{"id":1545994,"date":"2025-07-09T02:10:00","date_gmt":"2025-07-09T06:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/?p=1545994"},"modified":"2025-07-09T02:10:00","modified_gmt":"2025-07-09T06:10:00","slug":"syrias-sharaa-met-with-top-israeli-officials-in-quiet-normalization-effort-reports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/syrias-sharaa-met-with-top-israeli-officials-in-quiet-normalization-effort-reports\/1545994\/","title":{"rendered":"Syria&#8217;s Sharaa Met With Top Israeli Officials In &#8216;Quiet&#8217; Normalization Effort: Reports"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"field field--name-title field--type-string field--label-hidden\">Syria&#8217;s Sharaa Met With Top Israeli Officials In &#8216;Quiet&#8217; Normalization Effort: Reports<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"clearfix text-formatted field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item\">\n<p>A Syrian newspaper as well as several Israeli media sources are reporting that\u00a0Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, who previously went by Abu Mohammad al-Jolani and is <strong>the founder of Syrian al-Qaeda<\/strong>, has met with Israel&#8217;s National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates.<\/p>\n<p>While the reports remain unconfirmed by Damascus, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jpost.com\/middle-east\/article-860350\"><em>The Jerusalem Post<\/em><\/a> says that this\u00a0<strong>was not &#8220;the first such meeting&#8221; to take place<\/strong>, citing a Syrian source. <strong>But Israel quickly denied the reports<\/strong>: &#8220;Israel issued a statement denying the claim, noting that Hanegbi is in Washington as part of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s delegation visiting the US.&#8221;\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/cms.zerohedge.com\/s3\/files\/inline-images\/jolaniisrael.jpg?itok=8PJimwny\"><em>via Tehran Times<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The sources are calling the alleged meeting &#8220;a significant step in the Syrian\u2011Israeli negotiations&#8221; as part of potentially moving closer to achieving normalization base on the Abraham Accords.<\/p>\n<p>This could also be part of publicly known efforts to advance &#8220;quiet&#8221; talk with Israel in order to reach a security status quo. At the moment Israel&#8217;s military still occupies a large portion of southern Syria, going well beyond the Golan Heights.<\/p>\n<p>Israel&#8217;s <em>YNet<\/em> writes that &#8220;The expected agreement could include security guarantees, a <strong>pledge to counter terrorist activity, measures to curb Iranian influence<\/strong>, and a restriction of terror operatives near the border.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;According to foreign reports, <strong>Israel has already used Syrian airspace to strike Iranian targets<\/strong>\u2014suggesting informal coordination between the two nations, even if not official,&#8221; the outlet adds.<\/p>\n<p>Damascus has continued to claim busting up &#8216;Iranian terror&#8217; cells in various parts of the country. It is not expected to prioritize counter-ISIS operations given that many of the Sharaa\/HTS government&#8217;s own members are ISIS or former ISIS.<\/p>\n<p>The prior Assad government had lone been Israel&#8217;s most formidable regional enemy, given it possessed Russian anti-aircraft systems and hosted Iranian forces. Israel, for its part, was part of the West&#8217;s covert war to oust Assad.<\/p>\n<p>The timing of these reported Sharaa meetings with top Israeli officials is interesting given that it was only on Monday that the US formally <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/geopolitical\/us-ends-foreign-terrorist-designation-syrias-hts-nearly-2-months-after-trump-met-its\">lifted the longtime terror designation against his group<\/a>, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).<\/p>\n<p><em>Meanwhile, an interesting new revelation on Monday&#8230;<\/em><\/p>\n<p>JUST IN: TRUMP SAYS NETANYAHU WANTED SANCTIONS LIFTED OFF SYRIA<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe took the sanctions off [Syria] because we want to give them a chance &#8230; and I would love to be able to \u2014 at the right time \u2014 take those sanctions off [Iran], give them a chance at rebuilding, because I&#8217;d like\u2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/dTkxg2vomr\">pic.twitter.com\/dTkxg2vomr<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Sulaiman Ahmed (@ShaykhSulaiman) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ShaykhSulaiman\/status\/1942375935526985837?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">July 8, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<p>As we <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/geopolitical\/us-ends-foreign-terrorist-designation-syrias-hts-nearly-2-months-after-trump-met-its\">highlighted<\/a>, the fact that Sharaa was a formally designated terrorist didn&#8217;t stop President Trump from meeting with him during his Saudi visit months ago. Trump even praised him as a\u00a0<strong>&#8220;young, attractive guy&#8221; who has a\u00a0&#8220;real shot at doing a good job&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Sadly, the message from the White House seems to be that Syria should prioritize ending the long-running state of conflict with Israel, but\u00a0<strong>there&#8217;s been barely a peep about the massacres being conducted against Syria&#8217;s ancient Christian, Alawite, and Druze populations<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>      <span class=\"field field--name-uid field--type-entity-reference field--label-hidden\"><a title=\"View user profile.\" href=\"https:\/\/cms.zerohedge.com\/users\/tyler-durden\" class=\"username\">Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span><br \/>\n<span class=\"field field--name-created field--type-created field--label-hidden\">Tue, 07\/08\/2025 &#8211; 22:10<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\u200b<a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/geopolitical\/reports-say-syrias-sharaa-met-top-israeli-officials-quiet-normalization-effort\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"\">https:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/geopolitical\/reports-say-syrias-sharaa-met-top-israeli-officials-quiet-normalization-effort<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Syria&#8217;s Sharaa Met With Top Israeli Officials In &#8216;Quiet&#8217; Normalization Effort: Reports A Syrian newspaper as well as several Israeli media sources are reporting that\u00a0Syrian&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1545995,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1545994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1545994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1545994"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1545994\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1545995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1545994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1545994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1545994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}