The end of 2024 produced a surprising turn of events in the 13-year war in Syria. Bashar al-Assad’s regime collapsed spectacularly in the face of a limited operation by rebel forces.
Amid the turmoil, Israel expanded its occupation of Syrian lands in the south of the country, expelling hundreds of Syrians from their homes. It also launched a devastating aerial bombing campaign, annihilating the Syrian air force and military capabilities. Some of the bombings were so massive that they were recorded as minor earthquakes. Dozens of people have died as a result of these attacks.
Israeli soldiers have also repeatedly shot at civilians protesting against the occupation. These people come from communities that have long resisted Israel’s supposed archenemies, the al-Assad regime and Iran. These events are further proof that Israeli claims to fight only against “the axis of resistance” and seek friendship with the peoples of the region are completely empty.
Israel has clearly chosen to begin relations with its neighbor’s new government with war. He has positioned himself as the biggest spoiler of efforts to stabilize Syria and establish legitimate democratic governance.
It is important to remember that Israel was quite comfortable with a prominent member of the “axis of resistance,” the al-Assad regime. For decades, Syrian President Hafez al-Assad ensured that Israel’s northern border remained quiet. After the 1974 signing of the “separation of forces” agreement, his regime made no further attempts to retake the Golan Heights, which Syria had lost to Israel during the 1967 war due to al-Assad’s failed policies as minister. of Defense.
The status quo did not change under Hafez’s son Bashar. As a state that maintained de facto peace with Israel without a treaty, Syria represented great benefits to both the United States and Israel; in some respects, even more than the Arab States that had fully normalized their relations with the Zionist entity.
For example, the al-Assad regime’s association with the “axis of resistance” allowed it to be in a special position to share intelligence and exchange wanted individuals and groups in exchange for its own survival. Israel saw it as a rare prize that allowed it to violate Syria’s sovereignty at will and divert attention from its own crimes due to the magnitude of the regime’s violence against the Syrian people.
When the Syrian revolution began in 2011, this was bad news for both Bashar al-Assad and Israel. The Israeli government made it clear to its Western allies that it did not want the regime to collapse.
In 2013, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government helped US President Barack Obama’s government back down on its threat to attack the Assad regime for its use of chemical weapons in Ghouta, outside Damascus. He proposed an agreement between the United States and Russia to eliminate the Syrian chemical arsenal, which was later used as an excuse by Washington not to fulfill its “red line” promise.
Israel welcomed Russia’s intervention in 2015 to help keep Bashar al-Assad in power and even provided the Russian military with drones that were used against the Syrian opposition. In 2018, he “approved” the regime’s seizure of rebel-held territory in southern Syria as part of a deal negotiated between Israel and Russia.
Netanyahu stated at the time: “We have not had any problems with the Assad regime. For 40 years, not a single bullet was fired in the Golan Heights.”
When Israel launched its latest invasion of Syrian territory in September, two months before the fall of Bashar al-Assad, no bullets were fired. The Syrian president’s response was to ignore the expansion of the Israeli occupation and publicly claim that it never happened.
From September to December, Israel added 500 square kilometers (192 square miles) of Syrian land to the Syrian territory it has already occupied since 1967. This area includes the entire demilitarized zone of the 1974 “separation of forces” agreement, as well as areas beyond her. while Israeli media claim that Israeli troops control 95 percent of Quneitra province. The Israeli army has expelled dozens of Syrians from their villages and cities and has penetrated as far as the city of Quneitra and the city of al-Baath. Southern Syrians were unable to celebrate the fall of the regime they had long awaited.
Analysts have offered different views on why Israel has invaded new Syrian territories. Some see “strategic” and “military” advantages in having positions so close to Damascus. Others see it as a conquest designed to negotiate Syrian recognition of the Israeli annexation of the Golan Heights. Others point to the “religious right” and their statements that “the future of Jerusalem is to expand to Damascus.” Regardless of how this invasion was framed among Israeli decision-makers, it fits a historical pattern: Israel has been expansionist since its founding, even under secular and left-wing governments.
Beyond the intrinsic value of their newly “conquered” land, the expanded occupation aims to create a new factor of instability for the new Syrian government. This has two purposes. Ideally, it becomes a pressure point on the new authorities to weaken Syrian solidarity with the Palestinian cause. But even if this fails, it will serve as a continued source of destabilization, tension and pressure within Syrian politics that may warp the democratic trajectory of post-Assad Syria. Foreign occupation of territory often has this effect on domestic politics, including in the Middle East, where authoritarian rule has largely been justified by Israeli aggression and occupation.
Israel’s entrenchment, once secured, will be very difficult to undo – and will affect the entire new political experiment in Damascus. There is an urgent need to confront it, especially as Israel is trying to take advantage of the Syrian distraction.
However, the approach of the new authorities has been to try to eliminate all pretexts for Israeli aggression and rely on the international community to stop it. Syria’s new de facto leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, has been explicit in this approach and left nothing hidden: while he declared that Israel had “crossed the lines of confrontation,” he also noted that Syria did not have the military capacity to confront to the Israeli army at this time and would not allow either party to use Syrian territory to drag it into the area. such a war.
Without a doubt, Syria’s new authorities are walking a tightrope. On the one hand, they face a serious threat of state collapse and, on the other, popular pressure to stabilize the economy and provide services, which may be greatly facilitated by the lifting of sanctions by the allied Western powers. of Israel.
Despite the first “comforting” noises from the new authorities, the chances of Israel pressuring Syria to adopt a path of “normalization” are slim. An isolationist minority could emerge advocating improving ties with Israel and ending Syria’s historic support for the Palestinian cause, but ironically the chances of this happening diminish with each new attack Israel launches.
There is little support for normalization not only among the general population but also among the rebel bases, which will become the backbone of the new army and state security apparatus. The Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group, the new de facto authority in Damascus, has historically been averse to such engagement with Israel and so has the significant number of Palestinians among rebel fighters and commanders in Syria. Pushing in this direction could trigger an internal rebellion.
Israel has made it clear that it will not wait to see how the new Syrian government will turn out. The Israeli approach is always preemptive aggression, almost regardless of who is on the other side.
However, in the Syrian case, Israel knows that solidarity between Syrians and Palestinians has remained strong for decades despite attempts to undermine it. Since the outbreak of the Syrian revolution, both Syrians and Palestinians (particularly in Gaza) have held demonstrations of mutual solidarity.
Israel also knows that the cause of a free Syria enjoys immense moral legitimacy and strength among Syrians and Arabs as a whole. That is why it will seek, through continuous military maneuvers and diplomatic sabotage, to prevent the new Syrian government from maintaining stability in the country and achieving legitimacy abroad.
Growing Israeli aggression requires a united front, even at the level of activism. All those who mourn the fall of Bashar al-Assad and gloat over the Israeli bombing of Syria should reflect on why Israel is attacking now. It is evident that a cohesive and democratic Syria would be a much stronger advocate for Palestinian liberation than the Assadist tyranny ever was.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.
