Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was in Washington, D.C., this week, and high on the agenda in his meetings with President Donald Trump was Syria—and the possibility of peace, or at least nonbelligerency, between Israel and its volatile neighbor.
That once unthinkable prospect now seems possible thanks to the overthrow of the murderous Assad regime in Damascus, Syria, and its replacement by the seemingly more moderate government of Ahmad al-Sharaa—the new president’s time in al-Qaeda notwithstanding. Having secured relief of U.S. sanctions from President Trump, who praised him as a “young, attractive. . . tough guy,” al-Sharaa is purportedly open to a deal. Brokering it, Trump might believe, could persuade Netanyahu to show more flexibility on Gaza. But far more than a mere carrot, the signing of an Israeli-Syrian peace accord would be an event of immense historical and strategic import.
In his classic work, The Struggle for Syria, British journalist Patrick Seale argued that Syria represented the linchpin of the Middle East. Whoever controlled it, he argued, would dominate the region. Egypt in the 1950s and ’60s certainly agreed with Seale, as did Iran after the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Conversely, by making peace with Syria, a country could ensure far-reaching stability. No nation understood that principle more profoundly than Israel.
Peace with Syria would enable Israel to forge untold swords—armored formations and artillery corps—into profitable plowshares of trade. It would strengthen Israel’s anti-Iranian alliance with the Sunni world and effectively end the Arab-Israeli conflict, further isolating Hamas and other Palestinian terror organizations previously supported by Damascus.
But the Israeli dream of peace with Syria is not new. And given the history of the two countries’ relationship, it is likely to remain chimerical.
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Author: Michael Oren
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