From left, Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter, Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Lebanese Ambassador to the U.S. Nada Hamadeh Moawad, listen to President Donald Trump speak in the Oval Office at the White House, Thursday, April 23, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

A Wall Street Journal editorial presents the new agreement between Israel and Lebanon as having profound diplomatic significance. According to the editorial, the United States, led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and backed by Vice President J.D. Vance, is no longer pushing for an immediate Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon. Instead, it is linking any withdrawal to Hezbollah’s disarmament.

Join our WhatsApp group

Subscribe to our Daily Roundup Email

According to the newspaper, the trilateral framework agreement signed on Friday by the United States, Israel, and Lebanon is intended to block Iran’s influence in Lebanon while giving Beirut an opportunity to restore genuine sovereignty in the face of Hezbollah. The agreement states that Israel and Lebanon recognize each other’s right to exist in peace and security as neighboring sovereign states, a formulation the paper describes as unusual in Lebanon, even after years of U.S. mediation.

From Israel’s perspective, the key point is that the U.S. framework recognizes the legitimacy of the IDF’s presence in southern Lebanon until Hezbollah is disarmed. In the first phase, Israel will transfer control of two small pilot sectors to the Lebanese Army, which will be required to dismantle terrorist infrastructure and act against “non-state armed groups,” the diplomatic term commonly used to refer to Hezbollah.

The Wall Street Journal says that officials associated with Vice President Vance’s Iran policy team criticized Secretary Rubio’s agreement, arguing that it was “inconsistent” with the memorandum of understanding reached with Iran. However, according to Trump administration sources quoted in the editorial, the opposite is true: the Lebanon agreement represents the official U.S. interpretation of the memorandum of understanding as it applies to Lebanon.

The editorial states that on this issue, Vance supports Rubio, and that no one on President Trump’s team wants to compel Israel to hand southern Lebanon over to Iranian proxies. The implication, according to the article, is that even Vance, who helped negotiate the understandings with Iran, now accepts the position that Israel should not be required to complete a full withdrawal before Hezbollah has been disarmed.

Under the agreement, Israel declared that it has no territorial ambitions in Lebanon, only a security requirement to stop rocket attacks against communities in northern Israel. A full Israeli withdrawal will occur only after Hezbollah has been disarmed. Until then, Israel will maintain a buffer zone and retain the ability to act against emerging threats.

The newspaper also refers to Hezbollah’s activities in southern Lebanon and the terrorist tunnel that the IDF said it destroyed earlier this week. According to the report, the underground complex had been used to manufacture and launch drones from inside a mountain. From Israel’s perspective, the editorial argues, this illustrates precisely why a continued military presence and diplomatic caution are necessary before any further withdrawal.

The message conveyed by the editorial is clear: the path to Lebanese sovereignty does not lie in pressuring Israel to withdraw, but in demanding that Beirut finally confront Hezbollah. From Jerusalem’s perspective, the article says, this constitutes especially important diplomatic backing, particularly after the memorandum of understanding with Iran raised concerns that Washington might adopt Tehran’s demand for a rapid Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon.