Lebanon and Syria – are deals possible?

Published in the Jerusalem Post, 15 April 2026

    Israel is technically at war with both Lebanon and Syria – and has been for the past 78 years, ever since the attack in 1948 by the joint Arab armies on the new-born state of Israel. ​ Although Israel concluded peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan, none have been negotiated with neighboring Lebanon or Syria.  Yet both have recently been seeking to hold discussions with Israel.

On March 9 Lebanon’s president, Joseph Aoun, outlined a four‑point plan aimed at controlling Hezbollah and bringing peace to his country.  In addition to calling for a “total ceasefire,” Hezbollah’s disarmament, and international support to strengthen the Lebanese Armed Forces, to universal surprise he proposed direct Lebanese‑Israeli talks under international auspices.  And on April 11 Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that his cabinet would begin ceasefire and Hezbollah disarmament talks with Lebanon “as soon as possible.”  The first round took place in Washington on April 14.

As for Syria, it was in July 1949 that the Syrian-Israeli conflict was brought to an end by means of an armistice concluded under UN Security Council auspices.  It was not a peace treaty. Following the 1973 Yom Kippur war, in which Syria joined Egypt in a joint attack on Israel, the 1974 Agreement on Disengagement similarly states that it “is not a peace agreement”, and provides only for a ceasefire supervised by the UN.  

  The position was not affected by the overthrow of the Assad regime in December 2024. Syria and Israel still have no diplomatic relationship and remain formally at war.  Potentially Syria’s interim president, Ahmed al-Sharaa – once closely associated with al-Qaeda – is a major threat to Israel’s security.  And yet, from the moment he was appointed on January 29, 2025, he has been asserting his intention to normalize relations with Israel.

His first major decision was to suspend the Assad-era constitution.  Since then, as interim president, Sharaa seems to have made every effort to distance himself from his al-Qaeda connection, and to present himself as moderate and pragmatic. 

On July 12, following conflict between Druze and Bedouin armed groups, the Druze-majority region of Sweida in southern Syria was engulfed in armed sectarian clashes. The violence involved extrajudicial executions, massacres, burning of villages, and looting.  Over 1,500 people were killed, and militias affiliated with the new regime in Damascus joined in the attacks. 

In reaction Israel honored the promise it had made to the Druze community following an earlier incident.  It mounted air strikes, targeting Syrian tanks and an airfield in southwestern Syria. On July 15 Netanyahu and defense minister Israel Katz issued a joint statement:  “Israel is committed to preventing harm being inflicted on the Druze in Syria, owing to the deep covenant of blood with our Druze citizens in Israel and their historical and familial link to the Druze in Syria. We are acting to prevent the Syrian regime from harming them...”

Even so, in a statement on July 16, 2025, Sharaa sought conciliation with Israel.  The nation did not fear war, he said, but in reaching out to Israel “we have put the interests of the Syrians before chaos and destruction.”

He was as good as his word.  Over the past year, Israel and Syria have held a series of low‑profile, US‑mediated negotiations that have gradually taken on a more structured character. The talks have covered security issues and also updating the 1974 disengagement framework in light of Israel’s post‑Assad military push beyond the Golan Heights.

Syria has been represented by its new foreign minister, Asaad al‑Shaibani, while Israel’s interests have been in the hands of strategic affairs minister Ron Dermer. 

        After at least one early, largely unpublicized encounter in Paris in mid‑2025, Dermer and al‑Shaibani met again in Baku on July 31, 2025, in a high‑level session devoted to the deteriorating situation in southern Syria. Subsequent rounds convened in Paris in late summer 2025, and then on 5–6 January 2026, with US envoy Tom Barrack mediating and French officials acting as hosts. Some media reports also refer to additional working meetings, including at least one five‑hour session in London in September 2025.

On September 17, during a media briefing to reporters in Damascus, Sharaa described a security pact with Israel as a “necessity” for Syria.  Such an agreement, he added, would need to respect Syria’s airspace and territorial unity.  He said that Syria is seeking “something like” the 1974 Israel-Syria Disengagement Agreement concluded after the Yom Kippur War.  It established a formal ceasefire, and separated opposing forces by creating a demilitarized zone and a UN-patrolled buffer zone on the Golan Heights.  He did not categorize such a pact as normalization, since Syria’s position is that the Golan Heights and related issues would first need to be resolved.

Sharaa also mentioned that in July a Syria-Israel deal had been “four to five days” away, but the outbreak of violence in Sweida had derailed it.

The US was deeply involved in the agreement known as the Sweida roadmap, publicly announced on September 16 in Damascus. The negotiations leading to it were one reason for delaying the broader Israel-Syria security pact that was on the table at the time. Now the US is playing a mediating role in the current round of Syria-Israel security discussions.  

These on-going Syria–Israel contacts embody real potential to reduce the risk of a wider regional war.  They can clarify rules of engagement in southern Syria, and establish channels for crisis management. Even a modest security arrangement could create a platform for more substantive diplomacy over time. The problem is that they are fragile, and could easily crumble.

By contrast, the Lebanon–Israel talks build on more substantial foundations.  Both parties seek to bring Hezbollah under control. There is, moreover, the recent precedent of successful, US‑mediated technical bargaining over maritime boundaries.  They focus on a clearly defined, border‑and‑security agenda that officials on both sides see as “solvable”.

In fact, the two tracks are linked.  Tangible progress in the forthcoming Lebanon-Israel talks could provide the cooperative atmosphere necessary for Syrian-Israeli negotiations to succeed. Suddenly a glimmer of hope for a restoration of peace along Israel’s northern borders is appearing.  It needs to be fostered assiduously.