JERUSALEM — President Donald Trump’s administration is working overtime to prevent a full-blown military escalation between Israel and the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia in Lebanon, and to cool rising tensions between the Jewish state and Syria.
Bringing regional peace and new economic opportunities to the volatile region is one of the president’s very top priorities.
Washington’s stepped-up efforts to quell tensions with Israel’s neighbors to the north and northeast reflect the renewed diplomatic push with a pair of countries that have long been hostile to varying degrees. They come a year after the Dec. 8, 2024, collapse of the Bashar Assad regime in Syria and 13 months after Lebanon and Israel signed a ceasefire agreement. The pact aimed at ending several rounds of cross-border fighting initiated by Hezbollah on Oct. 8, 2023, the day after Hamas attacked Israel from Gaza.
Despite the prospect of new beginnings after Israel waged a series of daring attacks against Hezbollah’s leaders and fighters, the Israeli and American assault on Iran’s nuclear facilities, and Ahmed al Sharaa’s dramatic rise to power in Syria, there has been little diplomatic progress between Israel and its adversaries.
The most recent U.S.-led diplomatic push reflects Trump’s frustration with the slow pace of peacebuilding in the Middle East, and especially what the president views as foot-dragging by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Lebanese government’s reluctance to fully disarm Hezbollah.
“I think Trump is running out of patience,” said Jonathan Panikoff, director of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative. “Israel, in Trump’s view, received the support it wanted with Iran and throughout the war in Gaza, so he almost certainly would like to see Israel be flexible in its approach to Syria and Lebanon in order to reach a resolution, or at least cessation, of its conflicts with them.”
At the same time, Panikoff said, Trump “is someone who doesn’t factor in the historical challenges, the political discrepancies, and the fundamental social aspects of long-held regional conflicts in the same way as his predecessors. Al Sharaa has been in power for only a year, and Lebanese President Joseph Aoun has been in office for only a few months.”
According to media reports, the administration recently gave Lebanon until Dec .31 to ramp up its efforts to disarm Hezbollah throughout Lebanon, as mandated by the ceasefire, and warned that if it fails to do so, Israeli military attacks against the terrorist militia will intensify. The truce requires Israel to fully withdraw its troops from Lebanon but permits the Israeli military to remove what it considers to be threats to its security. On Nov. 23, Israel assassinated Hezbollah’s chief of staff, Haytham Ali Tabatabai, in Beirut.
“The administration recognizes Israel’s right to self-defense,” said Barak Bouks, who holds the Paterson Chair in Security and Intelligence at Bar Ilan University.
On Nov. 28, Nicolas Tabet, commander of the Lebanese Army’s South Litani sector, told reporters that it had neutralized 177 tunnels and seized 566 rocket launchers in the territory between Lebanon and Israel.
“I believe the Lebanese army believes it is operating to maintain the ceasefire,” Bouks said. But its efforts have been confined to south Lebanon, and it disputes Israel’s “many proofs” that Hezbollah is rebuilding, smuggling in weapons, and recruiting new members.
Following months of pressure from the U.S. administration to expand talks beyond adhering to the ceasefire, on Dec. 3, Lebanon and Israel dispatched civilian diplomatic envoys to the U.S.-led committee overseeing the November 2024 ceasefire. Until now, only military envoys have attended the meetings.
Israel and Lebanon have been officially at war since Israel’s establishment in 1948, so any face-to-face meeting between Israeli and Lebanese officials is newsworthy. Still, Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam downplayed the meeting, insisting that Lebanon is “far from” establishing economic or any other relations with Israel.
Syria is also technically at war with Israel, but “Trump and his team see an opportunity for diplomacy and communication between Syria and Israel” now that Sharaa is in charge, said Rachel Brandenburg, Washington managing director and senior policy analyst at the Israel Policy Forum. “They see Syria as cooperative and open to some sort of demilitarization agreement.”
Last month, Trump welcomed Sharaa to the White House — the first White House visit by a Syrian head of state since 1946. On June 30, the administration repealed many of the sanctions the U.S. had imposed on the country for more than four decades. In December 2024, then-President Joe Biden’s administration decided to cancel the $10 million U.S. bounty on Sharaa’s head. The new Syrian leader, formerly known by his nom de guerre, Abu Mohammad al Jolani, was once an al Qaeda fighter and, until recently, a rebel leader. He was captured by American troops and imprisoned from 2006 to 2011.
Today, Western leaders tend to view him as a pragmatist who can potentially transform Syria into a peaceful country and ally. The Netanyahu government eyes him and his new government with suspicion.
The Israeli prime minister has taken extraordinary steps to weaken Syria and prevent its troops and terrorists from infiltrating Israel. Immediately after the fall of the Assad regime, the Israeli military destroyed most of Syria’s air and naval defenses and captured the Syrian side of the Golan Heights as well as land in southwestern Syria adjacent to the Golan. Whether Israel agrees to withdraw from any of that captured territory will depend on the outcome of the negotiations Trump is insisting on.
After a November incident in which the Israeli military killed 13 Syrians following an attack on Israeli soldiers in the expanded security zone, Trump wrote on social media, “It is very important that Israel maintain a strong and true dialogue with Syria, and that nothing takes place that will interfere with Syria’s evolution into a prosperous state.” Sharaa “is working diligently to make sure good things happen, and that both Syria and Israel will have a long and prosperous relationship together,” Trump wrote.
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While no one expects a full-blown peace treaty between Israel and Syria in the foreseeable future, the U.S. administration “can broker and promote a security agreement” that protects Israel and restores calm to the countries’ shared border, Bouks said. For the time being, at least, “no one is talking about returning the Golan Heights to Syria.” But Israel will be expected to relinquish some of the territory it captured after Assad’s fall.
“Netanyahu is right to be wary,” Brandenburg said, “but this is an opportunity for Israel to give diplomacy and dialogue a chance. The U.S. administration seems very serious about wanting a more stable Syria.”
Michele Chabin is a journalist whose work has appeared in Cosmopolitan, the Forward, Religion News Service, Science, USA Today, U.S. News & World Report, and the Washington Post.
