Israel and Hezbollah agree to a ceasefire: Aidan Simardone weighs in

[00:00:00]Israel and Lebanese group Hezbollah have reportedly agreed to a ceasefire. The agreement follows concerns of Israel's invasion and attacks in Lebanon could undermine the deal between the US and Iran, which called for an end to military operations on all fronts, including Lebanon. Now, for more on this, we're now joined by geopolitical analyst Aidan Asimdon. Aidan, thank you so much for your time. Let's get right into it. Now, Israel and Hezbollah have reportedly agreed to a ceasefire. Now, how significant is this agreement and can it really hold, realistically speaking?

[00:00:34]>> The ceasefire is as significant as the ceasefire that Israel has with Gaza, which is violated hundreds of times, as the previous ceasefire with Lebanon, which is also violated thousands of times. So, needless to say, you know, signing a ceasefire, I don't think it's significant when you do it with Israel.

[00:00:52]When you sign a ceasefire with Israel, it means you cease and they fire. Right now, for all listeners who are watching this, and viewers, I should say, they're still fighting right now. Like, I I have a tab open in for my Twitter, and there's literally fighting occurring between the resistance in Lebanon and Israel. So, I don't think it's significant.

[00:01:11]>> Now, Aidan, the United States and President President Donald Trump, what role have they played in securing the ceasefire, and what does this mean for Washington's influence in the region?

[00:01:23]>> For securing the ceasefire, I think people need to understand I don't know how to word this, but it's really important to understand that often seems like Israel does whatever it wants, but the United States could very easily get Israel to stop attacking Lebanon through cutting off the billions of dollars that sends Israel every single year, or every couple months. It could sanction Israel. There's many things that could be done. So, Donald Trump is presenting these attacks by Israel against Lebanon as, "Oh my gosh, I I I didn't think this was going to happen. What's going on?" But, you know, nothing can happen without American approval. So, I I think Donald Trump is also responsible for what's occurring right now.

[00:02:03]>> Now, Aiden, and now Iran has warned of serious consequences, and tensions seemingly still high. Now, let's talk about the biggest risks that could cause the ceasefire to collapse and possibly reignite a wider regional conflict.

[00:02:20]>> Yep, so I think everyone should understand that according to the memorandum of understanding, the literal the very literal first point is a seizing of fighting on all fronts, including Lebanon.

[00:02:34]>> Yeah.

[00:02:34]>> So, the fact that we're in the early days and there's already fighting going on is super significant. Iran could respond. Apparently, I don't know how true it is. Iran may have briefly closed the Strait of Hormuz. But, the other thing is also it could hit Israel. I mean, if this continues, that's what Iran says, and Iran has fulfilled that promise previously when Israel has continued to strike Lebanon.

[00:02:58]>> Yeah. Now, what impact could these attentions possibly have on regional stability within the the Middle East?

[00:03:08]>> I don't know. A regional war? Like Like what we're looking at is pretty serious because, as I already said, the first point is the memorandum of understanding. If this does continue, you could see a reignition of the wider war, a resumption of the war of aggression, the illegal war of aggression against Iran. Uh you could see, for instance, the Strait of Hormuz getting closed again. And then, let's also recall that this would have massive impacts economically for everyone from South Africa to Canada, where I am from.

[00:03:35]So, this is quite serious, and it could actually spiral a lot further and lead to uh very serious ramifications. We could go back to the way things were a couple weeks ago.

[00:03:47]>> And this really leads me to my next question about um how much of diplomatic relations have been happening diplomatic conversations from from everyone really to try and de-escalate the situation.

[00:04:03]>> It's hard to say because what we often get from in terms of diplomacy especially between the United States and Israel is to be quite frank lies. These are reports coming from within the White House from organizations like Axios that have unnamed sources. Often what they do is they try to present the United States in a better light than it actually is. So what we've heard in the past week for instance is Trump being so furious at Benjamin Netanyahu. But this was the same thing said during the Biden administration. No, Biden so angry at Benjamin Netanyahu and yet nothing changed. So I think I would start to take diplomacy more seriously when you see the United States actually do something materially like, "Okay, you're going to continue to attack Lebanon.

[00:04:47]Well, we're going to cut off your ship next shipment of weapons, right?"

[00:04:51]Statements, written things, tweets from Donald Trump or I don't know what you want to call them truth posts. These are not what matter. At the end of the day it's the material relationship between the United States and Israel that's critical.

[00:05:05]Any diplomacy needs to come with some sort of ramification for Israel because if Israel does whatever it wants, it doesn't face consequences, it'll just continue to attack Lebanon.

[00:05:14]>> Aidan, thank you so much for your time.

[00:05:16]We'll keep abreast of with any more developments. Thank you so much for your time. That was Aidan Semadan, geopolitical analyst, who's really speaking to us about the tensions in the Middle East where we find ourselves at a situation where Hezbollah and Israel are at it once again.