US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee took the stage at the Herzliya Conference on Tuesday, describing last week’s US-brokered framework between Israel and Lebanon as a landmark moment — one that fundamentally reframes how both nations view the conflict along their shared border.
Rather than a war between two countries, Huckabee said, the agreement reflects a shared understanding that Hezbollah — not Israel or Lebanon — is the true source of the problem.
“Israel already knew that it was not at war with Lebanon,” Huckabee said. “Lebanon has a problem with Hezbollah, not Israel. Israel has a problem with Hezbollah, not with Lebanon.”
The Washington framework, reached through US-mediated negotiations, connects a step-by-step Israeli pullback from portions of southern Lebanon to Hezbollah’s disarmament and the movement of Lebanon’s national military into areas long controlled by the Iran-backed group. Israel and Lebanon have technically been at war since 1948, and Hezbollah has pushed back against any deal that conditions an Israeli withdrawal on giving up its weapons.
Huckabee said the negotiations unfolded across five separate meetings in Washington over recent months. Early sessions were stiff and formal, he noted, but the tone gradually warmed as talks progressed.
He recalled a particularly striking moment during a break in negotiations, when he spotted an Israeli general and a Lebanese general chatting privately — relaxed, smiling, and at ease with one another.
“When I saw that, I realized I was watching something historic,” Huckabee said.
That scene brought to mind an image previously put forward by President Isaac Herzog: the possibility of one day driving a car from Jerusalem north all the way to Beirut. Huckabee said he referenced that vision during the talks — not as a near-term forecast, but as a way to illustrate what full normalization between the two countries could one day look like.
The ambassador was careful to note that the deal does not solve the hardest problems. Dismantling Hezbollah’s military capabilities in southern Lebanon, he said, will be a long-term undertaking. The group’s armed presence in that region has repeatedly sparked conflict with Israel, including during the most recent round of fighting, which left much of southern Lebanon damaged and displaced large numbers of civilians.
Huckabee also highlighted what he called one of the agreement’s most notable features: Iran was deliberately excluded from the negotiations. Tehran has spent decades arming and financing Hezbollah and has relied on the group as a cornerstone of its regional influence.
“They have no role in it,” Huckabee said of Tehran. “They have no reason to stick their nose in it.”
Shifting to the broader US-Israel relationship, Huckabee described the military cooperation between the two countries during recent operations as unlike anything seen before. He said Adm. Brad Cooper, commander of US Central Command, told him personally that in his entire military career, he had never witnessed a partnership like the one forged between American and Israeli forces.
Huckabee said the two militaries worked so closely together in operations centers that it was nearly impossible to tell them apart — except by the patches on their uniforms.
“If you did not notice the patches on their sleeve, you would not realize which one is the Israeli and which one is the American,” he said.
While many specifics remain classified, Huckabee said future disclosures would reveal an extraordinary degree of coordination in both operations and intelligence sharing.
The ambassador also highlighted President Donald Trump’s record on Israel, pointing to the relocation of the US Embassy to Jerusalem, US recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, efforts to bring home Israeli hostages, and the establishment of the Board of Peace.
Wrapping up his remarks, Huckabee pushed back on the notion that the US-Israel alliance only benefits Israel. He argued that the United States gains significantly from Israeli intelligence, technology, agriculture, and innovation.
“It is not a one-way street,” Huckabee said. “Israel does a lot of things for America.”
The comments reflect the administration’s broader effort to position the Lebanon framework as both a security agreement and a potential opening for wider diplomatic progress in the region. Whether that potential is realized will hinge on one unresolved question: whether Lebanon can assert real authority in its south while Hezbollah continues to refuse surrendering its arms.
