Israel has always sought to install its position as an active regional player in the Arab East, not only through its security and military tools, but by investing structural transformations in neighboring countries, especially those related to sectarian division and social disintegration.
The Syrian scene, since the outbreak of its crisis and specifically after the fall of the regime at the end of 2024, is a central square for this type of Israeli exploitation, which re -activated the “Minority Alliance” approach more clearly than ever, with the employment of modern and solid tools at the same time.
Since the French Mandate, the Minority Alliance in Syria and Lebanon has been a tool to secure control and balance against the Sunni majority. The French were keen to take care of this alliance, taking advantage of religious and sectarian discrepancy to enable their political and military influence.
Israel, and if it enters late to this path, it resurrected it with a new approach derived from its need to secure its northern borders, and to ensure that the surrounding countries remain weak and partial.
With the sudden collapse of the Syrian regime, Israel has found a rare opportunity to reshape sectarian balances in a way that enhances its position, and gives it a new pressure card in the Syrian file, which has always been a field of influence of competing regional and international powers.
Within this context, the Druze community emerged as one of the most prominent points of the Israeli interest. Before the fall of the regime, the Druze were distributed over three main camps: a camp that revolves in the orbit of the Iranian axis, and includes a large part of the Druze of As -Suwayda in Syria and the mountain in Lebanon, and an Arab national camp that tried to preserve its independence away from the regional axes, and the Palestinian Druze camp with Israeli citizenship.
This distribution reflects the complexities of identity and Druze belonging in the region, but the fall of the Syrian regime and the decline of Hezbollah’s power with a leadership vacuum that Israel sought to fill it quickly.
Israel pushed Druze leaders from within its borders to the forefront, marking the idea that the Druze sheikhs in Israel are able to play an inclusive role for the entire sect, inside Syria and Lebanon.
This was accompanied by frequent political and media messages, according to which Tel Aviv is ready to intervene militarily to protect the Druze in Syria, in the event of any threat. The sheikhs of the sect in Israel have been filmed as sufficient influence to move the Israeli military decision, including warplanes, which strengthened their position within the region, and created a new balance in the Druze situation.
It is noteworthy that this Israeli policy was not limited to the symbolic or propaganda side, but rather accompanied by intelligence and implicit diplomatic movements to create communication networks and influence within the Druze societies in As -Suwayda and Lebanon.
Although these moves remained limited due to religious and social sensitivities, they created a new reality, which is the emergence of Israel as a player to be calculated within the Syrian sectarian equation.
Although the Druze represent the main focus axis in this strategy, Israel is closely following the Kurdish situation, and supports some Kurdish political and military actors, especially in the northeast of Syria.
This file shares with the Druze file in the goals: undermining political centralization in Damascus, preventing the emergence of a unified national army, and preserving Israel’s qualitative superiority in the region.
As for the Alawite sect, Israel did not interfere directly, but it took advantage of the media of the Syrian coast in March 2025, when clashes erupted between the remnants of the regime and the new authority, and these events presented as evidence of the new government’s inability to protect minorities, which Tel Aviv used to pressure Damascus politically.
In the background of these moves, the deepest strategy of Israel, which is to keep Syria a weak, divided, sectarian and societal country. Therefore, any indications of the recovery of the Syrian state, or the convergence of its components, are met by Israel with anxiety and attempts to sabotage or confusion, whether through indirect support for sectarian groups, or by intensifying media campaigns and diplomatic confusion.
Perhaps the most attention in this context is Israel’s use of minority paper as a negotiating card to impose itself in any future arrangements for Syria. It opposes, sometimes aloud or at other times, the approach adopted by the Trump administration, which is based on the handover of the Syrian file to Turkey and Saudi Arabia.
Tel Aviv believes that excluding her from the table will make her at the defense site instead of the attack, and therefore it works to strengthen its local papers inside Syria, especially through the Druze paper, in order to say that it is a partner that cannot be exceeded in any future solution, and it seeks to stabilize these data in an urgent manner before the upcoming visit of President Trump in the coming days to Saudi Arabia.
From this standpoint, minorities turn from a social component into a regional pressure tool in the hands of Israel, which use them to stabilize their position and legitimize their interference in files that do not fall within their borders.
Although this approach is not fully new, the current circumstance – with the collapse of the Iranian axis in the region, the rise of new axes in the Gulf and Turkey, and the existence of a political vacuum in Syria – provided Israel with a historical opportunity to redefine its roles, not only as a military power, but as a political player within the Syrian societal fabric.
And if Tel Aviv has succeeded during the past years in consolidating its presence in files such as the Palestinian and Lebanese file, then its attempt to expand the Syrian file through the minority portal is a real test of its ability to manage complex files based on accurate internal balances.
However, this expansion carries great risks as well, especially if local reactions develop inside Syria and Lebanon, or if international forces reconsider the political cost of Israel’s involvement in the Syrian file, especially in light of the restructuring of the entire regional system.
With the formation of the features of a new Syrian state in the post -conflict stage, the need appears more than ever urgent to rebuild a new social contract that guarantees internal stability and faces regional challenges, especially the Israeli expansion in southern Syria.
- First, to dismantle crises with the internal parties, the new state should adopt a comprehensive solid approach that begins with the launch of a national dialogue that includes representatives of all political, ethnic and religious components. It is necessary to recognize the Syrian pluralism and work to formulate a modern constitution that guarantees political and civil rights, and establishes a central rule that allows the regions a degree of self -management within the unity of the state.
The restructuring of the security institutions to be subject to civil control and legal accountability that constitutes an essential entrance to restore citizens’ confidence. The launch of a transitional justice path addresses previous violations and restores the rights to those affected by a decisive factor in achieving societal reconciliation.
- Second, to counter the danger of Israeli expansion, Syria needs to strengthen its diplomatic position regionally and internationally, and dismantle the excuses used to justify the interventions. The Syrian army must be rebuilt on professional and national foundations, and the development of an integrated defensive structure in the south capable of deterring any new penetration attempts.
In parallel, it is necessary to activate the joint Arab and regional work and support regional initiatives that prevent the transformation of Syria into a permanent conflict arena. A new Syrian state, stable and internally reconciled, is the most important fortress to confront external ambitions and preserve the sovereignty of the country.
In the end, what Israel is doing in Syria cannot be read only from the point of view of its national security, but must be understood within a broader context related to the redistribution of influence in the region, and the attempt of each party to install its position on the new map.
And Israel, although it does not possess the upper hand in the Syrian file, but it works silentlyAIt is necessary to be a difficult number that cannot be ignored, using this sectarian and strategic papers it possesses, to impose their conditions on the next table.
The opinions in the article do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al -Jazeera.
