The Golan Heights would form an eighth (and unique) front

Much of the international community still recognises the area as Syrian, along with the rest of the Golan Heights, but in 2019, then US President Donald Trump officially recognised the Heights as Israeli.

If this is now a 'front', it has several distinct characteristics that set it apart from the others. For a start, the Golan has been quiet for half a century, rendered neutral from military conflict by a 'disengagement agreement' between Syria and Israel in 1974.

A negotiated quiet

The late US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger facilitated this between Damascus and Tel Aviv following the October War in 1973, where much of the fighting took place across the Golan Heights.

Some skirmishes in the aftermath of the Syrian protests in 2011 escalated into an armed conflict and led to the withdrawal of the UN Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) from the Syrian plateau, but a US-Russia agreement in 2018 put a lid on it.

UNDOF returned to its duties to verify the two sides' commitment to the terms of the 1974 disengagement agreement.

This had involved heavy weapons being withdrawn and Iranian militias being removed from the 'disengagement line'. Additionally, specific Syrian forces were returned in their place, in accordance with the agreement.

Moscow and Damascus put pressure on the armed militias not to use their presence in the Syrian Golan to launch offensive operations into Occupied Golan.

Yet Israel continued its aerial raids on Iranian and Hezbollah sites deep in Syria, while trying not to violate the 1974 disengagement agreement that now had UN approval.

Syria's strict neutrality

Interestingly, after the Gaza war, Israel continued with its raids in Syria, knowing that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was at pains not to have the Iranian-Israeli conflict spill onto Syrian soil.

Damascus adopted a neutral stance in the Israel-Iran 'shadow war' even after Israel bombed of the Iranian consulate in Damascus in early April. Iran responded with over 300 drones and missiles on the night of 13-14 April.

Assad has benefited from his neutrality: Damascus Airport has not become a target for Israeli bombings, and he has had incentives, promises, and rapprochement initiatives from Arab countries and some Western nations.

This has been unpopular in Tehran and led to tensions in private between the two allies, despite public suggestions that all is well.

Iran's main regional proxy, Hezbollah, has kept up the pressure, bombing Israeli sites in the occupied Syrian Golan several times. There was also an exchange of shelling in the Shebaa Farms, located at the Syria-Israel-Lebanon corner.

The Shebaa Farms remain disputed territory. Syria and Hezbollah say they are Lebanese, to justify Hezbollah's continued "resistance" after Israel withdrew from Lebanon in 2000, despite both sides implicitly agreeing that the Farms were Syrian. These developments carry deeper implications.

Keep me out of it

If Damascus truly considers itself a full part of the Axis of Resistance led by Tehran, then some say it should be one of the fronts that Iran has instigated after October 2023.

According to this logic, Syria should open a 'Golan front,' either in response to Israel's bombing of the Syrian interior, or to liberate the occupied Golan, or to defend the Shebaa Farms.

Yet Assad has instead chosen diplomacy over war. So, in targeting the Golan and Shebaa Farms, Hezbollah and Iran could be seen as trying to embarrass Damascus.

Their aim is to embroil Syria in a war that it does not want, or at least, to suggest that Iran can influence Syrian decisions.

Israel will undoubtedly respond with anger to the escalation in the Golan. On the Hezbollah side, efforts are underway to contain the escalation. Its response to that escalation will determine whether this becomes a full-scale war.

What remains to be seen is whether Assad will maintain his neutrality even if that happens. Everything so far suggests he may.