From the moment David Ben-Gurion declared statehood in 1948, Syria, the beating heart of Arab nationalism, has been one of Israel’s most vociferous enemies. But with the sudden fall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad last December and his replacement by a new government that seems to seek an accommodation with Israel and has distanced itself from Iran and Hezbollah, the way has been opened for a seismic transformation of the political landscape in the Middle East.
In keeping with these changes, the Israeli media has reported that Israel and Syria are holding “advanced talks” on a bilateral agreement to end their official state of war.
The transitional president of Syria, Ahmed al-Shara, has confirmed that indirect negotiations, via mediators, have taken place to reduce tensions. The United Arab Emirates has reportedly played a mediation role in these talks, which began several months ago.
Israel’s chief negotiator has been Tzachi Hanegbi, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s national security advisor.
The discussions, focusing on security matters, appear to have intensified since U.S. President Donald Trump urged Shara to normalize relations with Israel. The U.S. envoy to Syria, Thomas Barrack, has called for a Syrian non-aggression agreement with Israel.
Two days ago, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said that Syria, as well as Lebanon, are both prospective candidates to join the U.S.-brokered 2020 Abraham Accords, under which Israel normalized relations with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco. (Sudan was also a participant, but the Sudanese civil war has blocked progress toward a real rapprochement between Israel and Sudan).
Netanyahu is certainly in an upbeat mood, having said that Israel’s “victory” in its recent 12-day war with Iran has led to an opportunity for a “dramatic expansion” of the Abraham Accords. “We are working hard on this.”
Last week, the U.S. special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, alluded to this scenario, having disclosed that he has conducted “successful” talks with Arab countries about joining the Abraham Accords. Predicting a flood of announcements regarding this potential development, he added, “We hope that the normalization process will include countries that might not have been thought of as considering normalization one day.”
Syria is one such country.
During the 1990s, Syria and Israel, which have clashed in four wars and countless skirmishes, conducted on-again, off-again peace talks under the aegis of the United States, but they failed.
While Syrian President Hafez al-Assad demanded a full Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights, which Israel captured during the 1967 Six Day War, the Israeli government of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin rejected his demand. Rabin was prepared to withdraw to the internationally recognized boundary in exchange for a peace treaty, but no further.
Once Syria tightened its relationship with Iran, Israel’s bitterest foe, and allowed Iranian military personnel to set up bases on the Syrian sector of the Golan, Israel lost virtually all interest in negotiating with the Syrians, much less relinquishing the Golan.
This remains Israel’s position today, as Sa’ar confirmed recently. However, the Israeli government may yet be ready to vacate the Syrian side of Mount Hermon and the United Nations buffer zone inside Syria if the conditions are right. Israel seized these areas following Assad’s downfall last year.
For this to happen, Shara, a former jihadist who fought in Iraq and Syria, will have to build trust with Israel. So far, he has struck a conciliatory note, having allayed some of Israel’s suspicions about his past.
From almost day one, Shara has consistently said that he seeks no conflict with Israel. And he has let it be known that neither Iran, previously Syria’s closest ally, nor its proxies in the now-depleted Axis of Resistance, will be permitted to use Syria as a military platform from which to attack Israel.
Shara’s policy is meant not only to assure Israel, but to win U.S. and Western support. It already has had a beneficial effect. On June 30, Trump signed an executive order lifting nearly all economic sanctions on Syria, a move that could have a tremendous impact.
In pursuit of his conciliatory approach to Israel, Shara’s government has been actively working to shut down Hezbollah smuggling routes. A recent report in the Syrian newspaper Al-Ikhbariya stated that Syria’s security forces in Homs had thwarted an attempt by Hezbollah to smuggle weapons and missiles across the border into Lebanon.
Until 2024, Syria served as a conduit for the transfer of Iranian weapons to its regional surrogates, particularly Hezbollah. For years, this smuggling corridor, running from Iran through Iraq and Syria and into Lebanon, was targeted by the Israeli Air Force.
Another sign that Syria is moving in positive directions occurred during the Israel-Iran war. As Arab governments lambasted Israel’s air campaign, Syria refrained from issuing a single formal statement, while Syria’s state media carried only straight news stories.
Syrian pundits regarded the war as a distant eruption, saying that Syria had no stake in it. As one Western commentator wrote, “This represents a strategic move, signalling a deliberate effort by Syria’s new rulers to distance the country from entanglements in regional conflicts.”
In effect, Syria adopted a position of neutrality, a far cry from the days when it was a member of the Axis of Resistance.
Eyal Zisser, a professor of Middle East history at Tel Aviv University, believes that the memory of Iran’s intervention in the Syrian civil war forged a lasting enmity among many Syrians. As he put it, “The Syrian regime sees Iran as a hated enemy, certainly due to its involvement in the murder of Syrians during the country’s civil war. Therefore, when Iran is being hit, the Syrians have no problem with it and there is even satisfaction at Iran’s troubles.”
Viewed from this perspective, it was hardly surprising that Syria did not publicly denounce Israel’s use of Syrian airspace to bomb targets in Iran. Long before the war, the Israeli Air Force had destroyed Syrian air defences, along with many of its military assets, to ensure they did not fall into the hands of hostile forces.
In short, Syria hewed to a carefully calibrated balancing act during the war, neither praising or condemning Iran, nor criticizing or provoking Israel.
Syria remained officially neutral, thereby indicating that a new political order, which may possibly be advantageous to Israel and the United States in the not-too-distant future, has arisen in Damascus.