The “Lebanese Street” Warms up to Normalization with Israel

AI generated image of the Israeli and Lebanese flags

A surprising poll offers real hope for normalization between Lebanon and Israel. Conducted by an anti-Western, anti-Israel website with a sample of 500 respondents, the survey found that only 42 percent of Lebanese oppose peace with Israel. Thirty-two percent support normalization, while 25 percent remain undecided. Imperfect as the poll may be, these numbers are remarkably encouraging for advocates of Lebanese-Israeli peace.

The poll comes amid active hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel, a Lebanese law that criminalizes any contact between Lebanese citizens and Israelis, and relentless harassment and bullying by Hezbollah. In this environment of social shaming, fear, intimidation and legal prohibition, one might expect near-universal opposition to peace. Yet opponents of normalization with Israel barely clear 40 percent.

Even more telling is the breakdown among Lebanon’s Shia community, long assumed to be Hezbollah’s most loyal base and staunch opponents of Israel. According to the survey, Shia opposition to Lebanon’s peace with Israel stands at around 60 percent, far from unanimous.

This finding squares with a Gallup poll from Summer 2025, which showed that 27 percent of Shia respondents wanted Hezbollah disarmed. Lebanon’s Shia are simply not a monolithic bloc that supports endless confrontation with Israel.

The finding also substantiates the argument that the “Palestinian cause” has always been a Sunni Arab issue, not a Shia one, especially not the Shia of Lebanon, who suffered heavy losses during the days of Palestinian dominance in Lebanon. So much so that, in 1985, the Amal Movement, then the main Lebanese Shia militia, imposed a siege on Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon and fought bitter wars with them.

The poll offers hope for peace advocates. The twenty-five percent who are undecided represent a winnable constituency. If Lebanese peace supporters were ever granted the basic freedom of expression to openly campaign for normalization, without fear of assassination or intimidation, that undecided bloc could easily tip the scales toward a pro-peace majority.

The potential grows even larger if Lebanon’s sectarian chiefs were pressured into supporting peace with Israel. At the risk of suffering U.S. sanctions on their big fat accounts stashed away in secret Swiss banks, these sectarian oligarchs can be goaded to support normalization with Israel. Should they decide to do so, popular support for peace with Israel could sail past 50 percent with relative ease.

Lebanese public opinion, it turns out, is far more diverse and pragmatic than the region’s conflict entrepreneurs would have us believe.

Yet realizing this potential requires serious heavy lifting. Lebanon’s peace advocates need breathing room. They require foreign-backed guarantees of freedom of expression and the rule of law strong enough to prevent Hezbollah from killing not only the idea of peace but its supporters as well. Without protection from Tehran’s local proxy, the voices calling for normalization will remain marginalized or silenced.

Western observers, particularly those on the left, seem blind to these indigenous sentiments. Outlets like The New York Times and CNN, along with European leaders such as France’s Emmanuel Macron and Spain’s Pedro Sánchez, often frame the region in ways that suggest they would prefer Lebanon remain under the thumb of Iran rather than live at peace with Israel. They appear more comfortable with a narrative of perpetual resistance than with the messy reality of what actual Lebanese people want.

The Lebanese people and crucially their elected government have signaled a desire to decouple their country’s future from the Iranian axis. They want to pursue their own path toward peace with Israel, independently of broader regional tracks dictated by Tehran or Arab capitals. This is not what many Western elites seem to advocate for.

Indigenous Middle Easterners, it turns out, often desire different things than what well-meaning (or not) Western analysts prescribe for them.

The poll, despite its limitations, boosts hopes for Lebanese normalization with Israel.

But hope alone is insufficient. It must be matched by concrete support for free speech, political pluralism, and the protection of those brave enough to speak out for peace. The numbers are there. The question is whether Lebanon’s friends in the West, in the region, and within the country itself will help create the conditions necessary for that silent pro-peace sentiment to finally find its voice.

Hussain Abdul-Hussain is a research fellow at The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD) and the author of The Arab Case for Israel. He is a senior contributor with MiddleEast24.