Nir Boms &  Stéphane Cohen 

In August 2021, Israel and Lebanon marked fifteen years since the start of the Second Lebanon War. A month later, in September, the world marked twenty years since the 9/11 terror attacks and the end of the United States and NATO campaign in Afghanistan. But the year 2021 also marked ten years since the beginning of the war in Syria that continues despite the attempts to stabilize the country and begin rehabilitation efforts.

Eleven years ago, in Daraa, Syria—not far from Israel’s northern border—antiregime protests broke out following the arrests of Syrian teenagers responsible for antigovernmental graffiti. The “boys that started the Syrian revolution” quickly became one of its icons, and Daraa one of its symbols. A decade later, in 2021, it seems that little has changed. Bashar al-Assad continues to serve as Syria’s president, sworn in for seven more years1 (a fourth term) as he receives renewed legitimacy among the ranks of the Arab League and even in Israel. The Syrian army and its security forces—the same ones who “won” the war in 2018—continue to fight an insurgency in the south. Syrians are killed from both sides—regime and opposition alike (“Syrians,” as the war taught us, became a relative term for militias and foreign fighters on both sides). In the summer of 2021, shortly after the presidential elections, the regime decided to put an end to the bloody insurgency in southern Syria and sent troops, supported by Iranian proxies, to again crush defiant Daraa.

Although Daraa continues to burn, a decade of war has brought tectonic change to Syria, just like it altered the way Israel engaged with that country, its people,
and the Syrian arena at large. A decade of Israeli policy and involvement in Syria will be examined here, and some initial insights about the years ahead will be
offered

Full article in Israeli Journal of Foreign Affairs here