By Michael Arinzati
Syria has re-entered the international stage under President Ahmad al-Sharaa with a clarity, dignity, and sense of national purpose that the region has not witnessed in decades. After fourteen years of war and suffocating authoritarian decay, Syria has begun the slow, determined work of rebuilding its institutions, reopening itself to global partnerships, and stitching together the torn fabric of a society that deserves peace.
A normal country – a rational country – would see this as an opportunity. Israel, under Netanyahu, sees it as a threat.
The rise of the new Syria should have triggered a shift in Israeli strategic calculations. With Assad gone, Israel could have rationally pressed for a structured demilitarization of southern Syria, serious coordination between the two states, and a formal removal of any Iranian-linked militias near the Golan frontier. The leverage is entirely new: Damascus today is not Assad’s Damascus. Al-Sharaa commands legitimacy, international support, and a mandate for peacebuilding, not proxy warfare.
But instead of taking advantage of this historic chance, Israel has done the opposite. It has poured money, weapons and political cover into former IRGC-controlled militias – the same networks it once pretended to oppose – making it harder for Damascus to dismantle what remains of both Assad’s remnants and Iran’s old proxy infrastructure. Israel has deliberately fortified the very chaos it claims to fear.
And then, as if this sabotage were not enough, the Netanyahu government escalated further: expanding its occupation footprint, bombing the Syrian Presidential Palace, and doing everything in its power to destabilize a transitional nation fighting for survival. A normal state would have pursued quiet security diplomacy, de-escalation, border coordination, anti-smuggling operations, and intelligence hotlines. Netanyahu’s Israel has instead pursued destruction – because destruction is all it knows.
Under a transitional Syria, the logical Israeli goal should have been to lock in mutual non-belligerence: stability for normalization, not a rushed peace treaty but clear guardrails and confidence-building steps. This is how normal nations behave when a former adversary extends its hand. They seize the moment; they don’t try to break the arm.
But Netanyahu’s Israel is too intoxicated with its Greater Israel fantasies to act normally. This government sees Syria’s opening toward the U.S., Gulf states, Russia, Europe, and China not as an avenue for regional stability but as a danger – because it pressures Damascus to choose reconstruction and sovereignty over being a client of Iran. In reality, this benefits everyone, Israel included. But Israel’s extremists don’t want Syria to pivot away from Iran. They want Syria to collapse entirely so they never have to negotiate with anyone.
A stable Syria – a Syria allied with the West and regional moderate powers – becomes a buffer of stability rather than a theater of war. That terrifies Netanyahu. He does not want a Syria that functions. He wants a Syria that resembles Somalia: fragmented, starved, desperate, and permanently dependent on outside manipulation.
But Syria under al-Sharaa is refusing that fate. The country is reaching out to global powers for reconstruction and dignity. It is dissolving the decayed structures of Assad’s deep state. It is restoring ministries, rebuilding municipalities, reviving trade, resettling refugees, and establishing the groundwork for a new national economy. And perhaps most importantly, it is ending Syria’s role as a platform for foreign proxies. Damascus has signaled clearly its willingness to join global counter-terrorism frameworks, dismantle rogue militias, and prevent Syria from being used to target Israel or destabilize the region.
Israel knows this. Israeli security officials privately acknowledge Syria’s seriousness. But the Netanyahu government does not care. Structural inertia inside Israel means the military still treats Syria as a battlefield to be bombed whenever politically convenient. The political elite sees any Syrian rapprochement as a threat to domestic narratives of eternal victimhood. The border zones remain a “military twilight zone,” vulnerable to militias, flare-ups, and foreign manipulation. Israel wants this twilight to continue.
And if you look closely at Israel’s disinformation networks, the picture becomes even clearer. The same accounts, the same propaganda, the same manufactured narratives used to attack Saudi Arabia are used to attack Syria. Israel cannot tolerate the idea of Saudi Arabia entering the Abraham Accords on its own terms; it cannot tolerate Riyadh and Damascus cooperating; it cannot tolerate Arab unity. A strong Saudi Arabia and a rising Syria would end the Israeli strategy of keeping the region weak, divided, sanctioned, and permanently brittle.
Israel is terrified not of Syrian aggression – Syria is not attacking – but of Syrian success.
This is why Damascus must not fall into the trap. Responding emotionally to Israel’s provocations is exactly what Netanyahu wants. Syrians must stay calm, united, and focused on internal rebuilding. Sometimes bending until the storm passes is not weakness; it is wisdom. What matters now is avoiding escalation and protecting the fragile path of reconstruction and unity.
Trust the process. Trust the institutions. Trust President Ahmad al-Sharaa and the vision he has set for the post-war era. The greatest resistance Syria can offer today is not in armed retaliation but in proving Israel’s paranoia wrong – proving through reconstruction, modernization, curriculum reform, healthcare rebuilding, political engagement, and the return of the diaspora that Syria is not the broken husk Israel wants it to be.
Israel does not fear Syrian arms. Israel fears a Syria that thrives. A Syria that educates its people. A Syria that rebuilds its industries. A Syria that attracts investment. A Syria that stands tall without foreign masters.
For decades, Israel cultivated a region of dictatorships, instability, sanctions, and fragmentation — because it benefited from being the only “developed” state in a ring of weakened neighbors. The fall of Assad and the rise of al-Sharaa threaten that doctrine at its core.
And Israel’s desperation is showing.
Look at what happened in Beit Jinn. Israel killed Hassan al-Saadi along with a group of men, women, and children – 13 people in total – after a confrontation with an Israeli raiding force. Hassan was not an Iranian operative. He was a former opposition fighter who, under Iyad Kamal (“Moro”), had been supported by Israel for years. Israel gave him weapons. Israel treated the town’s wounded in Israeli hospitals. In 2017, Israel even transported hundreds of fighters from Quneitra and Daraa into besieged Beit Jinn through the Golan to prevent Assad’s forces from overrunning the area.
Seven years later, Assad is gone and Syria is rebuilding – yet Israel murders the very people who once cooperated with it against the IRGC and Assad’s militias. This is the depth of Israel’s dishonor. No loyalty. No principles. No memory.
Syria, in contrast, is acting responsibly. The new security services track Palestinian factions inside Syria, working to prevent them from firing into Israel – because Damascus knows the cost of escalation. Israel is informed of these efforts. It sees the professionalism. Its own intelligence officers acknowledge Syria’s eagerness for a security agreement. And yet Israel refuses to reciprocate. It prefers unrestrained freedom of action over peace, stability, and shared security.
Israel is caught in a bear trap of its own design. It could have worked with Syria, supported its reconstruction, and shaped a peaceful future. Instead, it chose to bend Damascus until breaking point — and now Israel is the one who risks snapping.
The United Nations, the Security Council, and every Arab and Islamic nation must finally understand what is happening: Israel is sabotaging regional stability at the very moment when Syria is trying to rebuild itself from ruin. International silence is not neutrality. It is complicity.
Syria has a chance — for the first time in its modern history — to thrive. Israel is doing everything in its power to prevent that. But this time, Syria has something stronger than Israel’s violence: legitimacy, unity, and an entire nation determined never to be broken again.
And no amount of Israeli sabotage can stop a people who refuse to fall.
