WSJ What’s News - Israel-Hezbollah Cease-Fire Takes Effect in Lebanon

Episode Date: November 27, 2024

A.M. Edition for Nov. 27. WSJ correspondent Jared Malsin in Beirut breaks down the overnight ceasefire deal brokered by the U.S. and France to end fighting in Lebanon and details the challenges that could test it in the weeks to come. Plus, Donald Trump rounds out his economic policy team. And how “data poisoning” by frustrated London diners is driving a surge in visitors to Angus Steakhouse in the British capital. Luke Vargas hosts. Sign up for the WSJ’s free What’s News newsletter.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As a FIS member, you can look forward to free data, big savings on plans, and having your unused data roll over to the following month, every month. At FIS, you always get more for your money. Terms and conditions for our different programs and policies apply. Details at fis.ca. The world looks on as an Israel Hezbollah ceasefire takes effect. Israel retains the right to self-defense, consistent with international law, just like any country,

when facing a terrorist group pledge to that country's destruction. At the same time, this deal supports Lebanon's sovereignty. And so it heralds a new start for Lebanon. We'll get the latest from our correspondent in Beirut. Plus, a look at Trump's latest picks for his economics team and why H.P. and Dell are slumping off hours.

It's Wednesday, November 27th. I'm Luke Vargas for The Wall Street Journal and here is the AM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories moving your world today. We begin in Lebanon, where a ceasefire entered into effect several hours ago meant to end fighting between Israel and Hezbollah. So what exactly does that deal include? How is it being received, and can it hold? For some answers, I'm joined

by Journal Middle East correspondent Jared Malson in Beirut. Jared, this deal came together after a period in which I think we had treated diplomatic efforts to resolve the fighting in Lebanon and Gaza with some skepticism. Walk us through what has been agreed to here and by whom. Right. As you said, this follows more than a year of unsuccessful attempts by the Biden administration to get a ceasefire in place in both Gaza and Lebanon. What came together in this case, number one, was a climb down by Hezbollah, who for a year or so had insisted that any ceasefire in Lebanon be linked to a ceasefire in Gaza.

And what we've reported is that they quietly, over the last few weeks, accepted a delinking of the two wars. And second of all, there was political will in Israel. They're still fighting a war on multiple fronts in the West Bank and Gaza. They're striking opponents in Syria. And they have a conscript army of reservist soldiers with declining rates of those soldiers reporting. So it serves the interests of both sides, and it was an example of this diplomacy by

the Biden administration having a result. Right, the US and France helping to bring together Israel and Lebanon to actually negotiate this. In terms of what's actually in the agreement, we've got a goal, obviously, of ending fighting in the long term. But in the meantime, what, 60 days of an interim period in which a lot is at stake? That's right. So the deal calls for a two-month period that would allow for the Israeli army to withdraw from southern Lebanon

and for the Lebanese army to deploy in the south in order to enforce the deal. And that's where the built-in instability comes into play, which is that those things have to happen. There's this long period where Israeli forces may still be deployed in the south. You're still going to have Hezbollah in the area. Also last night Netanyahu said that the deal allows them to strike Hezbollah in circumstances where they perceive threats. Under what circumstances exactly they will do that remains to be seen. So the next 60 days, as

you said, are crucial. Nat. And what is the situation like this morning, Jared? We've heard some reports things are relatively calm. Is that the case? Jared. It is calm at the moment. And I have to say the hours leading up to the implementation of the ceasefire were some of the most violent fighting that we've seen of the entire war here in Beirut. You had explosions shaking the city, gunfire, sirens, the humming of Israeli surveillance drones. So an extremely violent night here, but it is calm now.

The ever-present noise of those drones has disappeared, as has the explosions for now. There is, broadly speaking, political will for this deal in both countries. That said, you're going to have hardliners on both sides who oppose this. The question is whether those voices will have any say in the outcome. And then the other question is, as you pointed out before, how does this play out on the ground if you have friction between Hezbollah and Israeli forces on the ground, between Hezbollah and the Lebanese army potentially, how those specific things play out in southern Lebanon will determine whether this ceasefire holds or not. Trevor Burrus And there are other factors at play here too. In addition to the things that Netanyahu, earlier you mentioned, is spelling out.

You've got the United Nations and other international partners being given quite a difficult task in the days and weeks ahead. Tell us a little bit about some of the other things we should be keeping an eye on as we try to assess whether this deal can stick. Right. The deal also calls for international monitoring of the agreement by the US and France. And they're joining some of the actors that are already on the ground,

like the UN that has thousands of peacekeepers already in Southern Lebanon who are there monitoring a truce that is, or that held largely since the last war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006. So the idea is for all of those actors to work together to make sure that this happens. And again, the tricky part is that it calls on Hezbollah to not have its military forces or weapons present in areas in southern Lebanon close to Israel. And how does that get enforced? And does the Lebanese army have the ability to do that?

The Lebanese government said that more than a million people were uprooted from their homes in Lebanon, most of them since the escalation of the war in September, and this has been a kind of all consuming crisis for Lebanon. You have displaced people everywhere in the country and those people want to return home and the army is calling on people want to return home. And the Army is calling on people not to do that because there's going to be a lot of insecurity. I mean, you're going to have unexploded ordinance. And again, we have to see how all of that plays out. I've been speaking to Wall Street Journal Middle East correspondent Jared Mausen in

Beirut. Jared, thank you so much. Thank you. Coming up, we've got the rest of the day's news, including Donald Trump's latest picks for his economic policy team and why you might want to take a closer read of the online reviews before your next dinner booking. Those stories and more after the break. As the world's population grows, so does the need for resources like potash to support sustainable food production. This is why BHP is building one of the world's most sustainable potash mines in Canada.

Essential resources responsibly produced. This is what BHP has committed to Canada. The future is clear. It's happening now at BHP, a future resources company. To discover how, visit bhp.com slash better future. President-elect Donald Trump is continuing to round out his economic team, selecting longtime adviser Kevin Hassett to lead the National Economic Council and trade lawyer Jameson Greer to be his U.S. Trade Representative.

Trump also nominated Vince Haley, who served as a speechwriter and adviser during his first term and on the campaign trail, to lead the Domestic Policy Council that oversees a range of issues including healthcare, immigration, and education. We asked the journal's European Finance editor Alex Frangos what the picks tell us about Trump's plans to implement his economic policies. What we have here are three people who worked for Trump before. They know Trump. They're on board with Trump and his economic plan.

In the first term, there were a lot of people in the administration who saw themselves as protecting the government from Trump and so weren't executing the things that he really wanted. So the idea here is that these are people who Trump trusts. What's interesting, and this is maybe more Beltway intrigue for our listeners, but there are a couple names who haven't been included yet. Peter Navarro, who was his very close advisor last time on trade, and Robert Lighthizer, who was his trade representative. And they haven't yet been given official roles. So it's kind of interesting just who the personnel will be and how strong the bench will be in terms of understanding the

complexities of trade and tariffs and international policy. Meanwhile, Trump has nominated Stanford health policy professor Dr. J. Bhattacharya to lead the National Institutes of Health. Bhattacharya has in the past advocated for overhauling the $47 billion agency, which funds much of the nation's basic research into underlying causes of infectious and other diseases. The NIH falls under the umbrella of the Department of Health and Human Services, the massive health agency that Trump selected Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead. After his selection was announced, Bhattacharya referenced Kennedy's Make America Healthy

Again slogan on X, adding, quote, we will reform American scientific institutions so that they are worthy of trust again. And in news moving markets today, shares of Dell Technologies and HP have slumped in off-hours trading after both tech companies issued downbeat outlooks in their latest earnings. Executives at both companies, however, cited the adoption of AI capabilities as a reason for optimism, expecting sales to pick up in the second half of next year. That's when more customers are expected to upgrade their devices when Microsoft ends support for Windows 10 in October.

Also falling overnight were shares of CrowdStrike, as the cybersecurity provider swung to a quarterly loss following a July operations meltdown that was one of the worst computer outages ever. The Texas-based company still counts nearly 300 customers among the Fortune 500, however, and slightly raised its fiscal year outlook after cutting its guidance in August. And on deck today, we'll get weekly jobless claims data at 1.30 pm Eastern, followed by an October PCE inflation reading, the Fed's preferred inflation gauge at three. Meanwhile, earnings will slow to a trickle ahead of tomorrow's U.S. market's closure for Thanksgiving.

And finally, is Angus Steakhouse the best restaurant in London? A recent wave of glowing online reviews and an uptick in visitors to the chain's outposts in the center of the British capital may give off that impression, but the journal's Natasha Dangor reports that Angus's sudden popularity isn't quite what it seems, thanks to an internet campaign led by Londoners frustrated with tourists clogging up actual local hot spots. Natasha Dangor, Journalist, Angus I found the guy who actually started this whole thing. He was an anonymous Londoner who was complaining about over-tourism at his favorite sandwich shop in Borough Market.

And it just sparked a whole chain reaction of people commenting on Reddit and then on TripAdvisor and then on Google. And they basically started writing good reviews about Angus Steakhouse to lure those annoying tourists away from popular foodie hotspots and describing it as a hidden gem saying, you know, I hope tourists don't find this place, saying things like it's Taylor Swift's and Freddie Mercury's favorite restaurant. It's hilariously over-exaggerated and it's very classic British humor. For its part, Angus leaned in to the online campaign, with its CEO saying he appreciated

a good joke. But Natasha said the tongue-in-cheek love bombing of the brand actually exposed a larger weakness in crowdsourced online recommendations. It's actually known as data poisoning, where people are trying to manipulate AI algorithms, in this case, so that Angus Steakhouse would appear at the top of recommended lists when you look up best steakhouses in London or best restaurants in London. So it's sort of scary to think what you search online, what AI-generated responses you receive, where does that come from?

Is it coming from ruses like this, or is it genuine? And that's it for What's News for Wednesday morning. Today's show was produced by Kate Bulevent, our supervising producer was Daniel Bach, and I'm Luke Vargas for The Wall Street Journal. We will be back tonight with a new show and until then, thanks for listening.