Historic talks between Israel and Lebanon are set to begin Tuesday in Washington, brokered by President Donald Trump and hosted by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, while French President Emmanuel Macron draws fire from Israeli officials, French lawmakers, and Middle East analysts for what they describe as his refusal to confront Hezbollah and his push to insert Lebanon into a broader ceasefire on terms favorable to the Iranian-backed militia.
The meeting, which will take place at the ambassador level, marks a rare direct diplomatic channel between two nations that have no formal peace agreement. Rubio is expected to host both countries' ambassadors. And the backdrop is anything but calm: the Israel Defense Forces announced Saturday, April 11, that it had struck more than 200 Hezbollah targets in Lebanon in the preceding 24 hours alone.
Hezbollah's chief, Naim Qassem, called on the Lebanese government Monday to cancel the Tuesday meeting, dismissing the talks as "pointless." He said the armed group would continue to confront Israeli attacks on Lebanon. That Hezbollah wants the talks dead tells you something about who benefits from them, and who doesn't.
The Jerusalem Post reported that Israel's government requested France be excluded from the Washington talks entirely. The reason, as Fox News Digital reported, centers on a deepening Israeli conviction that Macron has made himself an unreliable broker. An Israeli official, quoted by the Jerusalem Post, put it bluntly: "France's conduct over the past year, including initiatives aimed at limiting Israel's ability to fight in Iran, and a complete lack of willingness to take concrete steps to help Lebanon disarm Hezbollah, has led Israel to view France as an unfair mediator."
It is not known whether France formally asked for a seat at the table. But a French diplomat, quoted by the Times of Israel, made the country's real priority clear: "What we are hoping for is not a ticket to the meeting, but that Israel stops its offensive on Lebanon."
That framing, focusing on Israel's military operations rather than on Hezbollah's provocations, is precisely what has alienated Jerusalem. And it is not just Israeli officials making the point. The criticism is coming from inside France's own political house.
François-Xavier Bellamy, a member of the European Parliament for France's Republicans Party, said on French television last week that France must stop normalizing Hezbollah. France has classified Hezbollah's military wing as a terrorist organization but has declined to ban its political wing, a distinction critics say gives the militia a veneer of legitimacy it does not deserve.
Israeli Brig. General (Res.) Yosef Kuperwasser, former head of research for the IDF's Military Intelligence Directorate, told Fox News Digital that Macron was "working against the best interests of the Lebanese state and government. This is a very problematic direction." He accused the French president of pursuing "narrow interests" and, in effect, taking Hezbollah's side.
Kuperwasser laid out what both Washington and Jerusalem expect from the talks:
"Americans want us to engage with the Lebanese along with the military [in Lebanon]. Our expectations are very similar. We want to see Lebanon do something about Hezbollah, something real, not just issue statements and pledges. We believe we have helped them by weakening Hezbollah militarily since they decided to launch missiles on March 2. If there is a breakthrough, Lebanon has a lot to gain."
The goal, Kuperwasser said plainly, is to "disarm Hezbollah." That is a position shared by the Trump administration and by a significant portion of Lebanese civil society, but one that Macron has conspicuously avoided endorsing.
This is not the first time Trump and Macron have clashed over France's willingness to act. The pattern is familiar: Paris offers rhetoric about sovereignty and diplomacy while declining to take concrete steps that would impose real costs on bad actors.
Edy Cohen, an Israeli security expert on Hezbollah who was born in Lebanon, offered Fox News Digital a structural explanation for France's posture: "France is forced not to come out against Hezbollah in order to legitimize its involvement in Lebanon." In other words, Paris has trapped itself. To maintain influence in Beirut, it must avoid alienating the very militia that holds Lebanon hostage.
On Saturday, Macron posted on X that he had held discussions with Iran's President Massoud Pezeshkian. His message stressed "the importance of full respect for the ceasefire, including in Lebanon," and added: "France extends its full support to the actions of the Lebanese authorities, who alone are legitimate to exercise the sovereignty of the State and decide the destiny of Lebanon."
The statement reads like a diplomatic press release. But its timing, just days before Trump-brokered talks that France was not invited to, carried a different signal. Macron appeared to be positioning France as an alternative channel, one that runs through Tehran rather than Washington.
Pascal Confavreux, spokesman for France's Foreign Ministry, told Fox News Sunday that "Iran has to stop terrorizing Israel through Hezbollah because Hezbollah chose to bring Lebanon into a war which is not Lebanon's war." He added that "Lebanon has to be included in the ceasefire, something that we are pushing diplomatically." Confavreux also said France is in favor of direct talks between Lebanon and Israel.
The words sound reasonable enough in isolation. But they sit uneasily alongside France's refusal to ban Hezbollah's political wing, its resistance to Israeli military operations against Hezbollah infrastructure, and its track record of initiatives that Israeli officials say were designed to limit Israel's ability to fight in Iran.
Macron's broader diplomatic approach has drawn skepticism from the Trump administration as well. AP News reported that Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer are making back-to-back visits to Washington this week to urge Trump not to abandon Ukraine in pursuit of a peace deal with Russia. Trump recently said Macron and Starmer "haven't done anything" over the past three years to end the war, a dismissive assessment that reflects a wider frustration with European leaders who talk loudly and carry no stick.
Walid Phares, an expert on Lebanon and the region, told Fox News Digital that while the talks are significant, their format limits expectations. "It is at ambassadors' level, which means it is not destined to reach a top level of decision-making," he said.
But the more revealing detail involves who Lebanon chose not to send. Phares noted a striking omission:
"Strangely, the Lebanese president and prime minister declined to invite the Lebanese foreign minister to the Washington talks, provoking a representation by Israel, also at ambassadorial level, showing that Hezbollah still has a strong influence on the Lebanese government. The militia is being rejected by the population on the ground and fears a meeting in D.C. would ostracize Hezbollah further."
That dynamic, a government too compromised by a militia to send its own foreign minister to peace talks, captures the problem in miniature. Hezbollah entered the war on Iran's side in March. Its fighters launched missiles on March 2, according to Kuperwasser. And yet the Lebanese state still cannot act independently of the group.
The broader context makes these talks even more significant. The joint U.S.-Israel campaign killed Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on February 28, fundamentally altering the balance of power in the region. Trump has drawn sharp contrasts between world leaders who supported the campaign against Iran and those who hedged.
Not everyone in Lebanon's political class is content with the status quo. Ahead of the Israel-Lebanon talks, Sethrida Geagea, a member of parliament from the Lebanese Forces party, posted an open letter on X to Nabih Berri, the speaker of the Lebanese Parliament and leader of the Shiite Amal Movement. The letter amounted to an indirect rebuke of Hezbollah, appealing to Berri to unify the Lebanese people under a country "protected by a single army."
That phrase, "a single army", is a direct challenge to Hezbollah's parallel military structure, which has long operated as a state within a state. It is the kind of demand that France, for all its talk of Lebanese sovereignty, has never been willing to make.
The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the State Department did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's requests for comment. Fox News Digital also sent press queries to France's embassies in Washington, D.C., and Tel Aviv.
The tensions surrounding these talks extend beyond Lebanon. Trump has shown a willingness to break publicly with anyone, allies and critics alike, who he believes is not serious about confronting Iran and its proxies. Macron's half-measures on Hezbollah place him squarely in that category.
Whether Tuesday's ambassador-level meeting produces anything concrete remains to be seen. The format is modest. The obstacles are enormous. Hezbollah retains armed forces that dwarf Lebanon's own military in capability and political reach. Iran, even after the loss of Khamenei, still funds and directs the militia's operations.
But the fact that these talks are happening at all, brokered by the United States, not France, tells a story about who has credibility in the region and who has spent it. Macron demanded a seat at the table while refusing to name the problem sitting at it. Trump has made clear he has little patience for leaders who lecture from the sidelines while others do the difficult work.
You don't get to broker peace if you won't name the enemy. Macron chose not to. Now he's watching from outside the room.
