New leaders in Damascus call for cordial Syria ties with a resistant Israel
The newly appointed governor of Damascus has called on the United States to use its influence to push for cordial relations with Israel.
In a wide-ranging interview with NPR, Governor Maher Marwan, 42, said that Syria’s new government did not want to seek conflict with Israel, which has been striking strategic military installations in Syria since the regime of former President Bashar al-Assad fell earlier this month.
“We have no fear towards Israel and our problem is not with Israel,” Marwan said. “We don’t want to meddle in anything that will threaten Israel’s security or any other country’s security.”
Sitting in a massive office in central Damascus, furnished with Syrian arabesque wooden chairs and colorfully painted walls, Marwan, wearing a suit and tie, greeted the NPR team. He only shook hands with the male members of the group.
The governor said it was understandable that Israel was concerned when the new Syrian government took power, because of certain “factions.”
“Israel may have felt fear at the beginning,” Marwan said. “So it advanced a little, bombed a little.”
In addition to Israel’s strikes on military installations, it also has seized parts of the Golan Heights, stoking fears in Syria of annexation.
And yet Marwan called Israel’s fear “natural.”
Israel and Syria have never had diplomatic ties. They share a border but have been in a state of war since Israel’s founding in 1948. The two nations have fought several wars over the decades, and travel between them has been forbidden.
“This is good news … very, very remarkable,” Uzi Rabi, a senior researcher at the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel Aviv University in Israel, said of Marwan’s remarks to NPR.
Rabi said the overture is noteworthy considering Syria’s historic opposition to Israel’s existence, and reflects the pragmatism of Syria’s new leadership: it must rehabilitate the country and cannot afford a war with Israel.
Marwan said his views represented those of the city of Damascus, and the political views of his boss – Syria’s de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa – and the foreign ministry. [Continue reading…]