Analysis and updates

“I want to swim in Lake Tiberias,” then-Syrian leader Hafez al-Assad told U.S. President Bill Clinton in March 2000, just months before his death. It was a striking remark during the final stretch of Israeli-Syrian peace talks—negotiations that had once inspired optimism in Washington and Jerusalem. Israel had signaled a willingness to withdraw from the Golan Heights, the strategic plateau it captured in 1967, but balked at allowing Syrian access to Lake Tiberias (also known as the Sea of Galilee). In the end, the talks collapsed.

Now, U.S. President Donald Trump has picked up where Clinton left off, pushing Syria and Israel toward peace negotiations. However, this time, it is not an Assad at the table; it is Ahmed al-Sharaa, the former militant leader whose forces overthrew Bashar al-Assad in December 2024.

“I want to swim in Lake Tiberias,” then-Syrian leader Hafez al-Assad told U.S. President Bill Clinton in March 2000, just months before his death. It was a striking remark during the final stretch of Israeli-Syrian peace talks—negotiations that had once inspired optimism in Washington and Jerusalem. Israel had signaled a willingness to withdraw from the Golan Heights, the strategic plateau it captured in 1967, but balked at allowing Syrian access to Lake Tiberias (also known as the Sea of Galilee). In the end, the talks collapsed.

Now, U.S. President Donald Trump has picked up where Clinton left off, pushing Syria and Israel toward peace negotiations. However, this time, it is not an Assad at the table; it is Ahmed al-Sharaa, the former militant leader whose forces overthrew Bashar al-Assad in December 2024.

But despite the change in leadership, making peace will not be easy. In fact, it may not be possible. Thankfully, this does not rule out limited forms of security cooperation. Today, Syria and Israel can find common ground in confronting shared threats—particularly Hezbollah and other Iranian proxies operating near their borders. Negotiations that prioritize these modest goals over a comprehensive peace agreement will be far more likely to bring tangible results.

The structural realities that doomed earlier negotiations remain in place and have only been compounded by new challenges. For Israelis, the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre has hardened national consensus against ceding any strategic territory. For Syrians, conceding the loss of the Golan—viewed as a symbol of national dignity—remains politically unthinkable.

Fifty-eight years........

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