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…..more
