Israel and Lebanon will hold direct peace talks next week in Washington

Direct negotiations between Israel and Lebanon will begin next week, a senior Israeli official has confirmed, a landmark development that marks the first formal talks between the two countries in decades.

The information was first reported by Israeli journalist Barak David, who is widely regarded as well-sourced on Israeli government affairs.

According to the official, the opening meeting will take place at the State Department in Washington. The American side will be led by Michel Issa, the US Ambassador to Lebanon. Israel will be represented by its Ambassador to Washington, Yechiel Leiter, while Lebanon will send its own Ambassador to Washington, Nada Hamadeh-Moawad.

The choice of Washington as the venue, and the State Department as the host, signals strong American involvement in shepherding what could become a historic agreement. The US is clearly not content to play a background role.

The talks come at a moment of dramatic convergence. Lebanon's government has just declared Beirut a Hezbollah weapons-free zone and tasked its army with enforcing a monopoly on arms in the capital. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu had earlier stated that Israel wanted peace talks with Lebanon to begin "as soon as possible." Both governments now appear to mean it.

If the negotiations succeed, they would produce something that has eluded the region for more than seventy years: a formal peace between Israel and Lebanon, and the removal of the Iranian proxy that made that peace impossible for so long.