I'm John Batchel, John Batchel, the executive director of Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

At some point in these last days, Iran mentioned that Hezbollah was part of their equation

for ceasefire and for accommodation, peacemaking in another universe.

The Hezbollah is adamant in reawakening and re-arming and reorganizing and peppering

the northern border of Israel so that there is no peace and can be no peace, unless the negotiations

between Israel and Lebanon that started several days ago are, to my knowledge, unprecedented.

They will continue Thursday at the U.S. State Department.

But, Hezbollah was not part of the original ceasefire

in the opinion of Jerusalem and Washington.

Iran is looking to support its chief surrogate outside.

What are the prospects for these negotiations,

Jonathan? Are we watching people make history and not make peace? Or are we watching something entirely new? Well, I think it is all playing out in real time, John. I think on the one hand,

this is already historic. It's not quite peace,

but I mean, we do get a sense that the Lebanese government is interested in negotiating a number of

things. One, I think they'd like to have a mutually agreed upon border that would solve for the

problem of Hezbollah. Hasbalah has always said that there are a couple of parcels of land that

still belong to Lebanon.

These are, of course, disputed territories.

I don't believe that history or topography or geography have actually redounded to their benefit in the end.

But they have claimed that there are certain territories that they belong in Lebanon.

The Israelis and the Lebanese government are starting to talk about the so-called blue line

and to formalize it and to end the conflict over that border.

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