Israeli lawmaker Dr. Akram Hasson is leading a new Knesset caucus aimed at promoting eventual peace and normalization between Israel and Lebanon, arguing that Israel should begin speaking directly to Lebanese communities that may want stability, economic recovery, and freedom from Hezbollah’s control.
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Hasson says his push for the Caucus for Peace Between Israel and Lebanon, which he chairs, did not begin as a diplomatic gesture, but from years of watching a country he believes has been left under Hezbollah’s control. His answer is a parliamentary platform meant to keep open the possibility of eventual peace and normalization between Israel and Lebanon.
“Lebanon was taken hostage by Hezbollah,” Hasson told The Media Line. “It does whatever it wants there. It destroyed the Switzerland of the Middle East. It threatens Lebanon’s president, it threatens the government, and of course, it harms the residents of northern Israel.”
The caucus is modest in form but ambitious in scope: it calls for diplomatic, economic, and civilian cooperation, support for northern Israeli communities, and a wider regional framework against common threats.
Hasson says his request to establish the caucus was approved within days of being submitted, a sign, in his view, that lawmakers understood the importance of opening a political lane almost entirely buried under the language of rockets, evacuations, and border war.
He argues that Lebanon should not be viewed only through the armed group, but through the communities that, in his view, have a direct interest in stability, economic recovery, and reduced Iranian influence.
'I want to encourage every person on the Lebanese side to begin to apply pressure'
“The Lebanese people, in the latest survey, the Druze, more than 80%, want peace and relations with the State of Israel,” Hasson said. “Seventy-two percent of the Christians also want peace with the State of Israel, and there are Sunnis there who want it too. So the time has come for us to strengthen this alliance.”
Hasson did not present the caucus as a substitute for government diplomacy or as evidence that official negotiations are underway. Instead, he described it as a political and public instrument, intended to give legitimacy and visibility to Lebanese figures who may support normalization but fear Hezbollah’s response. His stated goal is to encourage them to speak more openly, both inside Lebanon and among Lebanese communities abroad.
“I want to encourage every person on the Lebanese side who seeks peace and believes in peace to stand up and say what he thinks, like in the latest survey, and begin to apply pressure,” Hasson said. “Because in the end, if the people want peace and security and freedom, nothing can stand in the way of that will.”
The political sensitivity is obvious. Israel and Lebanon have no peace agreement, and Hezbollah remains the dominant armed force on the Lebanese side of the border. For Israelis in the north, that has not been an abstract problem. The war turned border towns and nearby communities into a long-running front, with evacuations, missile and rocket fire, Israeli strikes in Lebanon, and repeated concern that the fighting could widen.
Hasson argues that precisely because of that volatility, Israel should begin preparing for the possibility that the border will not always look the way it does now. He said his first Arabic-language speech from the Knesset podium was directed to the Lebanese people and reflected respect for a society he described as educated, cultured, and unwilling to be defined by terrorism.
“The Lebanese people are a people of books, a people of culture,” he said. “They do not want terrorism, and they do not want Hezbollah there. They are suffering terribly from them.”
The lawmaker’s vision remains, at this stage, far from official policy. He speaks openly of a future in which embassies could be opened in Beirut and Tel Aviv, linking the idea to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s broader language about a “new Middle East.” Hasson said that if regional alignments continue to shift, Lebanon could eventually join a wider circle of countries engaging Israel openly.
But the more revealing part of his proposal is not the diplomatic endpoint. It is the comparison he draws with Israel’s existing peace agreements. Asked whether relations with Lebanon could one day resemble Israel’s relationship with Jordan, Hasson went further.
“In my opinion, normalization with Lebanon would be better than with Jordan,” he said.
He argued that the peace with Jordan, while strategically important, has remained cold and uneven. Israel provides Jordan with water, Israeli businesspeople have invested there, and Israeli tourists travel east, Hasson argued, but the relationship has not produced the kind of reciprocal public acceptance he would want to see in a future agreement.
“You do not see one tourist from Jordan in Israel,” Hasson said. “They do not contribute anything to us. On the contrary.”
For Hasson, the central distinction is between Hezbollah and Lebanon itself. He points especially to Druze and Christian voices, and to older memories of contact across the border, including years in which Lebanese workers entered Israel.
“Lebanon is a completely different people,” he said. “They do not have that hatred. They do not teach jihad.”
But there is a long distance between anger at Hezbollah and public support for normalization with Israel. In Lebanon, even people who resent Hezbollah’s power may avoid saying anything that sounds like peace with Israel. War memories, internal Lebanese politics, the Palestinian issue, and fear of being accused of collaboration all sit in the background.
Hasson is not saying Lebanon is ready to sign an agreement tomorrow. His argument is narrower: Israel should not wait until official diplomacy exists before speaking to the Lebanese who may already be thinking differently.
The caucus filing lists possible areas of work, including tourism, trade, infrastructure, industry, energy, agriculture, innovation, environmental cooperation, and support for local authorities in northern Israel. Hasson said both sides could gain from a practical peace built around economic recovery and border stability.
“We can contribute to Lebanon’s economy,” he said. “It is win-win. Everyone, in the end, will bless this important step.”
He also framed the issue as one that should not belong to either the Israeli right or left. Peace, he said, can win support across Israel’s political spectrum if it is presented not as a slogan, but as a security achievement that protects Israeli citizens and weakens Iranian-backed terrorism.
We are stronger; we want a real Middle East
“The people of Israel know how to unite and rise above themselves when there is real peace, and when they know it will bring security to all the residents of the State of Israel,” Hasson said. “I know many people in Israel, both on the left and on the right, who, when they hear about peace, real peace and not talk and slogans, will support it.”
The initiative comes at a moment when the word “peace” has largely disappeared from Israel’s wartime political vocabulary, replaced by terms such as deterrence, victory, pressure, disarmament, and security control. Hasson is trying to reintroduce it, but in a form that is anchored less in the traditional peace camp and more in the language of regional power, anti-Iranian alignment, and Israeli security interests.
That may be the caucus’s political opening. It does not ask Israelis to ignore Hezbollah. It begins with Hezbollah as the central obstacle. It does not present Lebanon as already ready for peace. It argues that parts of Lebanon may be ready, or could become ready, if they are strengthened and if Hezbollah is forced to retreat from its current position.
“We are stronger,” Hasson said. “We are the only ones standing against Hezbollah. And in the end, we can eliminate this terrorism, because the Lebanese state, as a state, as a government, as a presidency, cannot do much against Hezbollah.”
The caucus is still a parliamentary initiative, not a diplomatic process. Its weight lies elsewhere: an Israeli lawmaker is trying to bring into the Knesset a conversation that usually stays in private meetings, research forums, or military assessments. Hasson wants parliament to speak directly to the possibility that Lebanon’s future may not be permanently tied to Hezbollah’s present.
Whether that message can reach Lebanese audiences, and whether anyone there can safely answer it, remains uncertain. Hasson bets that the ground is less frozen than it looks.
“We want a real Middle East,” he said. “A Middle East without terrorists, without people who believe in jihad and brainwashing, and cause enormous damage to the Arab and Muslim population in the world. That is the final goal.”