What’s in a photograph? So much for Lebanon as talks with Israel start | Lebanon

Beirut, Lebanon – The seminal border talks between Lebanon and Israel raised a sensitive issue: How can one negotiate with a state that is not officially recognized and viewed as an enemy?

It is a matter of everyday life, including how both delegations greet each other – and even whether they take a souvenir photo.

Lebanon and Israel are technically at war, with the latter having a bloody conflict with Hezbollah, the Iran-backed group, in 2006.

Open talks brokered by the United States to delimit the countries’ maritime borders – a decade in preparation – finally began on Wednesday at a United Nations base on Lebanon’s southern border.

Hezbollah and its main ally, the Amal Movement, said in a joint statement on Wednesday that Israel sought some form of normalization with Lebanon less than a month after the US-sponsored normalization agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates Push Israel and Bahrain.

The pro-Hezbollah newspaper Al-Akhbar said the two groups had also rejected a “normalization-style image” in the form of a commemorative photo.

The Lebanese army spokesman could not be reached to comment on whether a photo had actually been taken. None has been published yet.

A couple wearing face masks visits the Rosh Hanikra Israeli border crossing into Lebanon [File: Ammar Awad/Reuters]Such a photo would have high propaganda value for both Israel and the US, but it would embarrass Lebanese parties that derive their legitimacy from the so-called “resistance” against Israel.

Laury Haytayan, Director of the Natural Resource Governance Institute for the Middle East and North Africa, told Al Jazeera, “You can take the picture and send it to [US President Donald] Trump and he says, “I am Lord Peace and Stability, I can even get the Israelis and Lebanese to sit at the table to negotiate normalized relationships.”

A Lebanese source for the president told Al Jazeera that while speaking with the delegation, President Michel Aoun had discussed Lebanon’s etiquette and opposed any form of normalization – but they had decided to leave the photo to the United Nations.

During the negotiations, both sides have come closer – if only physically.

Under a 1996 agreement that ended Israel’s two-week military campaign against Lebanon by Operation Grapes of Wrath, the Lebanese and Israeli military coordinated security issues in “two separate rooms with someone mediating”. Elias Hanna, a retired general in the Lebanese army, told Al Jazeera.

“Now it’s straightforward, in the sense that they’re sitting in the same room and sitting close together,” he said.

Even so, he said the protocol would likely stay the same: “No picture or greeting, no gestures or winking – don’t even look, it’s forbidden,” he said.

Brigadier General Bassam Yassine, head of the Lebanese delegation, did not refer to Israel itself during the talks on Wednesday, but to “other parties”, according to a protocol released by the Lebanese army.

The conversations were broken off after an hour. The Lebanese state media reported a second round on October 28th.

However, some in Lebanon say the country’s stance should change, especially when it comes to prospecting for oil and gas in the hydrocarbon-rich waters of the eastern Mediterranean.

During the ongoing talks, Ziad Assouad, a member of President Michel Aoun’s party, said that Lebanon’s poor economic situation had no concerns about even negotiating directly with Israel – a term that remains taboo.

“What is the difference when I speak through another party or directly?” Assouad asked on a morning TV show.

“We can’t solve it through war and we don’t have the economic strength to do that, and I’m waiting for the oil to pay off [part of] our debts … Why do Lebanese want to live in this duality? “

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