Abandoning Resistance: Syria is Now Openly Collaborating with Israel
Simply put, the Syrian leadership is actively playing a role on the side of Israel against the Palestinian people and to divide Syria even further.
Last weekend, reports emerged that Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad Shibani was set to meet up with Israeli official Ron Dermer as part of ongoing US-brokered direct talks between Tel Aviv and Damascus. The goal of these discussions, which are a continuation of talks held earlier this July, is to reach a “security agreement”.
While Syrian media and outlets sympathetic to the new rulers in Damascus spent months denying their ties to Israel, over the course of recent weeks, these ties have become open and publicly announced.
There has been much speculation about what the planned agreement, which was originally scheduled to be announced sometime this September, will constitute. All of the most reputable reports suggest it will be some kind of a “security” related agreement, with many suggesting that Syria will demilitarize the south completely, allow Israel to remain an occupation force in the country and it appears that Tel Aviv is demanding a so-called “humanitarian land bridge” to the Sweida Province, which will allow for them to bolster the Druze separatist movement there.
Under the previous Syrian governments, direct communication with Israeli officials was considered treason and punishable by death. Now, Israelis are allowed to enter Damascus and are even taken around by soldiers belonging to the government’s armed forces. Meanwhile, Syria’s current foreign minister is engaging in ongoing direct talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s top aide, Ron Dermer.
Israeli journalist Ehud Yaari even told the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) think-tank, back in July, that Israel had established contact with the new Hayat Tahrir al-Sham leadership “less than three days” after Ahmed al-Shara’a “walked into Damascus”.
From the very first day of the Syrian government’s collapse, Israel had also launched a military operation to permanently occupy strategic territory in southern Syria, while carrying out what was the air force’s largest ever bombing campaign across the country. Since the fall of the Syrian Arab Army and former President Bashar al-Assad, conservative estimates show that hundreds of Syrians have been murdered by Israeli airstrikes, while others have been shot dead in the south of Syria.
The response of Syria’s new President, Ahmed al-Shara’a, has been to grant Israel gifts and concessions. Not only has the new Syrian government not fired a single bullet towards the occupying regime in the south of its country, despite mobilizing its men to carry out campaigns in locations like Deir Ezzor, Damascus, and Aleppo, it has worked alongside US forces in Idlib. This is not to mention the two largest military campaigns along the Syrian coast and in the Sweida province, resulting in the slaughter of thousands of civilians.
What is perhaps even more telling is that the new Syrian government has expelled Palestinian resistance groups, arrested their leaders, and seized their weapons. In addition to this, they have actively bragged about blocking weapons transfers to Hezbollah in Lebanon, while handing over the remains of an Israeli soldier’s body seized during the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon and even the belongings of the infamous Israeli spy Eli Cohen.
At this stage, the Syrian leadership has proven to be more pro-Israeli than Saudi Arabia. Which, considering Israel’s historic support for al-Qaeda linked groups in Syria since 2013, like Ahmed al-Shara’a’s Jabhat al-Nusra (now known as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham), comes as little surprise to many. Syrian State media outlet, SANA, has even opened up a Hebrew-language website.
As for the alleged economic benefits for the Syrian people, which were supposed to come as a result of its open collaboration with the United States and Israel? According to all reputable reports from on the ground, the corruption that plagued the former Syrian leadership has all returned despite there being a brief hiatus for this kind of behavior.
Economic projects have been promised across the country, complete with AI-generated imagery of what the new Syria’s infrastructure will look like, yet there has been little progress on most of the announced projects, some of which have been debunked as false promises.
Then, if we look at other important markers that can predict a country’s success, like security and social cohesion, sectarian bloodshed and general crime are rampant throughout the nation. The minority groups like the Shia, Alawites, Druze, Kurds, and Christians have all become disenfranchised, and the majority of Syria’s Sunni population has been made to feel uncomfortable with the government’s policies.
The Kurdish-led SDF will not hand over their weapons, and it appears they are being pushed towards pursuing separatism. The Druze of Sweida have been rapidly pushed towards separatism, as have the Alawites along the coast, although they are not armed and will require support from the likes of Russia to achieve this goal.
This is not to mention countless reports of armed robberies, vengeance killings that are unrelated to politics or sectarianism and other acts of violence across the country. Some days will see the murder of over 100 people, which will not even reach the international media.
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According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), the total death toll during the new government’s reign in power is creeping up towards 11,000. Keep in mind that it hasn’t even been a year since Ahmed al-Shara’a seized power. These figures, as has been the case throughout the Syrian war since 2011, are also accused of being incomplete, and many groups argue that the death toll is three to four times higher, although there is an absence of evidence to support this notion as of now.
The death toll statistics in Syria reflect a starkly different reality from the one broadcast on many international media channels and represented by government officials; it is indicative of an ongoing civil war, not one that has ended. Daily local protests are also rampant, take for example a sit-in protest in Damascus this Monday, organized by Civil Servants who have experienced delays in payments or in some cases were unable to return to work, despite not being given notification of their firing.
As much as some propagandists seek to portray the situation differently, the war in Syria never truly ended; it only entered a new phase with a different regime at its helm. Except, in this case, the repressive regime now openly works with the United States and opposes the Palestinian resistance.
While Hayat Tahrir al-Sham had self-styled itself as defenders of Sunni Muslims, immediately upon assuming power in Damascus, they began collaborating with the Israeli regime that is committing a genocide against an almost all Sunni Muslim population in the Gaza Strip. As soon as Ahmed al-Shara’a took over, he immediately dropped his former rhetoric about the Palestinian cause.
In the end, even the sectarian language and policies, which resulted in countless civilian massacres, have proven to be nothing more than tools to achieve political goals. In fact, this is very similar to the way the Saudi State came into existence, using the ideology espoused by Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab as a religious basis for pursuing political agendas, committing mass Takfir against anyone who stood in the way of attaining power. Evidently, the Saudis also worked with the West to acquire power, too.
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If these Takfiri groups in Syria truly cared about Muslims, specifically the Sunnis, as they claim, then Gaza would be their red line. On the contrary, they work against those who have actually fought for the people of Gaza.
Currently, the only hope that Palestine has of defeating Israel comes from Lebanese Hezbollah. Even if Iran were to launch an all-out war against Israel, Hezbollah would need to play the role of a ground force and would be the only one capable. Syria is actively working with Israel to stop the weapons transfers to Hezbollah.
Simply put, the Syrian leadership is actively playing a role on the side of Israel against the Palestinian people and to divide Syria even further. While some compare Ahmed al-Shara’a to Mohammed Bin Zayed al-Nahyan or King Abdullah II, his role has much greater implications for the predicament of Palestine. Through Syria’s active collaboration with Israel, it has robbed the Palestinian resistance of a key hub and is helping to weaken the Lebanese front, also.
From both a religious and secular perspective, the new Syrian leadership is collaborating with Israel against the economic, security, territorial, and ideological interests of their own nation.
– Robert Inlakesh is a journalist, writer, and documentary filmmaker. He focuses on the Middle East, specializing in Palestine. He contributed this article to The Palestine Chronicle.