Opinion | Israel’s Strategy of Security Belts and the Redrawing of Southern Syria

Israel is pursuing a broadly consistent strategy along its northern front in both Syria and Lebanon. At its core, this strategy seeks to exploit the political and military vulnerabilities confronting both countries in order to impose a new geopolitical and security reality, establish demilitarised zones or areas under its influence, and provide additional strategic depth for Israeli settlements and communities in northern Israel.

What Tel Aviv previously implemented in southern Lebanon through the establishment of security belts, it is now seeking to replicate in southern Syria, taking advantage of the fragility of state institutions, internal divisions, and the Syrian government’s declining ability to extend its authority across the country’s entire territory. Yet, in its current calculations, Israel may be overlooking the possibility that security gains imposed through temporary shifts in the balance of power could eventually become a source of prolonged attrition, with consequences that may prove difficult to contain or reverse.

Just days ago, Syrian reports described direct and publicly acknowledged Israeli air and ground activity in southern Syria, including the landing of Israeli helicopters in Suwayda Governorate, reportedly carrying shipments of weapons intended for Druze militias. These developments reflect Damascus’s growing concern over the possibility of opening an armed front inside Syrian territory, backed directly by Israel, which could eventually pave the way for fundamental changes to the political and demographic landscape of southern Syria.

The Druze community occupies an exceptionally distinctive position in Israel’s geopolitical and security calculations, both domestically and within the framework of its regional strategies concerning southern Syria. The relationship between Israel and the Druze represents a complex intersection of historical, military, and political considerations.

In this context, Israeli political and military discourse employs the term “Blood Covenant” to describe its field partnership with the Druze. The community represents an exceptional case of military service compared with other non-Jewish groups within Israel. Compulsory military enlistment among Druze men exceeds 80 per cent, a rate that, in many instances, surpasses recruitment levels among young Jewish Israelis themselves.

From the perspective of the Israeli military establishment, the Druze possess several advantages that make them a significant component of its security apparatus. These include a combination of military experience, fluency in Arabic, and an in-depth understanding of local culture and social environments. Such attributes give them particular importance in military intelligence, reconnaissance, and missions involving engagement with Arab communities.

Meanwhile, Israel’s movements coincide with mounting concerns in Damascus over the possibility that armed groups aligned with Sheikh Hikmat al-Hijri may undertake large-scale military operations against Syrian government forces in Suwayda Governorate. Such developments could open the door to imposing a new political reality based on autonomous self-governance, similar to the Kurdish experience in northern Syria.

However, this approach does not appear to enjoy the support of the majority of Druze leaders, who regard it as a potentially damaging course of action that could undermine the Druze community’s national legacy and its relationship with its Arab surroundings. It also carries the risk of turning the community into a party to regional arrangements that extend far beyond its local and national interests.

For Israel, however, the establishment of an autonomous entity in southern Syria could represent a strategic opportunity to create a buffer zone that would prevent the redeployment of forces it considers hostile, as well as the return of Iranian proxies and Shiite militias to areas near its borders along the Golan Heights.

Against this backdrop of political and security fragility, the notion of autonomy advocated by certain Druze circles is no longer being presented merely as an administrative demand or a means of managing local affairs. Rather, it is increasingly being discussed as one of the potential scenarios for ensuring protection and administering internal matters independently of Damascus. This raises fundamental questions about the limits of such a proposal, the extent to which it reflects genuine local concerns, and the possibility of Israel exploiting it as part of broader security and geopolitical arrangements.

Over the past several months, more than one attempt has been made to bring Tel Aviv and Damascus closer together, with the aim of reaching understandings that would address the Druze issue through a special framework. Such arrangements, according to the proposals under discussion, would give Israel considerable latitude to intervene militarily and rapidly in response to any local developments that violate the red lines it has established.

However, the latest escalation and the exchange of accusations between the two sides reveal substantial obstacles obstructing these contacts and preventing progress towards an understanding over the security arrangements reportedly being discussed behind closed doors.

Israel is betting that the current regional circumstances provide a favourable opportunity to implement its strategy inside Syria. It is seeking to capitalise on the decline of Iranian influence and the preoccupation of Syria’s new government with a complex array of military, economic, and sectarian challenges, in addition to the difficulties it faces in rebuilding state institutions and restoring central authority across the country.

Accordingly, Israel’s latest intervention in Syria cannot be viewed merely as a limited military operation or a temporary response to security developments along the border. Rather, it forms part of a broader strategy grounded in the exploitation of existing political realities and the instrumentalisation of sectarian and customary diversity to cultivate local environments, authorities, or leaders aligned with Israeli security and economic arrangements. Ultimately, this would weaken the central government’s authority in Damascus and undermine its ability to exercise sovereignty and extend control over its territory.

Nevertheless, Israel’s bet on establishing local security arrangements in southern Syria does not necessarily mean that it possesses the capacity to guarantee their long-term survival. There is a fundamental difference between imposing a military reality by taking advantage of an imbalance in the balance of power and possessing the political, social, and military foundations necessary to sustain it. This equation becomes even more complicated in a local environment where national identity and the relationship with the central state remain subjects of contention, while historical memory and national consciousness continue to exert considerable influence.

Not everything Tel Aviv plans is inevitable, nor are its calculations beyond challenge. Military superiority and the ability to impose realities on the ground do not necessarily guarantee the achievement of political and strategic objectives. Indeed, this very course of action may contain within it the seeds of its transformation from a security strategy into a long-term strategic trap, much like previous Israeli experiences that demonstrated how military control does not necessarily translate into security or stability.

The establishment of any Israeli security strip or zone of influence inside Syrian territory would provide local and regional forces with an inexhaustible source of political and popular mobilisation, enabling them to legitimise continued armed resistance under the banner of “liberating the land.” In other words, the measures Israel seeks to implement to secure its borders could ultimately become among the principal drivers of persistent tension and instability along those very borders.

Furthermore, dealing with local communities that possess a deeply rooted national history and a strong sense of belonging to their Arab surroundings remains an exceptionally complicated undertaking, particularly when these communities begin to feel that they are being turned into instruments of an external security project. Such arrangements frequently encounter growing popular opposition, placing Israel before a difficult and increasingly costly dilemma: either withdraw and abandon the influence structures it has sought to establish, allowing them to unravel, or become directly and continuously involved in protecting the local forces aligned with it, thereby opening the door to another prolonged military entanglement.

Israel is therefore currently pursuing what appears to be a tactical success, exploiting a moment of regional uncertainty and internal Syrian disarray to secure its northern front and alter the rules of engagement and the military reality on the ground. Yet geographical expansion and the pursuit of security through the erosion of neighbouring states’ sovereignty may produce the opposite outcome. The very arrangements established to provide protection could become permanent flashpoints and sources of future attrition, reproducing the security-belt scenario that historical experience has demonstrated to be incapable of delivering genuine and sustainable security.

If the security belt established by Israel in southern Lebanon lasted 22 years before ending in a chaotic withdrawal under the pressure of sustained attrition, then any attempt to replicate a similar model in Suwayda and southern Syria, or to establish local structures of influence serving the same purpose, appears considerably more fragile and vulnerable to an early breakdown.

The Syrian reality differs geographically, socially, and politically from the Lebanese experience. Moreover, these arrangements lack the contiguous geographical territory that could provide them with stable operational depth, while simultaneously confronting a local social consciousness that recognises the dangers of becoming a pawn in Israel’s national security calculations.

Herein lies the strategic paradox: Israel, which seeks to push potential threats farther away from its borders, may ultimately find itself confronting new sources of threat generated by its continued military presence and intervention in Syria’s internal affairs. Security built upon the fragmentation of states and the erosion of their sovereignty may deliver temporary gains, but it rarely establishes the foundations for lasting stability. Ultimately, it may become a political and security burden from which Israel will find it increasingly difficult to extricate itself.

Prof. Hatem Sadek, Helwan University