BEIRUT — For decades, Lebanon’s leaders have embraced a peculiar diplomatic approach: yield concession after concession, gain nothing in return, and feign surprise as the nation’s leverage steadily disappears.

In the span of months, the state revised ceasefire terms, expanded internal inspections up to Beirut, handed over an Israeli abductee and a military vehicle, accepted disarmament clauses, enforced U.S. sanctions on its own people, and refrained from filing a single meaningful complaint at the UN—despite thousands of violations. 

This isn’t a negotiating strategy; rather, it is political self-checkout, where the customer rings himself up and still thanks the cashier.
These serial giveaways form the backdrop of Lebanon’s current predicament. A government that repeatedly performs favors without compensation teaches the world exactly how to treat it.

When a state insists on giving services away “gratis,” others naturally assume its value is negligible. Generosity, after all, becomes indistinguishable from disposability when it is practiced without conditions.

Against this atmosphere of unilateral compliance emerged the latest controversy: the appointment of former ambassador Simon Karam to lead Lebanon’s delegation to the ceasefire implementation mechanism. 

This is the kind of move that gives “surprise plot twist” energy—although everyone already knows who wrote the script.
Speaker Nabih Berri had initially endorsed the idea of adding a civilian figure to the delegation—on very clear terms: no direct negotiations, no political spillover, and no scope beyond the technicalities of enforcing the ceasefire.

Then came the presidential decision naming Karam, and the atmosphere shifted. Berri, reportedly, declined to even meet him, a gesture that communicated everything words didn’t need to.

Karam’s nomination wasn’t merely a personnel choice; it symbolized an entire orientation. His well-known positions—hostility to the Resistance’s weapons, praise of neutrality doctrines, and nostalgic references to the 1949 Armistice—made him, in the eyes of the U.S. surveillance den (embassy) in Beirut, the perfect envoy for a Lebanon eager to pre-concede its sovereignty before the meeting even begins.

Already, Hezbollah’s open letter of November 2025 had flagged the danger: crossing into negotiating frameworks designed as traps!

According to the communique, the Israeli occupation entity’s record is consistent—take everything, commit to nothing, and always demand more.
In this reading, Beirut’s priority is enforcing the ceasefire as written and compelling Tel Aviv’s compliance, rather than drifting into political bargaining under the illusion of “technical discussions.”

Meanwhile, the anti-Resistance allegedly claim the mechanism is a routine administrative forum, pointing to the 2022 maritime precedent. 
Critics, nevertheless, see something else entirely: the classic recipe for normalization served as a “technical appetizer,” the kind that starts innocently and ends with the table flipped.

The dispute surrounding Karam is therefore more than a procedural skirmish. It encapsulates Lebanon’s longstanding dilemma—how to defend sovereignty while operating in a political culture where the state keeps volunteering concessions no one even asked for.

A country that negotiates as if it owes the world an apology inevitably invites outcomes shaped by others. Further, when national policy resembles a clearance sale, the final price is paid in sovereignty.