Syria’s interim government faces backlash for “step toward normalization” in US-brokered talks with Israel

Syria’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates Asaad al-Shaibani held a meeting on Tuesday, August 19, with an Israeli delegation in the French capital Paris, according to Syria’s state-run news agency SANA.

A number of issues were discussed during the meeting, including de-escalation, stopping the interference in Syrian domestic affairs, reaching understandings that would enhance regional stability, observing the ceasefire in the Syrian southern governorate of Suweida, and reactivating the 1974 agreement.

SANA also reported that these discussions are mediated by the United States as part of diplomatic efforts that aim to boost Syria’s stability, security and unity, and the integrity of its territories.

The controversial meeting came around one month after Israel launched the most serious act of aggression against Syria since the fall of former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad: a wave of airstrikes which targeted different areas, including the capital Damascus, on the pretext of protecting the Syrian Druze minority.

Arab critics slam the meeting as an explicit act of normalization

As per the official rhetoric of Syria’s new rulers, the meeting was held out of necessity to maintain the country’s national interests.

Nevertheless, critics argued that the US-brokered discussions should have taken place without the direct participation of Syrian officials, which they considered an explicit act of normalization.

Mauritanian political activist, author, and academic Muhammad al-Mukhtar al-Shinqiti slammed the move in a post on X:

“This is such a terrible strategic mistake, and a heinous moral sin on the religious and political level, in form and content. I swear to Allah that even if you get out of your skin, the Zionists, their US worshipers and their Arab slaves will never befriend you, nor will they believe you. They are only seeking to strip you of your moral credit, while they sharpen the knife to slaughter you.”

For his part, Palestinian scholar and activist Ali Abo Rezeg shared his analysis on X, explaining why the direct involvement of the Syrian government in the talks is perceived as a form of normalization.

“Fundamentally, the Israeli does not need to sit directly with the Syrian at this time because logic dictates that everything the Israeli needs to convey to the Syrian, and vice versa, can be achieved through the American mediator, similar to what has happened in Lebanon, for example,” Abo Rezeg wrote.

Abo Rezeg also explained several reasons why the Israeli government insisted on holding direct meetings with Syrian officials. One is that Israel wants to show it is in a position of strength and subjugation with regards to Syria as it attempts to carry forward the “Greater Israel” plan, and that the unity of Arab nations has been broken. The Israeli representative who met with the Syrian foreign minister was not his counterpart but a close advisor of Netanyahu who is a major proponent of the “Greater Israel” plan. The discussion in their meeting was focused on internal Syrian issues, and not the major one dominating relations for decades of Israel’s occupation of the Golan Heights.

He finalizes stating, “Israel and the handful of Arab countries in the region that normalized ties with Israel are eager to send a message of defeat to the Arab peoples, and an even greater defeat to the idea of the revolution and the Arab Spring and those who believe in it. The revolutions that erupted for freedom and dignity cannot only be contained but must be defeated, broken, and have their principles shattered. The path to prosperity and economic openness, they claim, only passes through Israel, even though it has never passed through it before, nor through any Arab countries that normalized ties with it.”