The phone call between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Syrian interim leader Ahmed al-Sharaa—following months of firing salvos via fighter jets, missiles, and third-party intermediaries, alongside strikes that targeted the courtyard of the Syrian Ministry of Defence and the perimeter of the presidential palace—was no ordinary diplomatic formality. Rather, it was a condensed moment signalling a tectonic shift in the geopolitics and power balance of the Middle East.

When Netanyahu and Sharaa speak directly to discuss sectarian tensions in the Druze-majority province of Sweida, we are not merely witnessing a localised security arrangement dictated by geography and overwhelming force. We are standing before a series of uncomfortable questions shaping the region’s future: Is Syria capitulating entirely to the rhythm of Israeli power, which has established itself as an unyielding arbiter in the new Syrian landscape? Or is this a pragmatic response from Damascus to pressure from an Arab bloc seeking regional normalisation—a bloc that views any effort to rebuild and reintegrate Syria as passing, one way or another, through the neutralisation of active fronts with Tel Aviv?

Furthermore, who granted Israel and Netanyahu the political and international mandate to act as the self-appointed custodian over Syria’s Druze minority?

The most realistic answer lies elsewhere: in a devastated economy, a shattered state apparatus, and a transitional authority that has come to realise that rebuilding Syria requires, above all, zeroing out external hostilities. States emerging from the crucible of war do not enjoy the luxury of managing multiple conflicts at once. Today’s Syria looks far closer to this exhaustion model than to the........

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