Breaking up Syria?

 

By James M. Dorsey

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A far-right pro-Israel think tank has put flesh on suspicions that Israel is seeking to weaken the government of President Ahmed al-Sharaa, if not break up Syria as a nation state.

The Philadelphia-based Middle East Forum revived a years-old call for a “freedom corridor” that would link the Druze community in southern Syria with the Kurds in the north.

The Forum’s call came as senior Israeli and Syrian officials negotiate security arrangements aimed at staving off further Israeli military strikes and limiting interference in Syria’s domestic affairs.

“Kurds and Israelis are natural allies, but they lack a direct connection. The corridor would change that, creating a secure bridge between Israel, the Kurds, and the Druze. It would serve as a protective buffer against future massacres, regional instability, and threats to Israel’s security,” said Kurdistan researcher Loqman Radpey in an article on the Forum’s website.

The corridor “is in the map of the ‘New Middle East’ unveiled by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in September,” Mr. Radpey added.

The maps Mr. Netanyahu displayed at last September’s United Nations General Assembly focussed on the “blessing” of a land bridge between the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea with Saudi Arabia at its heart and the “curse” and “arc of terror” created by Iran in Iraq and Syria.

Mr. Netanyahu’s maps did not refer to the Syrian corridor.

Critics charge that the proposal, dubbed David’s Corridor, if implemented, would be a first step in the break-up of Syria into small homogeneous states based on ethnicity or religion.

“This corridor would undermine Syria’s territorial integrity, cut Syria off from Iraq and Jordan, and strip it of key strategic and economic advantages,” said Ahmad Hamadeh, a military analyst and former Syrian army colonel.

Walid Phares, a one-time Lebanese American foreign policy and counterterrorism advisor to US President Donald J. Trump and former head of a right-wing Lebanese political party, first proposed a contiguous US-protected land corridor that would cut across Syria and stretch from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights to predominantly Kurdish areas in the north, more than a decade ago.

This and similar maps have circulated on social media

Israel’s strategy replaces the Jewish state’s focus on deterrence, military superiority, and wielding a sledgehammer. The strategy evolved in the wake of Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attack on Israel that killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and sparked Israel’s brutal assault on Gaza.

Since toppling former President Bashar al-Assad in December, Mr. Al-Sharaa has repeatedly insisted that he does not seek conflict with Israel and will not allow militants to attack Israel from Syrian soil.

Some analysts suggest that David’s Corridor could be extended to Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region.

Earlier this month, Israel bombed the Syrian defence ministry in the capital Damascus and targets in the south of the country to force a withdrawal of Syrian forces from As-Suwayda.

The forces entered As-Suwayda to quell clashes between Druze and Bedouin militias. Civic society groups, including the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, accused government-aligned groups of massacring members of the Druze sect.

The Israeli strikes followed hundreds of Israeli attacks aimed at weakening the Syrian military by destroying its physical infrastructure and weaponry since Mr. Al-Assad’s fall.

Potential Israeli efforts to create David’s Corridor heighten the risk of a clash with Turkey in Syria.

Last week, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan warned that Turkey would view any attempt to divide Syria as a national security threat and would intervene.

“We are warning: No group should take steps aimed at dividing” Syria, Mr. Fidan said.

The corridor would create territorial continuity between Israeli-occupied Syrian territory, the Druze, and the Kurds in a part of the country where thousands of Turkish troops control a buffer zone on the Syrian side of the country’s border with Turkey.

The buffer zone is designed to prevent the Kurds from creating an autonomous region in a federated Syria, like the Kurdish autonomous entity in Iraq.

David’s Corridor would effectively encircle Damascus, obstruct potential Iranian efforts to regain a degree of influence in post Al-Assad Syria, create a logistics passageway for Israel, the United States, and their affiliated groups, and give Israel a say in the use of the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers’ crucial water resources.

The Forum’s revival of the David’s Corridor proposal came days after Hikmat at-Hijri, the only pro-Israel member of the Syrian Druze community’s three-man spiritual leadership, called for the opening of a road linking As-Suwayda with areas of northern Syria controlled by the pred-dominantly Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

The Forces served as the US ‘s ground forces in the fight against the Islamic State. The Trump administration has since urged the group to work with Mr. Al-Sharaa’s government.

Talks between the Al-Sharaa government and the SDF have stalled because of differences over how the Forces would integrate into the Syrian military. The SDF refuses to disband and integrate into the Syrian army as individuals rather than as a unified unit.

In response to Mr. Al-Hijri’s recent appeal for assistance, the Democratic Autonomous Administration in North and East Syria, the administrator of SDF-controlled territory, said last week that “based on our moral and humanitarian duty,“ it was sending “urgent humanitarian aid to our people in Suwayda province.”

Fuelling Israeli and Kurdish assertions that Mr. Al-Sharaa has yet to break with his jihadist past, Kurdish media this last week published temporary Syrian government IDs issued to Dhiya’ Zawba Muslih al-Hardani, a senior Islamic State operative killed last week by US forces, and his two adult sons.

As a result, the ball is in Mr. Al-Sharaa’s court. To counter potential Israeli plans to break up Syria, Mr. Al Sharaa will have to go beyond symbolic moves to ensure that minorities have a stake in a unified Syria.

“Until then, the pull of partition will linger in the background, and Israel will be waiting,” said journalist and Syria analyst Michael Young.

Dr. James M. Dorsey is an Adjunct Senior Fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, and the author of the syndicated column and podcast, The Turbulent World with James M. Dorsey.