Who is Israel’s US envoy leading talks with Lebanon?

Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Yechiel Leiter, held a first-ever phone call with his Lebanese counterpart, Nada Hamadeh Moawad, over the weekend, a break from tradition because Israel and Lebanon do not have formal diplomatic relations.

The meeting comes as global pressure mounts on Israel to end the invasion of Lebanon, with more than 2,000 people killed in Israeli attacks and over one million people displaced.

Leiter, a settlement activist, is a longtime figure in Israeli political circles. A US-born Israeli, he has held senior advisory roles in government and is closely associated with far-right politics.

While his diplomatic position places him at the centre of US-Israel relations, Leiter has drawn controversy during his time in public service, including over his past affiliations, ideological positions, and rhetoric during Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza and the fighting in Lebanon.

So who is Yechiel Leiter, and will the Israel-Lebanon talks succeed?

What discussions took place between Leiter and the Lebanese ambassador?

Israel will begin official peace talks with Lebanon next week, according to a statement from Leiter.

“In the conversation earlier today in Washington between the Israeli and Lebanese ambassadors to Washington, together with the US ambassador to Lebanon, and under the auspices of the US State Department, Israel agreed to begin formal peace negotiations this coming Tuesday,” Leiter said in a statement.

“Israel refused to discuss a ceasefire with the Hezbollah terrorist organisation, which continues to attack Israel and is the main obstacle to peace between the two countries,” he added.

Lebanese lawmaker Hassan Fadlallah, who is affiliated with Hezbollah, said on Saturday that the group rejects direct negotiations between Lebanon and Israel.

Israel has carried out near-daily attacks on Lebanese territory since a ceasefire started in November 2024, violating the truce hundreds of times.

After the start of the US-Israel war on Iran on February 28, Hezbollah launched a cross-border retaliatory attack on March 2 in the wake of the assassination of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Israel then escalated its campaign, launching a widespread bombardment and ground offensive in southern Lebanon.

What do we know about Leiter’s early years?

Leiter was born and raised in the US, in Scranton, Pennsylvania, in 1959. The city, which was known for hosting one of the US’s first tram systems, is also where former US President Joe Biden was born.

The diplomat was part of a group of pro-settlement activists who relocated to illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, Israeli news outlet Haaretz reported.

He is also an academic, holding a PhD in political philosophy from the University of Haifa, and has written numerous times on Israeli politics and Zionism.

What role has Leiter played in the Israeli government?

Leiter has served in various government roles, including as a senior adviser to the late former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and as chief of staff for the current one, Benjamin Netanyahu, when the latter was finance minister.

At one point, he also held the position of deputy director-general of Israel’s Ministry of Education and went on in 2011 to become chairman of the Israel Ports Company. In 2008, Leiter contested unsuccessfully for the Israeli parliament in Netanyahu’s Likud party primaries.

He has also worked as a researcher and writer at far-right Israeli policy institutions, such as the Herzl Institute.

In January 2025, he assumed the role of Israel’s ambassador in Washington, DC, replacing Michael Herzog.

“Yechiel Leiter is a talented diplomat, an articulate speaker, and has a deep understanding of American culture and politics. I am convinced he will represent the State of Israel in the best way,” Netanyahu’s office said when nominating Leiter for the post.

What are the controversies surrounding Leiter?

One of the most persistent controversies surrounding Leiter relates to the Israeli ambassador’s early political activism.

According to Israeli media reports, Leiter was once involved with the Jewish Defense League (JDL) in his youth, a US-based far-right pro-Israel group founded by Rabbi Meir Kahane that was later classified by US authorities as a “terrorist” organisation.

The JDL advocates for the annexation of the occupied West Bank and the dismantling of the Palestinian Authority. It has been linked to several violent attacks on US soil, including the assassination of Palestinian-American organiser Alex Odeh in California in 1985.

Leiter became a member of Kach, the ultranationalist political party and movement that Kahane established after he moved to Israel.

According to political analyst Elia Ayoub, this means he has “direct links, ideological links at the very least, to massacres committed in the occupied West Bank”, most notably the 1994 Cave of the Patriarchs killings in Hebron, in which 29 Palestinians were killed. The atrocity was carried out by Baruch Goldstein, an Israeli settler who was once a member of the JDL and supporter of Kach.

Ayoub, founder of the Fire These Times podcast, also pointed to Leiter’s military past, saying he served as a soldier during the Israeli invasion of the 1982 Lebanon War, which included the siege of Beirut that “left thousands dead”. It is not clear what role Leiter played in the Israeli army at that time.

“This ambassador is a kind of an extreme figure, but when you look at the people who are in and around the [Israeli] government, and in and around Netanyahu … this is kind of par for the course,” he added.

On Gaza, the US ambassador has been a strong proponent of Israel’s actions in the coastal Palestinian enclave. In an interview with US news outlet PBS in September, Leiter said Israel needed to “achieve a situation where Gaza will no longer pose a threat to our civilians”.

He has insisted that Gaza be demilitarised and Hamas disarmed. In November 2023, Leiter’s son died fighting in northern Gaza.

Leiter further courted controversy after Israel bombed the Qatari capital, Doha, in September, targeting Hamas’s negotiating team that was gathering amid talks to end the war. Speaking to the US media, he signalled that Israel could carry out further strikes in Qatar targeting senior Hamas figures.

“If we didn’t get them this time, we’ll get them the next time,” Leiter said. The attacks led to widespread condemnation, serving as a catalyst to the so-called “ceasefire” in October, which Israel has breached on a near-daily basis.

What does Leiter think of normalisation with Arab states?

Leiter supports the Abraham Accords, which seek to expand ties between Israel and Arab countries, arguing that the ongoing conflict is strengthening, not weakening, prospects for normalisation under the accords.

“I’m very upbeat about the potential for an Abraham Accords with Syria and Lebanon,” he said in May 2025, predicting they could come before normalisation with Saudi Arabia.

Leiter voiced optimism partly due to shifting dynamics in Lebanon following the 2024 assassination of then-Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.

On Saudi Arabia, Leiter has expressed a desire to normalise, arguing progress was already close and could have advanced further under US President Donald Trump. He has also defended arms deals between Riyadh and Washington.

Will Israel-Lebanon talks succeed?

Commenting on talks involving Leiter and the Lebanese ambassador Moawad, analyst Ayoub expressed scepticism, stating “they’re designed to fail”.

“If it doesn’t fail, if there is some kind of positive outcome in Lebanon, it will be because the Americans have decided to impose that on the Israelis, not because it’s going to come from Israel,” he said.

“I haven’t seen any evidence of that being the case, at least as of now, but it is not impossible.”

Moreover, Ayoub pointed to remarks by Netanyahu, who he said was “boasting” that Lebanon had “begged” to negotiate following Israeli bombardment, arguing this reflects a broader pattern in Israeli policy.

The analyst also referenced the Arab Peace Initiative – signed in Beirut in 2002 and backed by much of the Arab world, including Saudi Arabia – which proposed recognition of Israel in exchange for a two-state solution. He noted that Israel had rejected the proposal and similar efforts since.

Ayoub said the approach is “not new”, arguing Israel seeks to pressure neighbouring countries into agreements it can present domestically as successes “regardless of the realities on the ground”.