“We have now kind of turned the tables in Lebanon,” said Jonathan Conricus, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a former international spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces. In an exchange published by The Media Line, he argued that Israeli military action, “forced upon Israel” as he put it, had unexpectedly given Lebanon room to act like a sovereign state instead of a stage for outside powers.
Conricus called the Lebanon track “the big news of the weekend.” After almost three years of near-constant war for Israel, it gave him “a glimmer of hope that maybe the future will be different.” He was careful to say this is a process, not a finished peace.
Who backs the Lebanon roadmap
He found the reactions revealing. It was “very telling to see,” he said, who supports a peace deal between two sovereign states and who opposes one. In his view, anyone who truly values sovereignty, democracy and peace should welcome a roadmap between Israel and Lebanon, rather than resist it because it weakens “Iran and Hezbollah.” He also took a swipe at people who have spent years professing concern for human rights while objecting to anything that might reduce violence.
The practical framework, as he described it, has two parts. Israeli troops stay in southern Lebanon until conditions allow a withdrawal. Meanwhile the Lebanese Armed Forces move into selected areas just past the “yellow line,” take charge there and dismantle what is left of Hezbollah’s capabilities. He called it a “pilot program” that could grow if it works. “If there is a chance of peace between our two sovereign states,” he said, “then I think it’s definitely worth taking calculated risks in order to do so.”
Asked about Israeli hard-liners who object, Conricus waved off National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir as “an outlier” with no authority on the matter, whose stance reflects his political agenda “in election season.”
Hezbollah, he said, was once “very, very powerful,” with “more than 130,000 rockets” and advanced missiles that could reach deep into Israel. That changed after October 7 and the fighting that followed: the “beeper attack,” the killing of Hassan Nasrallah and other senior commanders, and the destruction of the Radwan unit. What remains, in his telling, is weak enough for the Lebanese state to try to reassert itself.
He sees a possible opening with Saudi Arabia as well, but not soon. Riyadh is unlikely to move under the current Israeli government, Conricus said, and normalization would probably wait until after Israeli elections because of the “political baggage and weight” attached to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Even then, he expects the “so-called Palestinian issue” to be used to “sidetrack and ruin” the effort.
Iran: “a twilight zone”
On Iran his tone darkened. With a 60-day ceasefire in place, he said the region is living in “kind of a twilight zone.” His main objection to the US memorandum of understanding is what it leaves out. “It doesn’t address their nuclear weapons aspirations. It doesn’t address their ballistic missiles,” he said, and it also skips Iran’s proxy activity and support for terror across the region.
What the document does provide, he argued, is sanctions relief, access to the dollar system and permission to sell oil, all “without really getting much in return.” He first called it “a very frustrating document,” then “very generous.” He described it as “quite a betrayal to the Iranian people,” many of whom took to the streets expecting help and now face a stronger regime with more money for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and terror networks.
Washington, he suggested, is more concerned with oil prices, gas prices and midterm elections than with the Middle East itself. The idea that money calms extremist regimes has already been refuted by history, he said. “That never happens. You give money to terrorists and terror supporters, they will use it exactly to continue to promote that agenda.”
Gaza and Hamas
Turning to Gaza, Conricus described civilians squeezed into a shrinking space under “Hamas oppression,” with “no freedom of expression, … no freedom of assembly,” and nobody free to criticize Hamas. The group governs through “the power of the AK-47” and what he called a “medieval” system of punishment. Protests against it, he said, are courageous because dissent there can bring torture or death.
Nothing substantive changes, in his view, until Hamas disarms. The first item in the agreement is that it must “lay down their weapons” and pass power to a civilian body that can start rebuilding. He does not expect that soon, and said Hamas is violating the deal to stay in power. Media coverage, he added, dwells on suffering without asking “why are they suffering, what brings this suffering, and most importantly, how can it be stopped?”
Should ordinary Gazans be armed to resist Hamas? Conricus was wary. Hamas had “very substantial levels of support” in Gaza until October 7, he said, and although that has fallen after the devastation of war, he is not convinced the underlying mindset has shifted. There are reports of Israel supplying arms to some local groups in places such as Khan Younis and Rafah, he said, but this is “very sporadic.” His gut feeling is that “deep down, they’re still jihadist.” He presented that as a personal judgment, not a finding backed by scientific evidence.
The case against Egypt
His sharpest words were for Cairo. Egypt’s closure of Rafah is “very, very cruel” and “cold-hearted,” he said, because Gazans are denied exit even for medical, family or humanitarian reasons. He argued Egypt could have shortened the war by letting civilians move into a temporary humanitarian zone outside Gaza, leaving only Hamas to fight. Because it did not, the war ran longer and killed more people than it had to.
Conricus accused Egypt of treating Gaza as a tool against Israel. He pointed to school curricula that he said teach “the worst levels of anti-Semitism documented in the Arab world,” a military he considers oversized for a country with no obvious land threats, and exercises that echo 1973 war plans. He said Egyptian authorities let Hamas stockpile weapons through Sinai and Rafah, letting “powder” build up in a “powder keg.” He also faulted years of Israeli complacency, especially under Netanyahu though not only then.
He still backs the peace with Egypt and says he prefers peace to war. But he calls the arrangement “very, very superficial” and says Israel needs a reset in how it deals with Cairo: more transparency, changes in education and public sentiment, and much firmer action against weapons transfers into Gaza.
Conricus recalled that in 2004, as a company commander in Givati, he saw “big Hamas tunnels under Rafah” already big enough for small trucks and cars. “We allowed it to fester,” he said.
