Is Syria ready to launch peace negotiations with Israel? According to a report by top Arab journalist Ibrahim Hamidi, that may very well be the case.
Hamidi, who heads the Damascus bureau at Al-Hayat daily. is considered close to government circles. In a report over the weekend, he alleged that Syrian President Bashar Assad recently used various back-channels to signal that he was interested in pursuing indirect talks with Israel, meaning he is ready to return to the negotiations table with Israel.
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Israel and Syria have been in a state of was since the Jewish state's inception. The two have actively clashed in three major wars – the 1948 War of Independence, the Six-Day War in 1967, and the Yom Kippur War in 1973.
In 1974, in the wake of Israel's victory in the war, United Nations Security Council Resolution 350 formed the UN Disengagement Observer Force, which has been present on the two countries' shared border ever since.
Throughout the 1990s, several Israeli governments negotiated with Syria's President Hafez Assad in an attempted to broker a peace deal. While serious progress was made, negotiations eventually fizzled.
The Syrian regime has long-been supported by Iran, Israel's archfoe in the Middle East. Since the country plunged into a civil war in 2011, Iran has been steadily increasing its hold on Syria, and there is a wide consensus amount Middle East experts and Western leaders alike that Assad's regime would not have survived the near-decade-long conflict without the Iranian lifeline.
Aside from sending in funds, troops, and weapons, Tehran has also ordered Hezbollah – it's Lebanon-based proxy – to rally to Assad's aid. The Shiite terrorist group has sustained considerable losses in the fighting but continues to do Iran's bidding in Syria.
The ayatollahs' regime often uses Syria as a conduit through which to deliver weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon. Israel has said it would not allow Iran to destabilize its already volatile borders with Syria and Lebanon and has repeatedly targeted Iranian assets in Syria.
Hamidi's report over the weekend stressed that Assad's used senior Russian officials to contact Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his close circle of advisers directly.
Russia has also stepped in to stabilize Assad's regime and maintains a military presence in Syria. Moscow and Jerusalem have been working closely to ensure both are able to safeguard their regional interests.
Hamidi claimed that despite the support Assad is reeving from Iran, Russia and Turkey, "For Syria, the way to Washington runs through Tel Aviv" – a hint to the close relationship Israel maintains with the Trump administration.
He further noted that "whenever Damascus faced a political crossroads it opted for the possibility of indirect and secret negotiations with Israel even though it never really planned to reach an agreement to normalize relations with Israel."
Hamidi also noted that this may be a ploy by Assad, who is not at all interested in fostering real dialogue with Israel but only in creating the facade of one to gain European and American support.
Assad's true intentions remain unclear, especially given the fact that Damascus issued no condemnation of the recent rapprochement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, while his Iranian patrons both excoriated the two Persian Gulf kingdoms over the move.
Abu Dhabi has been a major contributor to the humanitarian relief efforts in war-torn Syria, which may also account for Assad's silence, Hamidi wrote.
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