The site of fortifications on top of Mount Bental, looking over the Golan Valley in Israel, used during the 1967 and 1973 wars.
By Evan Gottesman
On January 18, Israel struck at pro-Assad forces in Syria, killing six members of the Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah and an Iranian officer. Hezbollah retaliated 11 days later with an attack that left two Israeli soldiers dead. The exchange highlights a recurring failure by Israel to exploit Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s weakened station and stabilize the country’s historically dangerous northern border.
Despite the Assad government’s embattled position, Israel continues to expend resources targeting its rivals Iran and Hezbollah inside Syrian territory. The emergence of the Islamic State makes this strategy increasingly untenable and the Israelis may ultimately be contributing to their own insecurity by widening the power gap that actors like IS seek to fill. While Damascus remains a bitter enemy of Israel, the ongoing civil war undoubtedly makes challenging Israel a far lower priority for Syria’s Ba’ath Party regime than basic self-preservation. With no end in sight for the Syrian conflict, Israel and Assad should pursue a truce—something that is conducive to both parties’ interests.
At the start of the Syrian Civil War, many Western powers angled to terminate the Assad government. In August 2011, U.S. President Barack Obama declared, “For the sake of the Syrian people, the time has come for President Assad to step aside.”
Such proclamations seemed safe at a time when the regimes of other Arab dictators like Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi were crumbling. Yet almost four years later, the Syrian government survives. Meanwhile, the meteoric rise of IS makes toppling Assad a progressively more dangerous prospect. This is especially true for Israel. Reports surfaced in December that IS had taken up positions near the Israel-Syria frontier. Smaller rebel groups currently control the Syrian side of the border.
Both IS and the government in Damascus oppose Israel. However, the Islamic fundamentalist group harbors a deeper, more ideological enmity towards the Jewish state.
Dr. Ghaidaa Hetou is the founder and CEO of I-Strategic International, a risk-consulting firm focused on the Middle East.
“Despite the rhetoric on both sides,” Dr. Hetou says of Israel and the Syrian government, “both share the same enemy: radical Islamists.”
“The border between Israel and Syria was remarkably quiet for more than 35 years, as it should be,” Dr. Hetou continues. “That ended during the crisis.”
While Jerusalem initially maintained a measure of neutrality in the conflict, Israel became increasingly hostile to Assad as the Syrian war intensified. At first, Israeli officials refrained from publicly endorsing or condemning any party. Later, Israel began launching strikes against pro-Assad forces including government troops, Hezbollah fighters, and Iranian targets. In 2013, Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren publicly reversed his country’s non-alignment, calling for Bashar al-Assad’s ouster.
Yet in doing so, Israel is acting in a way that is inimical to its own interests. The Syrian Ba’ath Party is an enemy Israel knows whereas IS is an untested foe. The risks of that group, or one like it, controlling the Israel-Syria border may be difficult to measure, but IS’s violent track record does not offer a promising forecast. The January incidents were only the latest expressions of an increasingly self-destructive Israeli policy of tacit support for Syria’s rebels.
Israel’s actions may be misguided, but they derive from understandable motives. Jerusalem fought three wars with Syria in the first twenty-five years of Israeli statehood. Assad is closely allied to Iran and Hezbollah. These factors make the Syrian regime threatening to many Israeli officials.
However, this fails to account for the impact of the current conflict in Syria. The Ba’ath government remains a powerful actor in the context of the civil war but it is a significantly weaker rival for Israel. Assad’s forces along with their Hezbollah and Iranian supporters are tied down fighting Syrian rebel groups. Hezbollah’s measured behavior during January’s crisis is further evidence that Damascus and her allies are not interested in opening a new front against Israel while war in Syria itself continues.
For the time being, Jerusalem and the Ba’ath regime should commit to a ceasefire, conditional on Israeli non-involvement in Syria and the Assad government’s guarantee to restrain its allies around the border. Such an agreement can restore balance on the Israel-Syria frontier, as pro-regime forces can act without IDF pressure. Israel, for its part, will likely gain several years of relative calm on its northern border as the Syrian conflict shows no signs of ending. Neighboring Lebanon’s civil war lasted for 15 years, and Syria’s could easily last just as long. As internal violence persists, Damascus will be more inclined to maintain détente with outside rivals like Israel.
A definitive and official peace agreement would likely require Israel to evacuate the Golan Heights, a strategic high ground Israel seized from Syria in 1967 and unilaterally annexed in 1981. Jerusalem is unlikely to accept this, particularly with Syria unstable, but in 2015, the Golan Heights is not the only Syrian territory outside government control, which certainly changes Bashar al-Assad’s strategic calculus. Damascus is assuredly more interested in recapturing large swaths of territory recently taken by rebel groups than restoring control over a narrow (albeit valuable) border strip, leaving Israel and Assad room to reach an unofficial accord.
An Israel-Assad truce proposal must also account for possible Iranian opposition. Tehran maintains a more extensive regional dispute with Israel, meaning a détente could strain relations between Damascus and the Islamic Republic. However, it will be difficult for Iran to keep its Syrian ally from such an agreement. Iran provides the Syrian government with significant support, but it is not the Ba’ath regime’s sole patron.
Syria was once a Soviet client state, and the Russian Federation remains an important sponsor for Bashar al-Assad. Moscow maintains significant interests in the country, including a naval installation on Syria’s Mediterranean coast. Unlike the Iranians, Russia is not directly opposed to Israel, which limits Tehran’s range of options.
Alternatively, Iran could accept an Assad-Israel truce to relieve pressure on its proxies in the Levant. Tehran’s clout in the broader Middle East is growing, with Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen subject to significant Iranian influence. In turn, Jerusalem lacks the political capital to counter with that influence with its own.
“Israel can see these developments very clearly and does not have a choice but to reimagine its future relations in the region,” observes Dr. Hetou. Israel may have to adapt to a new Iranian-led Middle Eastern order.
Under these circumstances, Jerusalem and Damascus should move quickly to achieve a détente that will benefit both sides. Israel and the Syrian government may be traditionally opposed, but in a region as volatile as the Middle East, old animosities must not restrain states from adapting to new realities.
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Evan Gottesman is an editorial assistant at World Policy Journal.
[Photo courtesy of Friedmans In Israel]