Wolf in sheep’s clothing: Al-Julani poses challenge for Israel

In recent decades, Syria has been a cornerstone in Iran’s axis of evil across the Middle East. In fact, Syria wasn’t merely a connecting link between Tehran, Baghdad, Gaza, and Beirut – through which Iranian weapons flowed to Hamas and Hezbollah – it was actually the initiator and driving force behind this axis.

This was how Assad’s Syria saw its role in our region – as a forward base in the campaign against Israel. This was true during the Six-Day War and the Yom Kippur War, and it remained so after Egypt and Israel signed their peace agreement when Damascus sought to establish an anti-peace front alongside Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Yet Israel chose to ignore Syria’s negative role in building a ring of fire around us, preferring instead to take comfort in the quiet along the Golan border while hoping Bashar would remain in power.

But last week marked a turning point in Syria. The Levant Liberation Front, led by Abu Mohammad al-Julani – widely dismissed as just another rebel militia in flip-flops driving Toyota trucks – has transformed, with Turkish and possibly Qatari support, into a trained and disciplined army of tens of thousands of fighters (much like how we underestimated Hamas’s Nukhba force). This army launched a surprise attack that led to the collapse of the Syrian regime – a weak and fragile government that had relied on support from Iran and Hezbollah. However, following the events of the past year, these allies were unable to come to its aid.

Al-Julani, a former ISIS operative who was sent to establish a Syrian branch when civil war erupted there, gradually distanced himself from his dispatchers over the years. Today, he speaks in tones pleasing to Western and even Israeli ears, claiming he shouldn’t be judged by his actions as a young man and that his only desire is to build a new Syria and ensure its people can earn a living with dignity.

Time will tell whether he’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing or whether this former jihadist has genuinely transformed. Meanwhile, his vision for Syria is becoming clearer – an Islamic state governed by religious law. It will be interesting to see how the Syrian public receives this, having despised Bashar but showing no appetite for replacing him with an Islamic jihadist.

The fall of the Assad regime and al-Julani’s emergence as Syria’s new ruler present Israel with a challenge, and we seem to be making every possible mistake in confronting it. Israel’s fears of chaos enabling renewed terror attacks along the Golan border are justified, as are concerns about al-Julani’s long-term intentions. After all, Sinwar, too, spoke moderately and appeared focused on consolidating his rule in Gaza rather than confronting Israel.

It’s also justified to try to target the chemical and advanced weapons caches left behind by Assad’s disintegrating army, preventing them from falling into the wrong hands and being used against Israel – but there’s a vast difference between this and the burst of activity and energy that has seized us in the past week.

Israel needs to protect its interests while avoiding being drawn into deep involvement inside Syria that would only entangle us further. We can defend the Golan without penetrating deep into Syrian territory, and we can target the advanced weapons Assad left behind without indiscriminately attacking “anything that moves” across Syria.

This burst of energy and action stands in stark contrast not only to our complete inaction against Assad and his army over the years but primarily to our approach toward Hezbollah – our real enemy that we faced and continue to face. With them, we settled for a partial strike and rushed to accept a ceasefire that left them with many of their capabilities and most of their military power, which they will now try to rebuild.

No one in Syria is concerned with Israel today, and even hostility toward it has disappeared. We must not sink into the Syrian quagmire to achieve goals that are beyond our power anyway. Instead, we should vigilantly monitor developments across the border, remembering that even if al-Julani proves to have remained a jihadist – he poses less of a threat than Iran and Hezbollah, against whom we inexplicably stopped short of a decisive victory.