The White House wants to push ahead with quick foreign policy wins that have tangible benefits, even if that means sidestepping Israel in favor of outsourcing Middle East policy to Turkey and Saudi Arabia.
The Trump administration hopes it can move hundreds of thousands of Palestinians out of Gaza and revive some version of the Peace for Prosperity plan. However, by allowing Israel to pursue resettlement in Syria, Washington risks destabilizing the government in Damascus and a return to civil war. This is precisely the kind of messy, complicated, protracted initiative that the White House would like to avoid, and it is indicative of the policy differences emerging between the United States and Israel.
The Problem in Gaza
The White House has made no secret of the fact that it would like to see the removal of Palestinians from Gaza, which would allow for the reconstruction of the strip before some refugees can be vetted for return. It is in line with the plans of the first Trump administration for a more integral approach to Israel’s relationship with the territories—something that adheres to a normalized legal and economic framework while falling short of full Palestinian statehood, bringing security and stability to the region along with a possible Nobel Peace Prize for the president. This vision for peace has been shaped by politicians on the Center-Right in Israel, who have sought to address the realities on the ground while accommodating the doubts and fears of a majority of the Israeli public.
There is a convergence of U.S. and Israeli interests in finding a resolution to an otherwise intractable situation in which the Israeli and Palestinian publics are worlds apart on the future of peace and security. Accordingly, there are reports the Israeli government is seeking to convince various nations in Africa to accept Palestinians, including South Sudan and Somalia.
U.S. Special Envoy Witkoff made a more serious suggestion about Indonesia back in January. Still, in the absence of a coherent negotiating process and media strategy, it was roundly rejected by Jakarta. There were brief rumors in mid-March of White House outreach to Syria through a third party, though the Syrian government denied the reports.
Israel’s Strategic Calculus
Despite this convergence of interests, Jerusalem is starting in a very different place from Washington. Since the ceasefire ended the night of March 17, Israel has turned 30 percent of Gaza into a buffer zone, which the Israeli defense ministry plans to keep under any peace settlement. Along with the Netzarim corridor isolating Gaza City in the north, Israeli forces have now carved out the Morag corridor separating Rafah from Khan Younis in the south.
The vast majority of the strip is already destroyed, and even if the cost of reconstruction is easily within reach for a coalition of partners, no one is willing to rebuild under the current conditions. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich predicts that within six months, Gaza’s inhabitants will be crammed into a tiny piece of land along the Egyptian border, where they “will be totally despairing…looking for relocation to begin a new life in other places.” At this pace, he may be right.
Journalists and other pundits have long speculated that Israel has no plans for after the war. They criticize the Jewish state for preferring a permanent occupation that would allow a return to settlement construction or an endless war to delay elections and criminal investigations. It is true that a lot of the plans that have emerged from outside observers either seem to pass on responsibility for governance to others or overlook the harsh realities on the ground, such as the fact that any local authority empowered by Israel to govern will face targeted assassinations by Hamas. However, saying Israel has no strategy and implying that policymakers are simply indulging their worst impulses for brutality is wrong, and it ignores the substantial amount of planning the Israeli government has demonstrated since October 8.
It is, instead, necessary to look at Syria to see how Israel is shaping the environment to create the necessary conditions for resolving the situation in Gaza. The Israeli military has said it will occupy Mount Hermon and the expanded security zone around Quneitra indefinitely. Netanyahu has allowed historic visits of Syrian Druze religious leaders to Israel and the medical treatment of Syrian Druze in Israeli hospitals. He has courted the Syrian Kurds with offers of assistance at a time when Kurds are calling for decentralization and regional autonomy.
Again, there is a convergence of U.S. and Israeli interests. Both are justified in their concerns that the new regime in Damascus is a wolf in sheep’s clothing that could later revert to a terrorist state. There is a reluctance to trust a group of former terrorist fighters and a desire to see concrete progress from Ahmed al-Shara on a number of fronts. Israel has control over a considerable number of pressure points from which it can apply leverage against Damascus, presumably directed at some strategic endpoint, and unilateral U.S. rapprochement would surely undermine that.
However, President Trump’s announcement that the United States would ease sanctions on Syria and his decision to meet with Shara in Saudi Arabia suggests that the administration is ready to proceed with the next steps for Damascus, with or without Israel. The recent Israeli-Turkish talks in Azerbaijan and the reported indirect Israeli-Syrian talks were probably encouraged by Washington as a way to get everyone on the same page and moving forward. The White House wants to push ahead with quick foreign policy wins that have tangible benefits, not strategic maneuvering with uncertain outcomes, even if that means sidestepping Israel in favor of outsourcing Middle East policy to Turkey and Saudi Arabia.
The Grand Bargain
It appears quite probable that the Israeli government is leaving open the option of striking a deal with Shara. Israeli efforts to publicize its actions and intentions in Syria through senior official speeches and press statements indicate a desire to message other regional parties that there are chips Israel might be willing to cash in. The deal would be Israeli military withdrawal from parts of southern Syria, toning down the level of direct contact with ethnic and religious minorities, a mode of accommodation with Turkey, and a green light to Washington to restore full diplomatic relations, all in exchange for Syria welcoming in hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees from Gaza.
It would not be the first time that Syria has welcomed large numbers of Palestinian refugees. The UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) claims to support 438,000 Palestinians in Syria today. The vast majority live in poverty, though at least prior to the Syrian Civil War, most experienced better conditions than their peers in many other parts of the region. Yet, this prospect of an Israeli deal with Syria over Gaza is being treated with serious concern in the Gulf. On my last visit to the Arab Gulf states in late April, I had several friends express fears of such an arrangement.
Syria is still a war-torn country with few places for refugees to live, especially now that European governments are halting asylum applications for Syrians and there are growing pressures for many of them to return home. Regional partners that have openly voiced their financial and diplomatic support for the transitional government in Damascus, such as Saudi Arabia, would come under sharp public pressure to denounce the move and the Syrian government along with it. It would enflame tensions among communities in Syria that are already struggling over access to scarce resources and a role in the new government. The only thing that might help minimize the potential for conflict would be strong Turkish support with financial assistance and positive media messaging.
The question is whether the White House is aware that the transfer of large portions of the Palestinian population could create significant instability elsewhere and that Washington may have to intervene to prevent or mitigate the impact of regional conflict. Senior U.S. officials are probably hoping the Israelis and Turks can work out their differences and reach an accommodation that allows America to keep its distance from the looming problems in Syria.
However, neither of those parties might be prepared to deal with the worst-case scenario of a renewed Syrian civil war. If Trump hitches U.S. policy to the bandwagon of Israeli ambitions in the Middle East, he might be sacrificing practicality and pragmatism for an overly optimistic view of a new regional order.
About the Author: Joshua Yaphe:
Joshua Yaphe is a Senior Fellow at the Center for the National Interest (CFTNI) in Washington, DC, and a Dean’s Fellow at Dickinson College. He previously served as the Senior Analyst for the Arabian Peninsula at the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) and a visiting faculty member of the National Intelligence University (NIU). He has a Ph.D. from American University and is the author of the book Saudi Arabia and Iraq as Friends and Enemies: Borders, Tribes and a History Shared. The opinions and characterizations in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the U.S. Government.
Image: Noamgalai / Shutterstock.com.
