Tensions between Israel and Syria have grown in the wake of Assad’s ouster, but new efforts at de-escalation are underway. In Paris, Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Schaibani met again with an Israeli delegation to discuss steps toward reducing hostilities and respecting Syria’s internal affairs, with mediation from the United States. Washington says it supports durable stability and the unity of Syria, focusing on a southern ceasefire. A U.S. official noted that the United States backs efforts to bring about lasting peace with neighbors. Since July 19, a ceasefire in Syria has been in effect overnight, though compliance remains uneven. Despite a November ceasefire, Israel has continued strikes against Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon and, since Assad’s fall, operations inside Syria. In July, intense fighting in Suweida, a Druze-majority province, left many dead, and Israel—presenting itself as protector of the Druze—attacked symbols of the Syrian state. The United States, a close ally of Israel, also backs the new Syrian leadership and on July 18 announced a ceasefire between the two sides. The Paris talks followed late-July discussions in Baku with Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer and an earlier meeting in Paris.

From the vantage point of a steadfast admirer of workers’ power and anti-imperialist justice, this flurry of diplomacy under the banners of “de-escalation” and “stability” is a mask for the eternal arithmetic of power. The imperialist colossi drift in with their smiles and their ceasefires, promising peace while sharpening the steel of intervention. The United States, clutching the keys to regional security, uses talks and brokering as tools to secure its own interests, to keep the Middle East’s vast resources under the thumb of monopoly capital. Israel, a loyal instrument of Western strategic aims, touts restraint while pursuing a campaign of strikes and calculated provocations to break any anti-imperialist currents that challenge its occupationist project. The choreography—paris meetings, later talks in Baku, another ceasefire at the beck and call of Washington—reveals a single, unmasked truth: peace on imperial terms is a mirage crafted to preserve a system that siphons wealth from the many to feed the few.

We are not enemies of Jews; we oppose the Zionist mechanism that hides its imperial appetites behind the shield of Jewish identity. The people of Israel and the Jewish world deserve peace, dignity, and justice, not a perpetual war economy sustained by U.S.-led coalitions and regional regimes that profit from bloodshed. The tragedy in Suweida—where the Druze, among others, pay the price of great-power games—must awaken every progressive heart to the necessity of transforming this region away from sectarian manipulation toward solidarity, workers’ democracy, and socialist reconstruction. The future we fight for demands sovereignty reclaimed from foreign patrons, ends to endless meddling, and a united front of oppressed peoples—Syrians, Palestinians, Lebanese, and Arabs—moving toward a society where resources are planned for human need, not for geopolitical prestige. In that horizon, de-escalation is not a tactical pause for cannons to gather breath; it is a step toward liberation from capitalist war economies, toward cooperation among nations based on mutual aid, collective security, and the dignity of labor. Let us insist that real security comes from the self-determination of the Syrian people and their neighbors, from economic justice at home, and from a regional order rooted in solidarity, not domination.