Why Did Israel Attack Syria? What Comes Next?
Former Israeli peace negotiator Daniel Levy breaks down what Netanyahu hoped to gain at home and in the region with his latest escalation.
Prior to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to Washington, DC on July 7, Israeli media was packed with background briefings and speculation suggesting an imminent breakthrough in Israeli-Syrian relations. Commentators cautioned that this would perhaps not be full Abraham Accords style normalization, but senior officials were meeting, and some kind of US-endorsed non-aggression pact as a step towards relations was in the offing.
For Syria's new rulers, it might be the price to pay for Donald Trump having put aside US sanctions against the country, for his rescinding of the terror designation for the al-Nusrah Front, also known as Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, and for having met with President Ahmad al-Sharaa in Riyadh in May.
For Israel, it would be a further embellishment of Netanyahu’s case that what can't be achieved by force can be achieved by more force, and that relations with Arab states can be bludgeoned through in the midst of Israel's genocidal war against the Palestinians.
An added bonus would be the entrenching of Israel's unchallenged status as sovereign on the Golan Heights – proof that Israeli illegal annexation of territory can endure. The Israeli read across to its plans for the future of the West Bank is rather obvious.
But it wasn’t even a week after wheels went up for Netanyahu as he headed home from DC, and Israel was bombing central Damascus, its Diaspora Affairs Minister, Amichai Chikli, was threatening al-Sharaa with assassination, and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich was busy reposting the Israeli flag alongside the Druze flag on social media (on closer inspection, not so much the Druze flag as the Seychelles flag, but heck, they look similar, and Israel's accuracy in flags should surely not be held to a higher standard than its accuracy in bombing schools, churches and aid distribution centers).
Al-Sharaa, meanwhile, held a call with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, reiterating their shared opposition to Israel's actions.
Early Saturday local time, the US envoy Tom Barrack, followed by al-Sharaa, confirmed a cessation of hostilities, including a partial deployment of Syrian forces in the south – agreed to by the warring factions as well as Israel, and endorsed by neighboring countries.
Unlike its decades-long displacement, dehumanization, and denial of Palestinian rights, Israel has not been a prime mover in the misery that has befallen war-ravaged Syria for more than a decade.
So, why did Israel bomb Damascus this week?