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Israel and Hezbollah have agreed to an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon after at least 18 people were killed in strikes overnight, according to a US official. Fighting between Israel and the Iran-backed group escalated overnight despite the US and Iran agreeing to a peace plan last weekend. But a US official said on Friday the fighting would stop after both sides agreed to a pause following fatal Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon. The ceasefire began at 4pm local time (2pm UK time), the offical said. "Hezbollah and Israel have agreed to a ceasefire,” the US official said, adding that negotiators for the US and Qataris worked out the deal with help from Iran. “We understand that after the exchange of fire earlier today, Israel and Hezbollah are now in a ceasefire,” they added. However, neither Israel nor Hezbollah have commented on the reported ceasefire. Matt Frei discusses the deal, what it could mean and more with Eylon Levy, former Israeli spokesman and Mark Sievers, former U.S. Ambassador to Oman. 00:00 - Matt Frei sets the stage 02:09 - Eylon Levy demands Donald Trump renew his support for Israel 07:58 - Mark Siever thinks Donald Trump is being played. #mattfrei #donaldtrump #netanyahu #israel #iran #middleeast #uspolitics #straitofhormuz #oil #usnews #LBC LBC is the home of live debate around news and current affairs in the UK. Join in the conversation and listen at https://www.lbc.co.uk/ Sign up to LBC’s weekly newsletter here: https://l-bc.co/signup
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0:00
The other big story this week has been the war in Iran, on Iran by the United States and Israel
0:06
and the other war between Israel and Hezbollah. Now, there is this ceasefire agreement that was
0:10
signed in, of all places, by the American president in the Palace of Versailles
0:16
where he had been meeting Macron. And according to this agreement, and it's a fairly thin agreement
0:23
it's 14 points, there are a number of things here that you could say if you were, you know
0:27
in agreement with the original war, are lacking. So, you know, there's no hint of regime change
0:33
There's nothing really concrete about nuclear, you know, stopping nuclear enrichment. That's to be discussed later
0:39
There's nothing really concrete about a ballistic missile program. There's this extraordinary promise of 300 billion U.S. dollars being invested in the reconstruction in Iran
0:49
We're not quite sure whose money that would be, but that's literally the whole of the Iranian GDP in one year
0:55
As one American senator said, that is like giving the Marshall Plan to the Nazis in 1945 while they were still in charge
1:04
Or as another Republican senator said, normally very loyal to Donald Trump, this whole agreement is a little bit like a day drinker teaching an 11-year-old child mathematics
1:14
So not very complimentary and, of course, plenty of criticism from the Democratic side as well
1:20
But crucially, also, this criticism that has cropped up again and again in recent weeks of Donald Trump against the Israeli government of Prime Minister Netanyahu
1:30
Just listen to this clip. If it weren't for Donald Trump and Bibi Netanyahu worked well with me, but he will tell you we're the ones with the guns, we're the ones with the whole deal, we're the ones with the B2 bombers, etc
1:43
If it weren't for Donald Trump, Israel would have been eviscerated. Your relationship with Netanyahu is good, but we have to keep them a little bit sane
1:56
Are you going to be able to control Israel from attacking Lebanon? Yeah
2:02
I will be. I mean, I wonder. They have a lot of respect for me
2:07
And they do as I say. Okay. That was Donald Thomas speaking to Axios there
2:12
Let's bring on Elon Levy, former Israeli government spokesman. Good morning, Elon
2:15
Hello, Matt. strange for me to be nodding through most of your monologue there. Well, we haven't spoken for a long
2:21
time. But I mean, but let's get back to this, you know, to the specific issue of Trump falling out
2:27
with Bibi Netanyahu. I mean, he has mentioned it twice now in the last few weeks. There were the
2:32
famous expletives the week before that. The vice president on the podium on Thursday was also
2:39
lacerating the Israeli government. Have you fallen out with your only friend, your best friend in
2:45
Washington? No, I don't think there's a falling out between Israel and the United States. America
2:50
President Trump's still referring to Israel as the small partner, which is true. America's much
2:54
bigger. But there's no doubt that there has been a divergence of interests. Israeli and American
2:59
interests overlapped for the course of the Iran war, which is how they were able to fight
3:03
shoulder to shoulder, wing to wing in the air. And now they've become unstuck. America has decided
3:08
to sign an agreement that is a capitulation to the Islamic regime. We can talk a little bit about
3:13
why that's a dangerous agreement. And of course, Israel has much less risk tolerance
3:18
with Iran because it's not separated by the Atlantic and the Pacific on either side
3:22
We literally share a border with Lebanon the south of which is controlled by an Iranian proxy army And I here in Tel Aviv had to run from missiles about 180 times during the last war So there definitely been a convergence a divergence of interest as America has decided
3:36
it wants to cut its losses rather than press its advantage against Iran till the end
3:41
So was it a mistake for Prime Minister Netanyahu to persuade President Trump
3:46
to get involved in this war in the first place? Look, there was an immediate military need for this operation against the Iranian regime
3:54
and the United States set it out at the beginning. Except no one believed them when they said it
3:59
No, the Iranian regime... The word immediate was questionable. Let me explain what the threat was
4:04
The Iranian regime had moved its ballistic missile factories underground and was fortifying them
4:10
It was on course to having 8,000 ballistic missiles by the end of 2027
4:15
At that point, it would have been untouchable. There would have been no military option to stop it from gaining nuclear capacities
4:22
And therefore, there was a very small window. We can talk about whether that window was a week, a month, six months, but a very small
4:28
window to stop the Iranian regime becoming untouchable by amassing enough ballistic missile
4:33
power that it couldn't stop anyone from stopping the race towards nuclear weapons
4:37
And here we are after, you know, months of bombing, you know, a billion dollars each
4:41
day of bombing, and they still have a missile capability. In fact, I think the State Department or the CIO, perhaps both of them, estimated that 75% of their ballistic capability is still intact
4:52
They still have the 440 kilos of highly enriched uranium. And, you know, what we do with the rest of it is left to a rather flimsy deal
4:59
I mean, are you now in a worse position when it comes to Iran than you were before the war
5:04
Militarily, the Iranian regime is far weaker than it was on the eve of the war
5:08
Those 440 kilos of highly enriched uranium are, of course, buried underneath a mountain
5:14
and Israel and the United States managed to eviscerate the defense industrial capacity of Iran
5:18
The threat now is that the United States is going to release the money to Iran
5:22
to resurrect that military capacity that was just pummeled. The deal says that Iran gets oil waivers immediately
5:30
that assets will be unfrozen during negotiations. There's this bizarre issue of the $300 billion to a regime that yesterday
5:38
they announced it's going to subject a female singer to lashing for singing in public
5:43
So the danger here is that the regime is allowed to reconstitute the terrorist threat
5:48
and we get back to square one. OK, so in those terms, the outcome of this war, from Israel's point of view
5:55
has been far worse than what was there before. No, the outcome of this war is that the Iranian regime is no longer a hair's breadth
6:03
from achieving strategic immunity through ballistic missiles. The nuclear program has definitely been set back
6:09
But of course, it is concerning. The United States wants to cut its losses through an agreement
6:13
But look, Britain presents itself as a paragon of international law. This is a deal that allows the Iranian regime to charge illegal tolls on the Strait of Hormuz
6:23
It is a deal that gives the Iranian regime protection. But there's a hint of that
6:27
One final question to you, Elon Levy. I mean, the other thing that Trump keeps talking about
6:32
and I wish he had done so during the war in Gaza, is that, you know, Israel should stop bringing down an entire building
6:38
and killing lots of civilians in those buildings for the sake of one Hezbollah guy
6:43
I'm quoting him now. He has a point, doesn't he? You basically, by conducting the war that you, in the way that you did in Gaza
6:50
the way that you are still doing in Lebanon you are creating far more enemies than you are keeping friends Well President Trump raises an important point Hezbollah is fighting from inside civilian buildings and in southern Lebanon But he thinks you shouldn be bringing down those buildings
7:05
That was wrong. Well, President Trump also said that he wants Syria to take on Hezbollah
7:14
which means former al-Qaeda leader al-Jolani. He would, of course, rip their hearts out
7:18
eat them and lbc wouldn't cover it because israel is not involved now this is not armchair now
7:24
now you're you're reverting back to kind of you know leave that i'm trying to explain what i think
7:28
the united states is trying to do here okay the united states wants to get a grand bargain with
7:33
the iranian regime and to that end israel's defensive campaign against the iranian proxy
7:38
army inside southern lebanon is a nuisance of united states you're seeing the president putting
7:42
on this pressure because he wants to brush the lebanese problem out of the way and we really
7:47
really hope that the peace process his administration is sponsoring will go to fruition and that the
7:52
Islamic regime doesn't get to control Lebanon again. Okay. Ido Levy, thank you very much indeed
7:56
for coming on the program. Let's speak to Mark Zivas, former US ambassador to Amman during Donald
8:01
Trump's first term. But before we do that, I just want to play you this clip, another clip from
8:06
Donald Trump about the oil. Our country's doing so well. Those ships are flowing out of the
8:11
Hormuz Strait like nobody's ever seen before, actually. There were a lot of them, about 700
8:16
of them and they're pouring out the oil is all over the place. You're going to see oil drop so
8:21
low. I hope the companies are happy about it. In Iran, where in one week, virtually
8:27
we knocked out their entire Navy, their entire Air Force, their anti-missile weapons, their radar
8:35
We knocked out everything. Now, some of the fake news would say, oh, and the hyperbole is flowing
8:40
out of Donald Trump's mouth like you've never seen before. Mark Zivas, it's good to have you
8:44
back on the program i mean uh i mean you know they have achieved something haven't they i mean
8:49
they've they've they've achieved something that was a normal before the war started
8:53
we don't know is it good to be on lbc thank you very much uh the fact is we don't really know
9:01
apparently there was a big uptick on thursday of uh of ships uh going through the strait and then
9:08
considerably less yesterday because at least according to the wall street journal
9:14
the Iranian IRGC or the whatever's left of their navy contacted some of the ships and
9:21
told them that they were not allowed to pass through. There's still talk that there could be
9:28
some kind of fees, service fees or something that Iran would charge perhaps together with Oman for
9:37
ships that go through. And the U.S. on its side has apparently has just lifted the blockade. So
9:43
So things are going that way, but it's not entirely clear about the other direction
9:48
So you were ambassador, U.S. ambassador to Armand. You were also posted to Israel
9:52
I don't know if you heard my conversation with Elon Levy there, who used to be the Israeli government spokesman
9:57
I mean, this falling out that Donald Trump has been referring to
10:00
between him and Netanyahu, how serious is that? Well, certainly, you know, they have..
10:07
Trump has badgered Netanyahu publicly before. It's not the first time. This seems to be perhaps a bit sharper in tone
10:19
But the issue I think that Elon Levy raised is that from the beginning of after the ceasefire in April when negotiations were being conducted through Pakistan the United States took the same position as Israel that Lebanon was not part of any agreement that might take place with Iran
10:41
And it appears that over the last two weeks or so, the United States moved toward the Iranian position
10:48
which was that the two issues are linked and that a ceasefire with Iran also applies to the Lebanese front
10:58
And that's a very complex problem because Israel is not a party to the negotiations or the agreement
11:04
And you have President Trump saying that he can control what military action Israel takes
11:11
but it looks like Hezbollah continues to fire regularly. So it's a very complicated, messy situation right now
11:22
throwing Lebanon into the mix of what's supposed to be the beginning of the nuclear negotiations
11:28
And if you are Hezbollah, or indeed their bosses in Tehran, this is a golden opportunity to drive a wedge between the United States and Israel, isn't it
11:39
Absolutely. It seems crystal clear that that's exactly what they're doing. And so when you, I don't know if you listen to Elon Levy, who was on before you
11:47
he claims that actually, although there's a lot of unfinished business in this war, we don't have regime change, you know, it's, yes, their military has been reduced
11:54
but not destroyed, as it were. But he said, you know, we did eliminate that initial and immediate threat of missile capability
12:04
Do you think he's right when he says that? Well, certainly when I read the Israeli assessments, that's a key factor
12:13
The production that Iran was undertaking of developing very, very rapidly a ballistic missile force that would be so daunting that it would effectively shield their nuclear, if they tried to restore their nuclear program over a period of a couple of years
12:33
So that's exactly what they're talking about. I don't know about the American assessments of how much is left of the missiles
12:41
I know a lot of information has been leaked that may or may not be accurate, so I can't really comment on that
12:48
But I think the Israelis believe that attacking the missile production capacity has been a major achievement
12:58
Finally and briefly, considering the fact that, you know, as we just established, this is a golden opportunity for Hezbollah and Iran to drive a wedge between Israel and America
13:10
Considering the fact that Israel, you know, will be in an election campaign in October and Netanyahu has to prove to his electorate that he is his own man and not Donald Trump's puppet
13:20
I mean, and the fact that the agreement is so flimsy anyway, I can't see how the ceasefire lasts, frankly
13:28
What about you? I share your scepticism. I'm not at all sure it will, but let's see
13:33
At least the talks in Geneva seem to be moving ahead. They were temporarily paused and now it looks like the Iranian foreign minister is going
13:42
so maybe something will happen. But I'm quite sceptical myself. Meanwhile, the oil will flow like it's never flown before, ever, even before oil was invented
13:52
Mark Zivas, thank you very much indeed
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