Israel Is Facing A Major Strategic Dilemma Along Its Northern Frontier With Syria

Of course, the Israelis are not alone in facing a rising set of challenges from Syria. 

In a single day last week, Turkey witnessed over 100,000 Kurdish refugees pour across its frontier. An influx of refugees is similarly taxing Jordan, which faces the additional threat of a rising jihadist movement, fueled by events in Syria, inside its borders.

One possible answer to this threat is to create buffer zones, and Turkey has once more called for the United Nations to do just that. The US campaign against the Islamic State (ISIS) has given this idea new strength, but it remains unlikely that Washington will endorse it. 

The Turks are quite likely incapable of creating and maintaining a buffer zone on their own, and would require a range of security assistance. Realistically, the creation of buffer zones would bring the US into direct conflict with the Assad regime – a prospect that President Obama has explicitly rejected. 

Israel is faced with its own unpleasant options on its border with Syria. On the one hand, it is concerned that it may soon share a permanent border with Al-Qaeda. Jabhat al-Nusra, an Al-Qaeda affiliate, is now playing a major role in the rebel movement on the southern front and could well continue to gain in strength and become the dominant party in the area.

On the other hand, if pro-Assad forces should prevail, their victory will hardly spell a restoration of what used to be the status quo. Instead, the return of the regime would see the installation of the Iranians and Hezbollah in positions directly opposite the Israelis on the Golan Heights. 

The ugliness of these two possibilities raises the question as to whether Israel will contemplate the creation of a buffer zone.  It is somewhat better positioned than either Turkey or Jordan to do so, because its domestic politics are much more insulated from events in Syria and because it is, bluntly, stronger. Nevertheless, such a proposition runs up against significant challenges.

The idea of a buffer zone in southern Syria is not new. Top analysts in Israel have quietly worried that the country's demilitarized zone with Syria would collapse since the beginning of the Syrian war. Among the options discussed for such a scenario was exactly a sort of buffer zone.

Almost two years ago, Israel reportedly contemplated the idea, and there has been speculation since that it, perhaps in tandem with Jordan, might take proactive measures to weaken the jihadists along the border while also helping moderate rebels, in cooperation with Amman, to build up their capabilities there. Despite channels of communication between the IDF and mainstream rebel groups in the area, and despite the humanitarian aid that the Israelis provide, they have remained wary of being sucked into the Syrian quagmire. 

One obvious reason for this reluctance is the hangover from the Lebanon war. The Israelis built a buffer zone in southern Lebanon in the 1980s and the experience of maintaining it has left them with no enthusiasm for repeating the experience. 

The very act of creating the buffer zone would suck Israel into the civil war and might even hasten the appearance of threats on the border that the zone was supposed to forestall.

But the fundamental problem is deeper than just bad memories.

The idea of a buffer zone highlights the divergence in objectives between Israel and the Syrian opposition. As far as the rebels are concerned, a protected zone should serve to protect civilians against Assad’s air force and bombardment, allowing them to build decent alternative governing structures, while also providing the rebels with the ability to launch operations northward against Damascus.

For Israel, the primary concern is protecting its borders against undesirable elements, namely Hezbollah and Iran, which pose an immediate threat, and Al-Qaeda-style jihadists that could pose a threat further down the road.

Faced with this prospect, the Israelis have opted instead to sit on the sidelines, while also responding to any breach at the border. “So far,” a former senior official put it, “Israeli policy is to wait and see.”

What is more, protecting such a zone, even if it does not serve as a launch pad for rebel operations against Damascus, might require more than just denying Bashar al-Assad’s air force. It might require neutralizing his missile capability, which he could use in lieu of air power. That would mean either taking out missile batteries, or committing significant resources to extend a defensive missile shield over the zone, or both. 

In other words, the very act of creating the buffer zone would suck Israel into the civil war and might even hasten the appearance of threats on the border that the zone was supposed to forestall. 

When the Israelis first began mulling these prospects over a year ago, the thinking was to prevent Nusra Front entrenchment in the area. Since then, however, the rebel formations in southern Syria, in cooperation with the Nusra Front, have been making noticeable progress against the regime and its ally, Hezbollah. 

The Nusra Front/Free Syrian Army (FSA) coalition now controls most of the border with Israel. Nusra’s standing in the coalition has increased, and for the most part the factions have maintained battlefield cooperation. They have not allowed the differences between them to deflect them from the priority of rolling back the Assad regime.

Given this fact, it is probably unrealistic to believe that Israel can keep the Nusra Front out without antagonizing the very moderate elements that it would need to maintain the buffer zone. There’s no reason to believe that the rebels will alter their priorities at this juncture and risk expending resources fighting against Nusra, which has been an ally in the war against Assad — thereby risking all the gains they’ve made.

What would be the guarantees that Assad and Hezbollah won’t simply take advantage and regain the upper hand in the area, while, in the process, branding the rebels as the lackeys of Israel? 

This complex dynamic with the Nusra Front takes on added importance precisely at this moment, when US strikes in northwestern Syria have targeted the group, drawing condemnation from mainstream rebel groups. Will the US expand its strikes against the jihadist group? What will be the repercussions, if any, for the group’s relations with other local rebels?

It’s worth noting, in this context, that the Nusra Front abducted a Free Syrian Army commander last July, accusing him of “collaborating with Israel.” That incident brings us to the elephant in the room; that is, the delicate matter of Syrian rebels working in one capacity or another with Israel. So far, the only Syrian to broach the subject openly has been Kamal Labwani, who, on a recent trip to Israel, issued a plea for Israeli support: “We need a free and safe zone we can use to restart some level of Syrian civil society, and to protect people in Syria.” Whether Labwani speaks for a broader sentiment is unclear. 

Of course, there is always the option of working with Jordan, giving Amman the lead in dealing with the Syrian groups. Still, the same challenges would remain, especially depending on the function of the zone.

Not only is Jordan reluctant to assume a visibly aggressive posture against Damascus — which carries risks for the kingdom — but also, in terms of capacity, the muscle would still have to come from Israel, assuming the Israelis have any interest.

The issue of buffers or safe zones remains an important one both for the Syrian people and rebels, as well as for Syria’s neighbors. Perhaps it is even more relevant today, as the US targets ISIS in Syria, and there is increased talk of supporting the FSA to fill the vacuum.

However, with the US still unwilling to lead such an effort, significant challenges remain for regional actors that are struggling to deal with the mess.

Tony Badran is a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He tweets @AcrossTheBay.