lebanon. So do some in Israel itself.
Conricus’s point is that the opposition itself is revealing. It shows who really wants peace and who does not.
For now, he is holding onto that glimmer of hope. “Maybe the future will be different,” he said. That is a big maybe.
But it is more than most analysts are offering.
