The Jolani-Israel Alliance Against Hezbollah

In geopolitics, the most consequential alliances are, sometimes, the ones everyone can see, but only a few are willing to acknowledge.

When I started looking into the recent reporting about Syria’s new regime aligning—openly—with Israeli objectives against Hezbollah, I had the same impression I had many times during the war: that what is being presented as a “new development” is not new at all, but rather visible for years, something that people were told to ignore, dismiss, or ridicule, and which only becomes “real” and believable once Israeli sources acknowledge it. Because if you follow this story honestly, it does not begin with the current regime in Damascus, nor with a sudden geopolitical shift. It begins much earlier, in the years when anyone who pointed out the overlap between certain armed groups in Syria and the strategic interests of Israel was treated as someone spreading conspiracy theories.

For years, the pattern was very clear. If you said that armed factions operating under the banners of al-Qaeda or ISIS were indirectly benefiting from Israeli actions and vice versa, or that their battlefield positioning sometimes aligned with Israeli priorities, you were dismissed immediately. The labels were automatic: propagandist, regime loyalist, “Assadist,” or worse. And yet, at the same time, Israeli media itself was reporting—openly—on wounded al-Qaeda fighters from being treated in Israeli hospitals, and weapons were being delivered to the militants affiliated to the same group. This was not leaked information. It was not hidden. It was in the open. So the issue was never the absence of evidence. The issue was the refusal to accept what that evidence implied.

Now, suddenly, we have reporting from Amit Segal, who has close ties to the Israeli establishment itself, describing how the new Syrian regime is actively converging with Israeli strategic goals, particularly in weakening Hezbollah and cutting off Iranian influence in Syria. And what is striking is not only the alignment itself, but the language used to justify it. It is described as survival, centralization of power, international legitimacy, and economic rehabilitation. In other words, the same formula we have seen repeated across the region: if aligning with the dominant power structure secures your position, then that alignment is presented as pragmatism.

This is where the story becomes more serious, because what is being described is the repositioning of Syria within a regional order, where legitimacy is no longer derived from popular mandate or sovereignty, but from usefulness. And usefulness, in this context, is defined very clearly: cutting ties with Iran, disrupting Hezbollah’s logistical networks, and demonstrating to Washington and its allies that Syria is no longer part of the problem, but part of the solution. The question we have to ask here is simple: if sovereignty is redefined as the ability to align yourself with external priorities in exchange for sanctions relief, financial support, and legitimacy, then what remains of sovereignty in any meaningful sense?

Because alongside this political shift, we see the familiar economic language appear. Development packages. Trade concessions. European funding. Billions promised under the banner of reconstruction and reintegration. This is not a coincidence. It is the mechanism through which states are absorbed into the Western system. You prove your reliability by restructuring your internal and external policies to match the expectations of the system, and in return, you are granted access to its economic infrastructure. But this is not integration as an equal partner. It is integration as a function, where your role is defined not by your own strategic priorities, but by your utility to others.

What makes this moment different is not that this process is happening, but that it is now being described with unusual clarity. We are no longer dealing with abstract language about stability or counterterrorism. We are told directly that the goal is to dismantle Hezbollah’s operational space and to sever Iran’s influence in the region. That matters because it strips away the ambiguity that once allowed people to interpret the Syrian conflict in simpler, more comforting terms. It forces us to confront the reality that the battlefield was always more complex, more layered, and more externally shaped than many were willing to admit.

And this is why I say: the alliance was never hidden. It was denied.

There is a difference between something being concealed and something being visible but politically inconvenient. For years, when the Syrian Arab Army retook territory from armed groups, they found stockpiles of weapons that were clearly sourced from outside the country. They encountered factions whose allegiances reflected not only ideological divisions, but the interests of their respective sponsors: Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Western intelligence networks. Even the internal conflicts between these groups, such as the violent clashes between ISIS and al-Qaeda affiliates, mirrored the competition between those external patrons. This was never a unified uprising. It was a fragmented battlefield shaped by overlapping agendas.

So when we now see a Syrian regime proving its legitimacy by targeting Hezbollah, intercepting weapons shipments, and aligning itself with Israeli strategic priorities, the real question is why so many people insisted, for so long, that such an outcome was impossible.

Part of the answer lies in narrative. The Syrian war was presented to the world in a simplified framework: dictatorship versus revolution, oppression versus freedom. Within that framework, any suggestion that external powers were shaping the trajectory of the conflict in more complex ways was dismissed as propaganda. But reality does not remain subordinate to narrative indefinitely. At some point, the gap between the two becomes too large to ignore.

There is also a more uncomfortable dimension. Many people invested emotionally and politically in a particular vision of the Syrian opposition (now in power). They believed they were supporting a movement for justice, dignity, and change. And now, seeing elements of that same trajectory align themselves with Israeli and Western strategic objectives creates a tension that is difficult to resolve. But reality does not adjust itself to preserve misled emotional investment. It forces adjustment instead.

Meanwhile, inside Syria, the consequences of these shifts are being felt in ways that are far removed from geopolitical calculations. The erosion of public services, the privatization of healthcare, the collapse of systems that once provided free education and medical care—not only for Syrians, but for people from neighboring countries as well. The priorities on the ground are no longer ideological debates. They are survival: access to food, access to medicine, access to basic stability.

And this is the final layer of the story, because while strategic alignments are negotiated at the top, their effects are experienced at the bottom. And those effects are not abstract. They are immediate, tangible, and often irreversible.

For those of us who warned early on that this trajectory was possible, the response was predictable: Dismissal, ridicule, and accusations. But time has a way of clarifying what debate refuses to resolve. And today, what was once labeled as conspiracy is being described as policy, calmly and openly, by the very actors who were previously seen as neutral observers.

So the question is no longer whether this alignment exists.

The question is what it reveals about the way narratives are constructed, defended, and eventually abandoned. Because in geopolitics, the most consequential alliances are not always the ones that are hidden. Sometimes, they are the ones everyone can see, but only a few are willing to acknowledge.

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—Kevork Almassian is a Syrian geopolitical analyst and the founder of Syriana Analysis.