Ex-IDF analysis chief: Chances of security deal with Syria are higher than with Lebanon - interview

In a potentially game-changing development, Netanyahu on August 25 laid out the possibility of an IDF phased withdrawal from Lebanon as well as rolling back IAF airstrikes if Hezbollah agrees to the Lebanese government’s order to disarm.

IDF forces invaded southern Lebanon on September 30, 2024, and mostly withdrew this past February. They remained in five outposts a few hundred meters into the Syrian side of the border, including a complement of several hundred or more soldiers.

“If they really take action, Israel will also take action by reducing its attacks on Hezbollah, and there could be talks about leaving some of the five outposts,” he said, referring to whether the Lebanese government will actually disarm Hezbollah.

Nevertheless, Kuperwasser was skeptical that things will play out that way.

“Israel has not committed to anything,” he said. “It made a statement, but it won’t do anything until they act. The real test is in taking action, not merely announcing a decision.”

The Lebanese statement of intent to disarm Hezbollah was important in and of itself and a very positive development that would not have occurred in the past, Kuperwasser said, adding that “there is an authentic desire” to disarm the Lebanese terror group.

“We have seen in recent days that there is not a practical implementation yet of the government decision,” he said. “It is too early to say if the Lebanese government will really disarm Hezbollah. They still have no concrete plan for how to accomplish this.”

Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem, in a speech last week after Netanyahu’s statement, had vehemently rejected any attempt to disarm the group, Kuperwasser said. Any attempt to take away Hezbollah’s weapons was analogous to trying to steal its soul, he quoted Qassem as saying.

If, despite Qassem’s statement, the Lebanese government and military somehow succeed at getting Hezbollah to disarm, “Israel will verify that it is really happening, and if so, then Israel will be more flexible,” Kuperwasser said. “But right now, it doesn’t look like that is the direction things are going."

He also warned about a “revolving door” solution in which the Lebanese military might collect some weapons from Hezbollah symbolically, even documenting the transfer, but then quietly returning the weapons.

All that matters is the final result of whether Hezbollah gives up its arms and does not get them back, he added.

Kuperwasser said he was pessimistic that any party in Lebanon had the capacity to disarm Hezbollah, even though the IDF had weakened the group substantially since killing up to 5,000 of its fighters and most of its top leaders in the fall of 2024.

Regarding Syria, Kuperwasser said he was more optimistic about Jerusalem and Damascus reaching some kind of a new security deal, even though it would have challenges.

Israel wants various declarative and concrete security guarantees from Syria, and it has leaked that if it receives certain guarantees, it would be willing to withdraw from all or at least part of the buffer zone it took up in Syria in December 2024 upon the fall of the Assad regime, he said.

In both cases, the mediator is the US, but in the case of Syria, the concessions needed by either side to reach a deal “are less dramatic and easier than getting Hezbollah to disarm in Lebanon,” Kuperwasser said.

Between Israel and Syria, “both sides have an interest in reaching greater stability so that their joint border is a quiet one,” he said.

“This would involve having deeper arrangements and not just a set of impromptu understandings on the fly,” he added.

Sharaa’s “largest job is to get the US, the West, and the Arab world to help Syria rehabilitate itself from its long war to build its economy and infrastructure,” Kuperwasser said.

“Al-Sharaa comes from a jihadist background, and there are many jihadists around him,” which are all negatives, but he has a “genuine self-interest to reach a deal,” he said.

Another difference compared with Lebanon, where the US has made it clear that it is not assisting Beirut with any issues until Hezbollah disarms, is that US President Donald Trump already “gave al-Sharaa lots of credit before he did anything,” Kuperwasser said. “They already lifted sanctions.”

Essentially, most of what Sharaa needs to do is keep up what he has done until now in terms of not presenting any threat to Israel’s border and not hosting any Iranians inside Syrian territory, he said.

The one additional component would be for Sharaa to protect and not allow attacks on the Syrian Druze, he added.

In this area, Sharaa is considered a failure, having allowed and partially facilitated – or at least elements of his HTS forces did – a massacre of Syrian Druze in Sweida last month, Kuperwasser said, which followed a massacre by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) forces of Alawite Syrians in the Spring.

Israel would like there to be some kind of demilitarized zone or corridor around Sweida to better ensure the Syrian Druze security and as a buffer for its own border, he said.

If Sharaa makes good on these Israeli priorities, top Israeli officials have leaked the potential for fewer actions within Syria and even for withdrawals from part of the buffer zone, Kuperwasser said.

However, he suggested that even if the IDF were to withdraw from one of the nine IDF positions in the southern Syria buffer zone, it might not withdraw from the Syrian side of Mount Hermon, which is thousands of feet above the Israeli side of Mount Hermon. That position is considered to have additional strategic value that Israel may have trouble parting with, he said.

At the same time, Sharaa might be able to live with a partial withdrawal from the buffer zone, given that he may not want to grant Israel a full peace treaty for which he might demand a withdrawal even from the Israeli Golan Heights, he added.

That is something that is unlikely to be on the table for the foreseeable future, if ever, Kuperwasser said.