Trump's Warming Toward Syria Complicates Israel's Military Strategy

Boston Globe

25-05-2025

Israel has also called the new Syrian government, led by an Islamist rebel faction once linked to al-Qaida, 'extremist.'
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But just days after Israel's May 2 airstrike near the palace in Damascus, President Donald Trump upended decades of U.S. foreign policy by meeting with President Ahmad al-Sharaa of Syria and announcing plans to lift all sanctions on the country. Trump said al-Sharaa had 'a real shot at pulling it together,' after a nearly 14-year civil war fractured his country.
Since that meeting May 14, the Israeli strikes on Syria have all but stopped.
The United States is Israel's staunchest and most powerful ally. But Trump's surprise embrace of al-Sharaa not only offered the new Syrian leader an unexpected lifeline, it also appears to have undercut efforts by the hard-line Israeli government to seize on the instability in Syria and the weakness of the new government to prevent the rise of another anti-Israel neighbor.
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'Israel has serious doubts about his true intention and the pragmatic image that he is trying to project,' Carmit Valensi, a senior researcher at the think tank Institute for National Security Studies, said of al-Sharaa.
Before Trump's declaration of confidence in the new Syrian leader, Netanyahu and his top aides in Israel had been determined to deny al-Sharaa and his nascent government access to the vast array of heavy weaponry amassed by the Assad regime over its decades in power.
'The most significant part of the Israeli airstrikes in Syria over the past four months was aimed against strategic weapons that were under the possession of the former Syrian army,' Valensi said, adding that the Israeli government now appears to be starting to find ways to avoid more confrontation.
'All of this is indicating a direction of deconfliction and de-escalation and more willingness to open a dialogue with the Syrian regime,' she said.
Publicly, Israeli officials have described a number of drivers behind their attacks on Syria.
One was a kinship with the Druse religious minority in Syria, who practice an offshoot of Islam. About 150,000 Druse live in Israel, serve in the military and participate in politics.
In a statement last month, the Israeli military vowed to assist Druse communities in Syria 'out of a deep commitment to our Druse brothers in Israel.'
The Druse in Syria have long controlled the strategically located Sweida region in the southwest near Israel, but are not seen as a threat by the Israelis.
In late April, when fierce sectarian clashes broke out between Druse militia fighters and forces linked to Syria's new government, Israel offered to come to the aid of the Druse.
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Israeli leaders said the airstrike near the presidential palace was a warning to al-Sharaa to stop the attacks on the Druse.
But the motivations behind the hundreds of strikes on Syria over the past months go beyond support for the Druse.
Israel began its attacks on Syria almost immediately after Assad was driven from power on Dec. 8 after a 24-year tenure, more than half of it spent fighting a bloody civil war.
Within about a week of Assad's fall, Israel had conducted more than 450 strikes on Syria, according to the military and humanitarian groups.
The attacks took out the entire Syrian navy, fighter jets, drones, tanks, air-defense systems, weapons plants and a wide array of missiles and rockets across the country, according to the Israeli military.
The new government in Syria has not attacked Israel since coming to power and has said the country is weary of war and wants to live at peace with all countries.
Trump's olive branch to al-Sharaa complicates the Israeli strategy in Syria and is the latest example of how U.S. foreign policy is reshaping the Middle East.
'What we don't want in Syria is in another version of the Houthis,' said Yaakov Amidror, another former national security adviser to Netanyahu and a fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America.
The Iran-backed Houthis control northern Yemen and have been firing missiles at Israel since the war in the Gaza Strip began, in solidarity with the Palestinians.
Al-Sharaa, who has long since distanced himself from his past connections to al-Qaida, insists that he wants to preside over a stable regime and be a reliable partner for Western nations.
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But Israeli officials are skeptical at best.
Many around Netanyahu see Syria's new administration as likely to evolve into a stridently Islamist, anti-Israel government.
In March, Gideon Sa'ar, the Israeli foreign minister, said the idea that Syria was moving toward a reasonable government was 'ridiculous,' adding that al-Sharaa and his cohorts 'were jihadists and remain jihadists, even if some of their leaders have donned suits.'
Still, the sheer volume and scope of Israel's attacks on Syria have drawn criticism from around the world, including from President Emmanuel Macron of France, who met with al-Sharaa in mid-May.
'You cannot ensure the security of your country by violating the territorial integrity of your neighbors,' Macron said of Israel.
And even some inside Israel say that a concerted military campaign will not be good for Israel long term.
Tamir Hayman, a former head of intelligence for the Israeli military who is the executive director of the Institute of National Security Studies, said he worries that the strikes are creating the very extremism Israel wants to deter.
'I think we are kind of doing it, sort of from momentum, and should reconsider all of those missions that we are conducting,' he said.
Military experts say part of the motivation behind the Israeli strikes was Netanyahu's desire to secure the parts of southwestern Syria closest to the Golan Heights, a strategic plateau that Israel captured during the 1967 Middle East war and later annexed.
The fear is that groups far more extreme than the Druse could establish a foothold close to Israel, with the ability to threaten Jewish settlements in the Golan Heights or launch attacks deeper into Israel.
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After the Assad regime fell, Israeli troops also seized more Syrian territory.
Another Israeli goal in Syria, according to former military officials and analysts, is to limit Turkey's influence in Syria.
Israel and Turkey have had a fraught relationship over the years. And President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey has moved quickly to establish military and political influence in neighboring Syria, positioning himself as a close ally to the government there.
'If the Turks try to make Syria a base for their military and help the current regime to build capacities that might be used against Israel, there might be conflict,' Amidror said.
But it may be the United States' efforts at rapprochement with Syria that end up stymying Israeli military strategy in Syria.
Trump said in a speech in Saudi Arabia this month that he hopes Syria's new government will succeed in stabilizing the country and keeping peace.
'They've had their share of travesty, war, killing,' he said. 'That's why my administration has already taken the first steps toward restoring normal relations.'
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.