(July 16, 2026 / JNS)
The collapse of Syrian dictator Bashar Assad’s regime at the end of 2024 presented Israel with one of its most significant strategic opportunities in decades. The Israel Defense Forces secured key positions in southern Syria, pushed immediate threats away from the Golan Heights, prevented hostile forces from filling the vacuum and acted to protect Syria’s Druze population.
These were necessary, justified and militarily impressive achievements. But military success, however significant, is not a strategy. Israel cannot afford to win the military campaign in Syria while losing the strategic competition over Syria’s future. That competition has already begun.
Recent developments suggest that the strategic environment is shifting faster than many anticipated.
The armed clash near Beit Jinn and the recent confrontation in Abdin, together with other incidents involving Israeli forces and local communities, point to growing resistance to Israel’s presence in southern Syria. At the same time, Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa and senior Syrian officials have increasingly condemned that presence as an occupation and demanded Israel’s withdrawal.
This should not necessarily be interpreted as a sudden policy reversal in Damascus. Rather, it reflects political reality. As al-Sharaa consolidates his rule, he increasingly depends on domestic legitimacy and has less room to tolerate a prolonged Israeli military presence on Syrian territory. The strategic window that emerged after Assad’s fall is beginning to close.
Yet the issue is larger than Syria itself. The more consequential question is not whether Israel will eventually face confrontation with Syria’s new leadership. The real question is who will shape the regional order emerging from the dramatic weakening of Iran’s axis, of which Syria was an essential part.
In the Middle East, strategic vacuums never remain empty. Every opportunity that Israel fails to seize through political and security initiatives will eventually be filled by someone else. In Syria, Turkey is currently best positioned to fill that vacuum.
Ankara is no longer content with exercising indirect influence. It seeks to become the principal external sponsor of the new Syria by expanding its political and economic footprint, helping shape the country’s future military and security institutions and positioning itself as the dominant Sunni power in the region. From Turkey’s perspective, Syria is not merely a neighboring state. It is a cornerstone of Ankara’s desire to reshape the regional balance of power.
For Israel, therefore, the strategic challenge extends far beyond the question of whether Syria will once again become a hostile state. The broader concern is whether Israel will soon face a northern frontier shaped by a new regional alignment in which Turkey exercises dominant influence and political Islamist movements gain renewed strategic depth.
This is precisely why Israel cannot afford to think only in military terms. Wars reshape borders. Strategy shapes what follows. The urgency is not theoretical. It is a matter of timing.
Today, al-Sharaa still needs international legitimacy, reconstruction capital, access to global financial markets, foreign investment and acceptance by regional and Western capitals. Those needs create leverage, not only for Israel, but also for the United States and its regional partners.
That leverage will not last forever. As Syria’s new leadership consolidates its authority, restores state institutions and expands its diplomatic relationships, its dependence on outside support will gradually diminish. Diplomacy, no less than warfare, has windows of opportunity, and those windows rarely remain open for long. So, Israel should not settle for preserving the military status quo in southern Syria. Its achievements on the ground should become the foundation for a broader political and security initiative.
Every opportunity Israel fails to seize will eventually be filled by someone else.
I have previously argued that a comprehensive peace agreement between Israel and Syria remains unrealistic under current circumstances. That assessment has not changed. What has changed is the urgency. Rather than waiting for conditions that may never materialize, Israel should pursue a phased security arrangement based on shared interests rather than mutual trust.
Such a framework would not seek to resolve every dispute overnight. Instead, it would establish mechanisms to reduce friction, prevent escalation, combat terrorist organizations operating in southern Syria and create reliable channels of communication between the two sides.
More importantly, it could become the cornerstone of a broader regional security architecture. This is where the United States becomes indispensable. Washington has a unique opportunity to help shape Syria’s emerging security order, not through another ambitious peace process, but through a pragmatic regional framework built around shared strategic interests. The objective should not be to produce dramatic diplomatic headlines, but to prevent Syria from becoming the centerpiece of a new destabilizing regional axis.
Israel should not pursue such an initiative alone. Jordan has a clear interest in preventing southern Syria from becoming a platform for radical Sunni Islamist networks or an exclusive sphere of Turkish influence. Although al-Sharaa currently projects political pragmatism, he and many of those surrounding him emerged from jihadist movements. For Amman, the consolidation of armed Islamist forces north of its border represents not only a security concern but also a potential source of domestic pressure, given the historical strength of the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan.
The United Arab Emirates shares similar concerns and has consistently opposed the expansion of political Islamist movements across the region. Saudi Arabia, despite improving relations with Turkey in recent years, has little interest in seeing Ankara emerge as the dominant power shaping the future of the Sunni Middle East.
Each of these countries has its own priorities. Yet all share one strategic objective: ensuring that the new Syria does not become an exclusive sphere of Turkish influence or a platform for the resurgence of radical Islamist movements.
Israel, the United States, Jordan and pragmatic Arab states therefore have a rare opportunity to shape the environment before others do. Israel should seize the current moment to build, together with the United States, Jordan and pragmatic Arab partners, a regional framework that combines a phased security arrangement with Syria and a broader coalition committed to regional stability.
The objective is not to negotiate a comprehensive peace treaty with Damascus. Nor is it to abandon Israel’s freedom of military action when vital security interests are at stake. The objective is far more practical: to shape the strategic environment before it is shaped by others. If Israel fails to lead such an initiative, it should not assume that the current reality will simply remain frozen. It will evolve, and not necessarily in Israel’s favor.
Time is not merely strengthening Syria. It is steadily shifting the regional balance of power. Every passing month strengthens al-Sharaa’s domestic legitimacy, deepens Turkey’s influence, expands Ankara’s ability to shape Syria’s future institutions and gradually reduces the leverage currently available to Israel, the United States and their regional partners.
The Israeli military campaign that followed Assad’s collapse was both justified and necessary. It removed immediate threats, created strategic depth and opened a rare window of opportunity. However, history will not judge Israel by how many positions it captured after Assad’s fall. It will judge Israel by whether it recognized the strategic opportunity Assad’s collapse created, and whether it had the vision to shape what came next.
