While Israeli jets reportedly struck Iranian targets in Syria on Monday, its border with Syria has remained relatively quiet, especially when compared with the escalating situation along the Lebanese border. But it has not been completely quiet: there has been sporadic rocket fire from Palestinian groups operating in Syria (presumably with Damascus’s blessing), as well as attacks on U.S. forces by Iran-backed militias in the country, since October 7.

Carmit Valensi and Tal Avraham explain why the Syrian ruler, Bashar al-Assad, wants to stay out of the current conflict, and why he might not be able to. They also take a look at the regime’s rhetoric and, so far as it can be assessed, popular opinion:

The official discourse in Syria . . . focuses on support for Hamas’s surprise attack and the Palestinian people, while highlighting Israeli “aggression” toward the Palestinians. At the same time, opponents of the regime have criticized the limited regional and international attention to the Syrian people during the civil war, compared to the attention showered on the Palestinians, including global mass demonstrations for the Palestinian cause. There has also been criticism of the international calls for a ceasefire and for an end to the war in the Gaza Strip, while such calls were noticeably weaker in the case of the Syrian civil war.

Some opponents of the regime [accurately] view Hamas as part of the “axis of resistance” that includes Iran, Hizballah, and Syria, express support for Israel, and call for the elimination of Hamas—with the hope that this would weaken the axis. When, at a joint summit of the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation on November 11, Assad accused Israel of war crimes and condemned the West for its response to the war in Gaza, many people on social media noted the irony of his comments, given the atrocities that Assad himself committed against the Palestinians in his country—as well as the rest of his citizens—during the Syrian civil war.

In other words, it hasn’t been lost on Syrians that for more than a decade, Assad, with help from Russia and Iran, has done to his own people what Western media and activists falsely accuse Israel of doing to Palestinians: indiscriminate bombing of civilians, acts of calculated cruelty, attempts to cleanse areas of particular religious and ethnic groups, the use of starvation as a weapon of war, and mass incarceration in what might best be described as concentration camps.

To Elliott Abrams, Donald Trump’s plan to remove the entire population of Gaza while the Strip is rebuilt is “unworkable,” at least “as a concrete proposal.” But it is welcome insofar as “its sheer iconoclasm might lead to a healthy rethinking of U.S. strategy and perhaps of Arab and Israeli policies as well.” The U.S., writes Abrams, must not only move beyond the failed approach to Gaza, but also must reject other assumptions that have failed time and again. One is the commitment to an illusory stability:

For two decades, what American policymakers have called “stability” has meant the preservation of the situation in which Gaza was entirely under Hamas control, Hizballah dominated Lebanon, and Iran’s nuclear program advanced. A better term for that situation would have been “erosion,” as U.S. influence steadily slipped away and Washington’s allies became less secure. Now, the United States has a chance to stop that process and aim instead for “reinforcement”: bolstering its interests and allies and actively weakening its adversaries. The result would be a region where threats diminish and U.S. alliances grow stronger.

Such an approach must be applied above all to the greatest threat in today’s Middle East, that of a nuclear Iran:

Trump clearly remains open to the possibility (however small) that an aging [Iranian supreme leader Ali] Khamenei, after witnessing the collapse of [his regional proxies], mulling the possibility of brutal economic sanctions, and being fully aware of the restiveness of his own population, would accept an agreement that stops the nuclear-weapons program and halts payments and arms shipments to Iran’s proxies. But Trump should be equally aware of the trap Khamenei might be setting for him: a phony new negotiation meant to ensnare Washington in talks for years, with Tehran’s negotiators leading Trump on with the mirage of a successful deal and a Nobel Peace Prize at the end of the road while the Iranian nuclear-weapons program grows in the shadows.