US special envoy Tom Barrack, speaking to Australian X personality Mario Nawfal, delivered what analysts read as a direct message to Israel: American backing and Israeli backing are not the same thing. Barrack referenced "a particular Druze sheikh," widely understood to be Hikmat al-Hijri, the leading political and religious figure in Suwayda whose National Guard has been accused of functioning as an Israeli proxy. The remark publicly surfaced a divergence between Washington and Tel Aviv on what post-Assad Syria should look like. The split is structural, not rhetorical. President Trump has invested in a relationship with Syria's new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, treating stability in Damascus as the priority. Prime Minister Netanyahu has pursued the opposite — seizing territory in Quneitra and southern Syria immediately after Assad's fall in December 2024, bombing Syria's Ministry of Defence, and cultivating ties with Druze factions in Suwayda. As analyst Nanar Hawach told Al Jazeera: "Washington is building a partner in Damascus while Israel appears to prefer a Damascus that is too weak to assert itself in the south." Suwayda's trajectory explains why the province became a pressure point. Its majority-Druze population rose against Assad in 2023 and maintained protests until the regime collapsed. But hesitancy toward al-Sharaa's new government hardened into opposition after deadly sectarian fighting in July 2025 between Bedouin tribes and Druze, in which government-linked forces reportedly sided with the Bedouins. Casualties were overwhelmingly Druze. Israel intervened militarily, attacking what it described as Syrian government forces entering Suwayda, and has since cultivated al-Hijri's faction. The dynamic is self-reinforcing. Al-Hijri's authority rises when the Druze community feels threatened and weakens when the threat recedes — meaning pressure from Damascus strengthens precisely the separatist leadership it aims to undermine. Israel exploits this cycle, offering enough support to keep Suwayda reliant on Israeli protection but not enough to secure the province's future. The result, Hawach said, is that "Suwayda's future framed in security terms crowds out the many residents, clerics and local figures seeking a path between central rule and separation." A trilateral agreement signed in Amman in September 2025, brokered with Jordanian and American involvement, committed Damascus to inviting an independent international commission to investigate the July 2025 violence. But implementation has stalled. Major fighting has not resumed, yet trust has not returned either. Residents experience state pressure through delayed salaries, disrupted education, and restricted movement to the capital. The international commission has not materialized. Analysts on both sides of the question converge on one point: accountability is the prerequisite. Navvar Saban of the Arab Center for Contemporary Syrian Studies said the Druze need guaranteed protection of movement, education, and security, and that neither weakening al-Hijri nor restoring government institutions alone will rebuild trust. Hawach argued Damascus stands a better chance winning people back through service delivery and genuine accountability for 2025 than through coercion. The US-Israel divergence over Suwayda is a proxy for a larger question about post-war Syria: whether it reconstitutes as a functioning sovereign state or remains a patchwork of external dependencies. Washington has placed its bet on a strong central government. Israel has placed its bet on a weak one. Suwayda's Druze population bears the cost of both strategies while controlling neither.
