Eurasia Press & News
There has been increasing speculation in recent days that Syria will soon sign a peace agreement with Israel. The New Arab takes a look at how possible this is.
There has been increasing speculation in recent days that Syria will normalise ties with Israel. Uncorroborated reports in Israeli media have said that Syria and Israel are close to a peace agreement that will be signed by the end of the 2025. According to the reports, the deal will include an understanding about the Golan Heights – Syrian territory which Israel has occupied since 1967 – but Israel is very unlikely to return the territory to Syria.
Syrian authorities however, have only said that they are in “indirect” negotiations with Israel regarding purely security-related issues, focused on reviving the 1974 Disengagement Agreement which Israel violated after the December 2024 fall of the Assad regime, seizing Syrian territory in the demilitarized zone east of the Golan and launching massive airstrikes on Syrian military bases.
Peace agreement by 2025?
The latest leak regarding ongoing talks between Damascus and Tel Aviv came from the Israeli i24 news website last Friday. Citing a “Syrian source,” it claimed that Israel and Syria would sign a “peace agreement” before the end of 2025. The source alleged that under the agreement, the Golan Heights would be transformed into a “peace park.” According to the source, “Israel will gradually withdraw from all Syrian territories it occupied in the buffer zone after December 8, 2024, including the summit of Mount Hermon,” paving the way for a peace agreement between the two sides.
Following that, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar stated in an interview on Saturday that Israel’s continued occupation of the Golan Heights is a fundamental condition for any potential normalization agreement with Syria. He stressed that Damascus’s recognition of “Israeli sovereignty” over the Golan is a necessary step for signing any agreement with the government of Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa.
What has Syria said?
Syria has so far not commented on any of the reports about a potential peace agreement or Saar’s statements. It does not deny the existence of “indirect negotiations” with Israel however, which Sharaa has personally acknowledged.
Since Assad fell last December, Israel has openly violated the 1974 Disengagement Agreement, occupying the demilitarized buffer zone and areas beyond and carrying out near-daily incursions deep into Syrian territory. Last December, Israel launched massive airstrikes which it said had destroyed Syria’s strategic weapons.
It continues to ignore all the UN resolutions which state that it must withdraw from the occupied Golan Heights and which condemn its 1981 illegal annexation of the territory.
Commenting on reports of a deal, political analyst Zaidoun al-Zoubi told The New Arab’s sister site Al-Araby Al-Jadeed that the Syrian government “will not accept any solution or agreement that doesn’t fully return the Golan to Syrian sovereignty and guarantee Israel’s withdrawal to the June 4, 1967 lines.”
He said that any agreement which doesn’t return the occupied Golan to Syrian sovereignty would be “catastrophic”. Al-Zoubi explained that turning the Golan into a “peace park” effectively means “cutting it off from Syria,” adding, “I am certain the Syrian authorities will not agree to an agreement that permits that.”
What does the Syrian public think?
When Israel occupied the Golan Heights in 1967, most of the Syrian inhabitants of the area fled. Hundreds of thousands of Syrian Golan Heights residents and their descendants hope for an agreement which will allow them to return to their villages and towns.
The new Syrian government is expected to face intense opposition from the Syrian public if it proceeds with an agreement or understandings that involve concessions of land to Israel, which is exploiting Syria’s current military weakness to dictate terms.
Political analyst Radwan Ziadeh told Al-Araby Al-Jadeed that the current Syrian government is “transitional,” and thus not authorized to sign an agreement—especially in the absence of a legislative body to review and ratify it. He also said that talks were “doomed to fail” because Israel is led by an extremist government headed by Benjamin Netanyahu.
Khaled Khalil, an expert in Israeli affairs, said that Syria was not prepared for normalisation while Israel was headed by Netanyahu’s far-right government.
“The Syrian public will not accept peace with a blood-soaked state. Peace through coercion will never be accepted by Syrians,” he told Al-Araby Al-Jadeed.
What is the current state of negotiations?
Despite the official silence from Damascus and opposition to any peace agreement that doesn’t return the Golan Heights, negotiations are ongoing.
Khalil noted that the US administration was still pushing for Syrian-Israeli rapprochement “that would end hostilities and lay the groundwork for full political normalization,” adding though that “the nature and level of ongoing contacts remain unclear”.
He added that the Israeli government is leveraging the issue for propaganda purposes, noting that the negotiation process is still in its early stages.
He said that the Syrian government is handling the matter with “political realism,” showing considerable goodwill despite blatant Israeli aggression and interference in Syrian affairs.
Khalil believes Damascus is working towards a security agreement that will halt repeated Israeli assaults and ensures that Israel withdraws from territories occupied after December 2024. While this would not be a full peace agreement, it may pave the way for one in the future. However he emphasised that Syria would not normalise ties with Israel unilaterally.
