Simon Karam at Naqoura: A new moment in Lebanon’s long history of border diplomacy

Report by Wissam Nasrallah, English adaptation by Mariella Succar

At the Lebanese-Israeli border in Naqoura, Lebanese civilian envoy Simon Karam sat as the first official representative of Beirut in negotiations with Israel in decades. 

The development reflects a significant shift in Lebanon’s negotiating approach and an unusual scene that brings back to the forefront a long history of earlier negotiating milestones.

Amid the aftermath of Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, the Lebanese government, led by President Amine Gemayel, entered direct negotiations with Israel under U.S. mediation.

After 35 sessions held alternately in Khaldeh, the Israeli settlement of Kiryat Shmona, and the city of Netanya, the two sides reached an agreement signed on May 17, 1983. It called for mutual recognition of each state’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, an official end to the state of war, a gradual Israeli withdrawal, and the establishment of a security zone in southern Lebanon.

The agreement collapsed. Gemayel’s government at the time exercised authority only in what were then known as Christian areas, and therefore lacked national consensus. Syria, which was present in Lebanon along with its local allies, also strongly opposed the deal. The pressures and internal fighting continued until President Amine Gemayel formally annulled the May 17 Agreement on March 5, 1984.

As the region’s dynamics shifted following the Second Gulf War, Lebanon was invited to participate in the Madrid Peace Conference in late October 1991, jointly sponsored by the United States and the Soviet Union and attended by key parties to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Lebanon accepted the invitation with an official delegation headed by then–Foreign Minister Fares Boueiz. The conference saw the first public encounter between the Lebanese delegation and Israeli officials, followed by direct bilateral meetings — the first since the 1983 negotiations — with an American observer and facilitator present.

The intermittent bilateral talks continued until 1994, ending with the conclusion of the Madrid process.

Since then, Lebanese and Israeli officials did not sit at the same negotiating table until the 2024 mechanism meetings. In between, the Lebanese-Israeli relationship saw limited, situational negotiating moments driven by field and security developments.

These included the April 1996 Understanding, mediated by the United States and France, which created a five-party monitoring group made up of Lebanese and Israeli military delegations that met indirectly in Naqoura; the delineation of the Blue Line in 2000 through an indirect technical coordination mechanism; and the 2006 war, after which regular tripartite meetings between the Lebanese and Israeli armies, under UNIFIL sponsorship, were launched to address border violations.

This continued until 2022, when indirect, U.S.-mediated negotiations resulted in the maritime border agreement.