How Israel Plans To Occupy Damascus

Israel is warning that Jolani is rebuilding Syria into a military threat. I believe the threat is being exaggerated to justify a deeper Israeli military occupation.

Over the past few weeks, I have noticed something interesting in the Israeli press. Israeli security officials are claiming that Ahmed al-Sharaa, or Abu Mohammad al-Jolani as most of us knew him for many years, is rebuilding the Syrian military and diverting state resources toward the creation of a large standing army. According to Israeli security assessments published by the Jerusalem Post, Jolani is allegedly using tax revenues and international aid to acquire weapons, rehabilitate military infrastructure and build forces that could eventually challenge Israel’s freedom of military action in Syria. Another Israeli assessment even claimed that Jolani wants to transform Syria into a regional power capable of projecting force in several directions, including eventually against Israel.

When I look at the actual Syrian military today, however, I have difficulty reconciling this picture with reality. I do not deny that Jolani wants to rebuild an army. Of course he does. But there is a huge difference between rebuilding basic state military institutions and becoming the regional military threat Israeli intelligence is now fearmongering about. The current Syrian army is not well armed, it is not well trained, it does not possess air power, it does not have a navy, and Turkey itself appears careful about what kind of capabilities it transfers because Ankara has no interest in creating an uncontrollable confrontation with Israel.

The Israeli reports may contain elements of truth regarding Syrian rearmament but, in my opinion, they inflate the danger because the inflated threat serves another strategic purpose.

Just look at the new Syrian navy, if we can call it that. The Jolani regime recently published one of these beautifully produced military videos, with drones, dramatic editing, and officers in full dress, ranks and medals. From a public relations perspective, foreign PR agencies assisting Jolani know what they are doing. The packaging is professional. The military capability behind the packaging, however, is another question.

Syria before the regime change never possessed a strong navy in the Mediterranean, but it did possess warships and, more importantly, serious coastal defensive capabilities. Syria had acquired Russian Yakhont anti-ship missile systems because Damascus did not require a navy capable of projecting power across the Mediterranean. Its strategy was defensive to make the Syrian coastline expensive to attack. Israel destroyed much of this military infrastructure after Assad fell. What we see being advertised today as the new Syrian navy does not come close to replacing it.

So when Israeli officials tell me that Syria is rapidly turning into this frightening regional military power, I have to ask what exactly they are afraid of. Is Israel really frightened by a Syrian navy that is still struggling to rebuild basic vessels and coastal capabilities? Is the Israeli Air Force, one of the strongest air forces in the world and backed by the United States, suddenly losing sleep over an army emerging from fifteen years of war with a devastated economy and destroyed military infrastructure? Or is the conversation about Syrian rearmament useful because it creates a political and military justification for something Israel already wants to do?

I lean strongly toward the second explanation.

The issue is Turkey. And this is where people sometimes misunderstand what I have been saying about Turkey and Israel for years. I do not view what is happening in Syria through the simplistic framework that one side is Muslim and therefore represents liberation while the other side is Israeli and therefore represents occupation. Turkey and Israel have different ideologies, different alliances and increasingly conflicting interests, but both countries have regional imperialist projects and both countries see Syria as strategic space. After the Syrian state was destroyed and the old political order collapsed, they were left competing over the spoils or ghanima. Because when an enemy is defeated, what remains becomes something competing powers begin dividing among themselves.

This is when Antoun Saadeh’s teachings become relevant. I am not a Syrian nationalist, I am not a pan-Arabist, and I do not belong to the Syrian Social Nationalist Party. However, Saadeh understood the geopolitics of the Levant that many pan-Arab political movements refused to understand. Pan-Arabists traditionally concentrated overwhelmingly on the Israeli danger while often overlooking Turkish ambitions to the north. Turkey ruled much of this region for centuries under the Ottoman Empire, and the idea that Ankara suddenly abandoned all geopolitical aspirations when the Ottoman state disappeared makes no sense to me. Turkey today has military forces in Syria, it has developed enormous economic influence in northern Syria, and through political Islam and Muslim Brotherhood networks it possesses something Israel often lacks, which is the ideological and organizational network capable of projecting Turkish soft power deep inside Arab societies.

This is why I always say something that annoys people. If Palestine were somehow “liberated” tomorrow by Turkish-backed forces only to become politically subordinate to Ankara, I would not call that liberation. You cannot replace one occupation with another and celebrate liberation. Liberation means Palestinians control Palestine. It means Syrians control Syria. It means Iraqis control Iraq. The religion, ethnicity or flag of the foreign power does not change the underlying question. If Turkey dominated Aleppo while Israel dominated southern Syria, Syrians living under external domination do not become free because one occupier happens to speak the language of Islam while the other speaks the language of Zionism.

The problem is that the Arabs themselves no longer possess a serious regional project capable of competing with either of them. Whatever someone thinks about pan-Arabism—and I have many criticisms of it—it once represented an actual political, military and economic force. Egypt under Nasser had a regional project. Syria under Hafez had a regional project. There were attempts, successful and unsuccessful, to coordinate Arab states around larger geopolitical interests than the interests of one small government. The Gulf monarchies considered this a threat because republican Arab nationalism challenged hereditary monarchies and their security subordination first to Britain and later to the United States. Over decades, that pan-Arab political project was defeated, fragmented and finally hollowed out. After the destruction of Syria, I think we have to admit that it is essentially dead as a functioning geopolitical force. The ideology may remain in books and in the minds of people, but where are the military and economic powers behind it? Where is the political leadership?

Today I see three serious regional projects competing in the Middle East: the Turkish project, the Israeli project and the Iranian project. There is no comparable independent Arab project. This does not mean I am romanticizing the Iranian project, and I have repeatedly warned against confusing what they want Iran to be with what Iran actually is capable of doing. Iran supported actors resisting American and Israeli domination and deserves credit for paying a very high price for doing so, but Iran is still Iran. If Iran wins the ongoing regional confrontation, Tehran will naturally pursue Iranian interests. Iran is not Syria. Iran is not Iraq. Iran is not Lebanon and it is not Palestine. I do not have the illusion that replacing American dominance with Iranian predominance automatically creates sovereignty for everyone else. The tragedy is that the peoples of the region have allowed sectarianism, ethnic hatred, Sunni-Shia polarization, Arab-Persian hostility, and dozens of smaller divisions to destroy the possibility of building something indigenous between Arabs and Iran.

This is the larger context in which I interpret Israel’s anxiety over Turkey in Syria. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan visited Damascus in September and publicly described Israel as the actor with the greatest potential to destabilize Syria. In my opinion, both Turkey and Israel are destabilizing forces in Syria.

On August 18, Israel struck the Abu al-Duhur airbase in northwestern Syria. Israel said the strike was connected to concerns that Turkey was preparing to establish a military presence there, potentially including systems that could restrict Israeli air operations. Ankara rejected the Israeli allegations of a Turkish deployment, while Syrian officials acknowledged that Turkish military personnel had visited the facility. The Jolani regime also said it had communicated to Israel that the reconstruction work at the base remained under Syrian control. Israel bombed it anyway.

For me, this incident helps explain the entire issue. In the Israeli security mindset, apparently any meaningful expansion of Turkish influence inside Syria becomes a potential threat because Turkish radar, air-defense systems or military bases would complicate Israel’s almost unrestricted ability to operate in Syrian airspace. If I put myself in the position of an Israeli Zionist military planner, of course I would prefer a Syria without functioning air defenses, without a serious army, without Turkish systems and without any external power capable of limiting Israeli operations.

Nevertheless, I think the alleged Turkish threat is increasingly becoming the justification for maintaining and potentially expanding the Israeli occupation of southern Syria. Israel occupied additional Syrian territory after Assad fell and has argued that its military presence is required to prevent hostile forces from moving toward its border. If Turkey becomes the new hostile force in the Israeli narrative, then almost every improvement in Syria’s military capability can be reframed as evidence that occupation must remain and expand. A radar becomes a threat. An air-defense battery becomes a threat. A rehabilitated airfield becomes a threat. A Turkish military adviser becomes a threat. Eventually, the rebuilding of Syria as a functioning state itself risks being defined as a threat.

Now, let’s ask ourselves the uncomfortable question: why would radical Zionist and war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu rush into a security agreement with a weak Syria if Israel can already impose most of what it wants without one?

Let us sit crooked and speak straight, as we say.

Imagine you are sitting inside the Israeli security establishment. Syria is devastated. Its infrastructure has been destroyed. Its economy needs hundreds of billions of dollars in reconstruction. Its old strategic allies are gone. The new Damascus regime desperately wants foreign investment and international legitimacy and has publicly indicated an interest in reaching security arrangements with Israel. Jolani himself has spoken about such an arrangement as a possible step toward a broader settlement.

Why, under these circumstances, would Israel voluntarily negotiate away military leverage it already possesses?

People assume every conflict ends when both sides realize peace is geopolitically rational. But Israel does not want to maximize prosperity. Israel wants to maximize power. If Netanyahu believes Israel can dictate the military environment in southern Syria, destroy military capabilities it dislikes, occupy strategic positions and pressure whichever government sits in Damascus, then an agreement only becomes attractive when the agreement gives Israel more than the existing balance of power already gives it.

And the balance of power today is extraordinarily favorable to Israel.

This is why I also believe the constant Israeli military attacks create a dangerous possibility. Jolani has repeatedly signaled that he does not want a war with Israel. His government wants reconstruction, investment, sanctions relief, normalization with Western capitals and eventually some type of security and diplomatic arrangement with Israel itself. But how long can any Syrian ruler remain completely passive if Israel continues striking Syrian territory, expanding its military presence and humiliating the central state? At some point, it doesn’t matter what Jolani personally wants. If Israel’s attacks raise the question of Jolani’s legitimacy in front of his supporters, and more importantly, in front of the Takfiri armed men who helped him establish the political order in Damascus, a military response may become necessary to save face.

This is why I believe Israel’s continuous provocations are strategically useful.

I can see a strategic logic through which repeated Israeli pressure could eventually force Jolani to respond, even symbolically. It does not have to be some massive attack. It could be something extremely limited undertaken simply so Damascus can say it has not completely surrendered its sovereignty. The moment Syria responds, Israel can say: we warned you. We told you this former jihadist would eventually turn his weapons against us. The Syrian military buildup we warned about is now real. The buffer zone was necessary. More occupation is necessary.

What concerns me even more is that this appetite for deeper Israeli intervention is not merely something I am inventing from outside Israel. Israeli reservists serving with the 210th Division have recently criticized restrictions on operations inside Syria and argued for deeper incursions. According to reporting based on the Israeli outlet Walla, a senior officer acknowledged that many reservists would support advancing as far as Damascus.

Think about that for a moment.

At the same time Israeli intelligence officials warn that Syria may one day become strong enough to threaten Israel, some Israeli soldiers are openly discussing the possibility of advancing deeper into a Syria that today is militarily incapable of stopping them.

This is what troubles me most about the entire situation. We destroyed the old regional balance and now celebrate that Syrians can choose between becoming part of the Turkish sphere, the Israeli-American sphere, the Iranian sphere or some combination negotiated above their heads. We call one project liberation because its leaders are Muslim. We call another project peace because it signs agreements in Washington. We call another project resistance because Tehran supports it. But where is the Syrian project? Where is the Arab project? Where is the political force capable of saying that Syria should not exist as a battlefield between competing empires but as a sovereign country able to make its own decisions?

I do not see it today.

Maybe this makes me pessimistic. I have said many times that I probably belong to the pessimistic side of geopolitical analysis because I think my responsibility is to warn people about the worst scenarios before they happen rather than sell them colorful promises afterward. The danger for Syria is not merely that Israel and Turkey could one day clash directly. The greater danger is that Syria remains too weak to prevent both sides from using its territory as the arena in which their competition is fought.

And if that remains the case, will Syria ever be allowed to become strong enough to be Syria again?

You know the answer.

I know the answer.

Editorial note: This article is an edited transcript of one of my livestreams. AI assisted with transcription cleanup and editorial editing. The analysis, arguments, and opinions are my own.

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