Syria Seeks Security Agreement with Israel Without Surrendering Its Golan Claim

Syria is seeking a security agreement with Israel while refusing to abandon its claim to the occupied Golan Heights, an attempt to separate the urgent business of preventing another war from the much harder question of peace.

President Ahmed al-Sharaa said Damascus was working towards security arrangements with several states, including Israel, and hoped such an agreement could become a gateway to a comprehensive settlement. In an interview reported by Al Jazeera, he made clear that an interim accord would not amount to recognition of Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights.

This is not a contradiction so much as an exercise in diplomatic sequencing. Syria’s new government needs a quieter southern frontier, the withdrawal of Israeli forces from positions taken after the Assad government fell, and relief from the risk that every local confrontation will trigger air strikes. Israel wants enforceable guarantees that southern Syria will not again become a platform for Iranian forces, Hezbollah or other armed groups.

Both sides therefore have reasons to discuss security even though neither is ready to resolve the territorial dispute that has defined their relationship for nearly six decades.

Deconfliction before normalisation

The most plausible agreement would resemble an enhanced deconfliction regime rather than a peace treaty. It could revive and extend elements of the 1974 Separation of Forces Agreement: specified areas for Syrian units, restrictions on heavy weapons, monitoring arrangements and direct or mediated channels for handling incidents.

Such a framework would give Damascus room to rebuild a national army without inviting Israeli attack. It would give Israel a verifiable buffer and a mechanism for raising concerns before acting unilaterally. The United States may be able to provide political guarantees, while the existing UN Disengagement Observer Force offers institutional experience along the line of separation.

But the geography has changed since 1974. Israel moved into the buffer zone and other Syrian positions following the collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s government. It has struck military sites across Syria, arguing that weapons and infrastructure could fall into hostile hands. In July 2025, Israeli aircraft hit central Damascus during violence involving the Druze community, an escalation examined by EU Global at the time.

For al-Sharaa, an agreement that merely formalised those gains would be politically dangerous. His government presents itself as the restorer of Syrian sovereignty after years of civil war and foreign intervention. It cannot readily legitimise an open-ended Israeli presence without undermining that claim.

For Israel, a return to the previous line without new safeguards would appear equally risky. The Syrian state remains institutionally fragile. Armed factions have not all been integrated into a single command, and the relationship between Damascus and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces remains unsettled. Israel will want more than promises from a government whose control is still being consolidated.

The Golan remains legally and politically separate

The Golan Heights is the issue an interim deal is designed to postpone. Israel captured most of the territory from Syria in 1967 and applied its laws and administration there in 1981. UN Security Council Resolution 497 declared that decision “null and void and without international legal effect”. The United States recognised Israeli sovereignty over the Golan in 2019, but most governments have not followed it.

Damascus cannot surrender its claim without demanding a political price that no Israeli government is presently inclined to pay. Nor can the current Israeli leadership plausibly negotiate a territorial withdrawal while arguing that the October 2023 attacks demonstrated the danger of strategic vulnerability.

This makes ambiguity useful. A security agreement can state that it is without prejudice to either side’s territorial claims. Syria can say it has not renounced the Golan. Israel can accept practical limits on military activity without reopening the question of sovereignty. Mediators can call the arrangement a step towards peace while recognising that the final-status dispute remains untouched.

The danger is that the ambiguity becomes permanent. Temporary security zones have a habit of acquiring infrastructure, vested interests and political constituencies. If there is no timetable or review mechanism, an interim arrangement could freeze Syria’s loss of effective control rather than create a path to restoring it.

Syria’s domestic constraints

Al-Sharaa’s room for manoeuvre is shaped by domestic reconstruction as much as by Israel. Syria needs sanctions relief, foreign investment and the removal of remaining barriers to diplomatic normalisation. It must account for missing people, rebuild public services and integrate military formations that emerged from different theatres of the civil war.

The country’s new political institutions remain transitional. EU Global’s assessment of Syria’s post-Assad parliament noted that representation and executive power were still being defined. An agreement negotiated by the presidency may be operationally necessary, but it will carry greater legitimacy if it is eventually subject to public and parliamentary scrutiny.

That consideration should encourage a narrow first accord. Rules on force deployments, early warning, monitoring and incident prevention are easier to defend than broad political normalisation. They also produce measurable tests: whether Israeli strikes diminish, whether Syrian units prevent armed groups moving towards the frontier, and whether both sides respect agreed zones.

A bargain built on mutual weakness

Neither party approaches the negotiation from comfort. Syria cannot compel Israel to withdraw. Israel cannot build a stable northern frontier through air power alone. The asymmetry is considerable, but the dependency is real.

A disciplined agreement could reduce the likelihood of miscalculation and give Syria’s government time to consolidate. It could also limit the vacuum in which external powers and local militias have operated. Yet its credibility will depend on reciprocity. Syrian restraint must be matched by Israeli restraint, including limits on strikes and a defined treatment of territory occupied since Assad’s fall.

The language of a “gateway” to peace should be treated cautiously. Security arrangements can prepare a settlement by building habits of compliance; they can also remove the pressure to address the underlying dispute.

For the moment, the initiative is valuable because it acknowledges an unfashionable fact: Syria and Israel do not need to agree on the Golan to reduce the risk of war. They do, however, need an agreement that prevents today’s emergency measures from becoming tomorrow’s border.