The Lebanon-Israel show business talks in Rome under US auspices remain unserious, unbalanced, and unlikely to achieve their stated aims.

Some key points:

1. This is the third leg of the US-Israel’s three-legged stool of deceptive, dishonest, make-believe ‘peace-making’ in Palestine, Iran, and Lebanon.

2. It is unlikely to succeed for many reasons, mainly that Israel-US do not address the main undelrying causes of the Israel-Lebanon conflict, but rather focus on Hezbollah’s arms which are a response to Israeli aggressions in Lebanon that started decades before Hezbollah was born in the 1980s; and, Israel-US try to push the Lebanese government into forcibly removing Hezbollah’s arms, which would only destabilize Lebanon again and add new kinds of chaos and suffering in the region.

3. In any case, Israel has never abided by the key elements in its ceasefire agreements in Iran, Lebanon, and Gaza, and is unlikely to do so here.

4. Nevertheless, if major western states, world and ME powers, Arabs, and the US combine to force Israel to negotiate honestly, seeking peace agreements like the Jordan and Egypt agreements with Israel that satisfied both sides’ rights and needs simultaneously, perhaps Israel would wake up one day and negotiate honestly and equitably. We saw how peace talks in other cases also started without any chance of success, as in Northern Ireland, Vietnam, South Africa, and Afghanistan, but eventually rational dynamics prevailed and they reached agreements to end the wars and respect each others’ sovereign rights. Israel is unlikely to go that way, given zionism’s commitment to superior rights in Palestine and the region; but negotiating is one possible way to move in that direction. Peace-making efforts usually start with little chances of success, and sometimes shift dramatically during the negotiating process when amateurs and entertainers are replaced by serious adults.

5. We should note that the steady and significant shift in US public opinion against Israel’s genocidal policies could also prod a more serious negotiation down the road, when the Trump made-for-television spectacles are out of the way and more serious men and women assume the reins of diplomacy in the US.