With Israel and Lebanon working towards a longstanding peaceful settlement and neutralizing Hezbollah\u2019s terrorist machinery, the moment has arrived for a full normalization with Syria too. This means diplomatic recognition, economic ties, and a strategic partnership under the Abraham Accords umbrella, not just a limited security pact.\n<\/p>\n
Under this framework, Israel should retain control over the pre-2024 Golan Heights\u2014about 1,200 square kilometers of strategic high ground annexed in 1981 and essential for defense\u2014while Damascus gains stability and a path into a moderate regional bloc.\n<\/p>\n
Syrian control of the Golan from 1948 to 1967 turned this territory into a launchpad for aggression. Damascus positioned more than 265 artillery pieces along the heights, supported by fortified bunkers, trenches, minefields, and snipers. Syrian forces and allied Palestinian commandos shelled Israeli kibbutzim in the Hula Valley and the Galilee for nearly two decades.\n<\/p>\n
On April 7, 1967, Syrian artillery unleashed more than 300 shells on Kibbutz Gadot in just 40 minutes, part of a broader barrage that destroyed homes and forced civilians into shelters. Mount Hermon served as a Syrian observation post and staging ground for cross-border raids. During the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Syrian armor and rockets overran sections of the Golan before Israeli forces reversed the advance. Patently, the plateau enabled repeated attacks on Israeli civilians.\n<\/p>\n
Today the opposite holds: under Israeli administration, the Golan produces agriculture, tourism, and wine while Israeli defenses face outward. No Syrian villages endure shelling from the heights.\n<\/p>\n
Indeed, normalization under the U.S.-designed Abraham Accords delivers geostrategic insurance against an Iranian regime that survived recent conflicts and now projects strength. Tehran\u2019s narrative, amplified through \u2018Beijing\u2019s parallel propaganda scheme\u2019, has corroded Western institutions, universities, and media from within.\n<\/p>\n
Trade under the Abraham peace accords proves the model: bilateral exchanges between Israel and the United Arab Emirates alone reached more than 3 billion dollars annually by 2024, with overall partner growth exceeding 15 percent into 2025. Extending the accords northward creates an unbroken moderate corridor from the Gulf to the Mediterranean. This economic pull weakens Tehran\u2019s regional geostrategic land bridge and shields Damascus against Iranian dominance.\n<\/p>\n
After weeks of Iranian missile barrages, Gulf states need Israel\u2019s multilayered missile defense, which has delivered over 90 percent interception rates. As the northern flank stabilizes, Saudi entry into an \u201cAbrahamic NATO\u201d becomes the logical next step, locking Gulf capitals into the anti-Iran front recent wars have made unavoidable.\n<\/p>\n
Urgency stems from accelerating diplomatic isolation. The European Union fully lifted economic sanctions on Syria in May 2025. In January 2026, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen met President Ahmed al-Sharaa in Damascus. He refused to shake her hand, instead placing his hand on his chest in a traditional salute; she mirrored the gesture. Certainly, this is an ironic stark symbol of Europe\u2019s submission to those who are tough while displaying \u201cJudas Iscariot attitudes\u201d towards the Jewish State that is fighting for its survival.\n<\/p>\n
Brussels then announced 620 million euros in support for 2026 and 2027 as part of a larger 2.5 billion euro aid package for reconstruction. The gesture followed years of European demographic shifts driven by mass illegal immigration and rising Islamism, tilting policy toward engagement with former jihadist figures. Al-Sharaa, who led the terrorist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham before assuming power, addressed Chatham House (a Soros\u2019 Open Societies-funded entity) in London on March 31, 2026, projecting pragmatism to European audiences.\n<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, American Special Envoy to Syria and Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack has not only questioned but actively undermined Israeli actions to shield Druze communities in southern Syria\u2019s Suwayda clashes, labeling them poorly timed while praising Damascus\u2019s \u201cnascent government.\u201d This weak argument undercuts a century-old alliance. Israeli Druze have fought alongside Jewish forces since 1948 and requested mandatory conscription in 1956. Their enlistment rate now stands at 85 percent, among the highest in the country, with Druze officers and pilots serving prominently.\n<\/p>\n
Barrack simultaneously advocates Turkish involvement in Gaza reconstruction despite President Recep Tayyip Erdogan\u2019s repeated declarations that Israel commits \u201cgenocide\u201d and that \u201cNetanyahu\u2019s methods would make Hitler jealous\u201d. Erdogan has suspended trade, hosts Hamas figures in the country, and threatened direct military action against Israel. Without a doubt, these positions reward adversaries while eroding Western leverage.\n<\/p>\n
After the war President Trump entered and then abruptly abandoned despite holding the advantage\u2014echoing Vietnam and Afghanistan\u2014, Israel stands militarily dominant but diplomatically constrained. A Syrian peace deal under the Abraham Accords that preserves Israeli control of the Golan, locks down the northern border, pulls Damascus from Tehran, and paves Riyadh\u2019s entry would break that constraint and equip Gulf partners with proven Israeli defenses for the next round with Iran.\n<\/p>\n
Hesitation hands the narrative to Europe\u2019s sanctions relief to Syria without fully defending what they supposedly stand for and mainstreams U.S. envoys softening their stance while questioning Israeli\u2013Druze ties.\n<\/p>\n
Israeli strategic reality demands action: retain the Golan, normalize with Syria, recognize al-Sharaa\u2019s early steps against anti-Jewish and anti-Israel networks (including preventive arrests of terrorists planning an attack on a Damascus-based Jewish leader and a Hezbollah-linked cell in Quneitra plotting rocket attacks on Israel), and expand the Abraham Accords before the window closes.\n\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\tJose Lev is an American-Israeli scholar focused on Middle Eastern security doctrine.
\n
\nA multilingual veteran of both the Israel Defense Forces\u2019 special forces and the U.S. Army, he holds a B.S. in Neuroscience with a minor in Israel Studies from American University in Washington, D.C., three master\u2019s degrees in international geopolitics, applied economics, and security and intelligence studies, as well as a medical degree. He is currently completing a Ph.D. in Intelligence and Global Security in the Washington, D.C. area.
\n
\nAlongside blogging for The Times of Israel, he is a writing fellow at the U.S.-based think tank, the Middle East Forum; regularly appears on Latin American television networks to provide geopolitical and security analysis; and is a member of the Association for Israel Studies.\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With Israel and Lebanon working towards a longstanding peaceful settlement and neutralizing Hezbollah\u2019s terrorist machinery, the moment has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":75696,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[18501,5291,799,1011,270,41,262,10679,38,8531,54,496,18502,27607,12618,27608,2254,7889,669,11334,1411,100,18503,2037,34,1424,598,37,1421,12639,25918,48,11783,16101,7376,2742,5790,1189,6019,21445,16883,93,49,6414,2509,18504,16704,2253,5860,12619,50,20685,8747,95,545,7378,24598,8466,2525,1176,2526,16934,691,4056,27609,18143],"class_list":{"0":"post-75695","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-israel","8":"tag-2025-hostage-deal","9":"tag-abraham-accords","10":"tag-afghanistan","11":"tag-agriculture","12":"tag-bahrain","13":"tag-benjamin-netanyahu","14":"tag-china","15":"tag-democracy-in-israel","16":"tag-donald-trump","17":"tag-druze","18":"tag-europe","19":"tag-gaza","20":"tag-gaza-border","21":"tag-gaza-disengagement","22":"tag-gaza-reconstruction","23":"tag-gaza-rocket-attacks","24":"tag-gaza-strip","25":"tag-genocide","26":"tag-golan-heights","27":"tag-great-britain","28":"tag-hamas","29":"tag-hezbollah","30":"tag-hostages-in-gaza","31":"tag-hungary","32":"tag-iran","33":"tag-iran-nuclear-deal","34":"tag-islam","35":"tag-israel","36":"tag-israel-at-war","37":"tag-israel-saudi-normalization","38":"tag-israel-china-relations","39":"tag-israel-iran-conflict","40":"tag-israel-us-relations","41":"tag-israel-jewish-and-democratic","42":"tag-israeli-foreign-policy","43":"tag-israeli-politics","44":"tag-israeli-society","45":"tag-jerusalem","46":"tag-jewish-history","47":"tag-jewish-arab-violence","48":"tag-kibbutz","49":"tag-lebanon","50":"tag-middle-east","51":"tag-morocco","52":"tag-northern-israel","53":"tag-october-7-anniversary","54":"tag-palestinian-statehood","55":"tag-palestinians","56":"tag-peace-builders","57":"tag-peace-process","58":"tag-saudi-arabia","59":"tag-six-day-war","60":"tag-sudan","61":"tag-syria","62":"tag-terrorism","63":"tag-the-arab-world","64":"tag-the-holocaust","65":"tag-touring-israel","66":"tag-trump-peace-plan","67":"tag-turkey","68":"tag-uae-united-arab-emirates","69":"tag-uae-israel-peace","70":"tag-united-kingdom","71":"tag-us-politics","72":"tag-wine-spirits","73":"tag-yom-kippur-war"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75695\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}