Israel-Lebanon negotiations, a possible Syrian security arrangement, renewed Bahrain-Israel engagement and US pressure on Saudi Arabia point to diplomatic movement—but analysts disagree sharply over whether it can produce durable agreement
A series of diplomatic moves across the Middle East is raising the prospect of new regional arrangements even as the continuing confrontation between Washington and Tehran places governments under mounting military, economic and political pressure.
US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met in Washington on Tuesday, July 28, for their first face-to-face talks since the United States and Israel began their current war with Iran. Details of the specific topics under discussion were not released.
The meeting came days before Israeli and Lebanese representatives were scheduled to return to Rome. An Israeli official confirmed that the next round would begin on August 4, following previous US-mediated discussions over border arrangements, Israeli withdrawals and proposed “pilot zones” in southern Lebanon.
The diplomatic activity extends beyond Lebanon. Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa said in an interview broadcast on July 26 that Damascus was working with several countries to reach a security agreement with Israel. According to al-Sharaa, a successful arrangement could create a path toward comprehensive peace without requiring Syria to relinquish its claim to the Golan Heights.
On the same day, Israeli President Isaac Herzog spoke by telephone with Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa. The two discussed bilateral relations, the Abraham Accords and recent regional developments. The call, initiated and publicized by Bahrain according to an Israeli report, was characterized by experts interviewed for this article as apparently the leaders’ first publicly disclosed call since the October 7 attacks.
These moves have coincided with new uncertainty surrounding Saudi Arabia. Washington and Riyadh signed a civil nuclear cooperation agreement on July 22, but Trump subsequently said he would not allow it to proceed unless Saudi Arabia normalized relations with Israel and joined the Abraham Accords. Saudi Arabia has maintained that formal normalization requires a credible path toward Palestinian statehood.
Taken together, the developments suggest that diplomacy is continuing alongside—not subsequent to—the region’s widening confrontation. Yet four regional specialists offered markedly different assessments of whether the current movement represents a genuine opening, a limited security adjustment or a temporary diplomatic response to an unresolved war.
Syria’s Security Overture
Dr. Nir Boms, a research fellow at the Moshe Dayan Center at Tel Aviv University, argued that Israel and Syria have overlapping long-term interests—including security arrangements and the approach to Hezbollah—despite the continuing territorial dispute and uncertainty surrounding al-Sharaa’s political trajectory. “I think there is pragmatism involved in the Syrian policy. And I think al-Sharaa understands that at this point, there is a real challenge coming from Israel in the south,” he told The Media Line.
Boms said the two sides share an interest in limiting radical armed actors in southern Syria and restricting weapons-smuggling networks connected to Hezbollah. “In the context of the long-term strategic interests, I think Israel and Syria share the aspiration that we’re going to limit the presence of radical forces in the Syrian south and in Syria overall,” he said. “He needs to help stop smuggling lines that also influence the dynamics with Hezbollah. And some of that is happening in the Triangle area and in Israel-Lebanon-Syria proximity.”
A security arrangement, Boms argued, could help al-Sharaa consolidate authority over Syrian territory. “… That’s one thing that can potentially help him get to that agenda,” he said.
Joshua Landis, professor in Middle East Studies and co-director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma, offered a more skeptical assessment.
“Al-Sharaa has got a big problem on his hands because Israel has occupied this additional land beyond the Golan Heights. And he needs to get Israel out of that land if he is going to have a peace agreement,” Landis told The Media Line.
While al-Sharaa could conceivably accept continued Israeli control over the Golan Heights as part of an agreement, Landis argued, he could not domestically accept the loss of additional territory occupied following the collapse of Bashar Assad’s government. “He can sign a deal which gives the Golan Heights to Israel,” Landis said. “But not a deal that gives the extra territory that’s been taken recently in southern Syria.”
Landis said the fundamental imbalance between Israel and the new Syrian administration limits Damascus’ negotiating leverage. “Syria is too weak. Israel is too strong, and Israel’s made its position very clear, which is we’re staying in this situation, and I can’t see Israel backing off of that,” he said.
Syria is too weak. Israel is too strong, and Israel’s made its position very clear, which is ‘we’re staying in this situation,’ and I can’t see Israel backing off of that
“And I don’t think the international community is going to rally behind Syria and put a lot of capital into this,” he added.
A former Bahraini diplomat, who requested anonymity, interpreted the Syrian overture as a product of military weakness, the search for sanctions relief, and the need to restore international legitimacy. “Faced with incomplete territorial control near the Golan, an urgent need for international reintegration, and sanctions relief from Washington, I believe Damascus is pragmatically forced to treat Israel as an unavoidable reality,” the former diplomat told The Media Line.
“The Syrian approach aims for a functional security arrangement—ideally restoring the pre-1974 disengagement lines and pushing back Israeli incursions from Al-Sheikh Mount [widely known as Mount Hermon]—while explicitly reaffirming sovereignty over the Golan Heights to preserve domestic and Arab legitimacy,” he explained.
The diplomat added that Syria was unlikely to restore its former strategic relationship with Tehran. “Crucially, Syria has no incentive to realign with Tehran; the country’s state image suffered heavily from direct Iranian intervention during the Assad era, making a return to the ‘Axis of Resistance’ politically untenable,” he said.
Instead, he noted, Turkey now plays a central role in Syria, effectively replacing Iranian influence. In his view, while this shift sidelines Tehran, it creates a separate strategic concern for Israel.
Chama Mechtaly, a policy adviser pioneering the bottom-up movement of the Abraham Accords and founder and executive director of the Emma Lazarus Institute for Liberty and Tolerance, described the Syrian development more optimistically, although she warned that regional integration could provoke armed opposition. “The diplomatic movement is real,” Mechtaly told The Media Line. “The Lebanese framework is a step in the right direction. Syria appears to be moving closer to a security arrangement, potentially in the near term,” she said, adding that normalization can also trigger hostility from proxy groups, which see greater regional integration as a threat to their influence.
Lebanon’s Talks Face the Hezbollah Question
The same disagreement extends to Lebanon, where negotiations are continuing despite fundamental disputes over Hezbollah’s weapons, the Israeli military presence in southern Lebanon, and the sequencing of any withdrawal.
Boms argued that the Lebanese state ultimately faces a choice between restoring its authority and continuing to accommodate Hezbollah as a separate military structure. “I think Lebanon understands that there is a choice that needs to be made and that it’s either Lebanon, or Hezbollah. And in some ways, you can’t have them both,” he said.
I think Lebanon understands that there is a choice that needs to be made and that it’s either Lebanon, or Hezbollah. And in some ways, you can’t have them both.
However, he cautioned that weakening Hezbollah would also require an alternative political structure capable of preserving representation for Lebanon’s Shia population. “You need to create a Shia power framework that is divorced from Hezbollah. And I don’t think that’s impossible.”
Landis rejected the likelihood that the Lebanese state could carry out such a process under current conditions. “Hezbollah is not going to be defeated. The Lebanese army is in no position to take them on,” he said. “The politicians in Lebanon are not interested in pushing a military confrontation internally.”
Landis therefore viewed the negotiations primarily as a mechanism for containing immediate escalation rather than resolving the underlying conflict. “So, I think this is a lot of talk in order to try to deescalate things, but that’s it,” he argued.
He was similarly doubtful that the existing roadmap would produce a complete Israeli withdrawal.
“There is a roadmap for Israeli withdrawal, but the chances of that roadmap ever being carried out seem very slim because it requires defeating Hezbollah,” Landis said. “And who’s going to do that? It seems like an impossibility.”
The former Bahraini diplomat also questioned whether the negotiations could survive without a broader regional understanding. “Given the hardline rhetoric from Israeli ministers opposing the talks themselves and advocating a permanent military presence, I think that these negotiations risk becoming short-lived diplomatic bubbles,” he said.
He said that Hezbollah, which seems to retain significant popular support and military infrastructure, remains prepared for a prolonged war of attrition in coordination with Tehran. “The Lebanese government currently lacks both consensus in the south and the military capacity to enforce disarmament, rendering any diplomatic agreement fragile without a broader regional settlement.”
He said that, in his view, it is simply a matter of time before the next escalation erupts.
Mechtaly, by contrast, described the Lebanese framework as a potentially meaningful step while emphasizing that Hezbollah and other Iranian-aligned groups were likely to interpret regional agreements as a direct challenge. “We therefore have to watch Hezbollah and the Houthis closely,” she said.
From her perspective, the success of diplomacy will depend not only on agreements between governments but also on whether states are prepared to confront the networks that can obstruct their implementation.
Bahrain and the Durability of the Original Accords
Herzog’s conversation with Bahrain’s king has added another dimension to the diplomatic picture. Bahrain joined the Abraham Accords in 2020 and has maintained formal relations with Israel despite the regional fallout from October 7 and the subsequent wars.
The former Bahraini diplomat described the call as an indication that Manama continued to view its relationship with Washington and Israel as central to its security. “Despite enduring sustained missile and drone pressure from Iran and its regional allies, Bahrain appears to remain firmly anchored within the US-Israel defense umbrella,” he said.
“Implicitly, this signal reflects Manama’s firm belief that the US-Israel coalition maintains the capacity—but lacks the strategic appetite—to fully deter Iran,” he added.
Implicitly, this signal reflects Manama’s firm belief that the US-Israel coalition maintains the capacity—but lacks the strategic appetite—to fully deter Iran
The diplomat nevertheless warned that continued reliance on external deterrence could become politically and strategically unsustainable if the campaign against Iran failed to produce a clear result. “Should US deterrence fail to produce a decisive strategic outcome, even frontline states may eventually, and unfortunately, be forced to complement this posture with pragmatic regional adaptation.”
Mechtaly interpreted the call as evidence of the institutional relationships that had developed among the original Abraham Accords countries.
“The original Abraham Accords countries have already accumulated something that cannot be manufactured overnight: trust, relational capital, institutional cooperation, and a record of standing by the relationship during moments of enormous pressure,” she said.
She distinguished between governments that treat normalization as a long-term strategic commitment and those that use its symbols for tactical advantage.
“For some states, normalization is the product of a genuine strategic investment in regional security, economic integration, and the recovery of state sovereignty from militias and transnational ideological movements,” Mechtaly said. “For others, the language and imagery of normalization are being used tactically, as public relations, as narrative warfare, and as insulation from scrutiny in Washington.”
Boms also pointed to signs that regional exchanges had continued despite Israel’s diplomatic difficulties after October 7. “We’ve seen more developments on trade with Israel and the Gulf. We’ve seen the dynamics coming back,” he said, adding that Israel does not appear to be completely isolated.
But he warned against interpreting those contacts as an automatic restoration of Israel’s regional position. “I’m not arguing that Israel is gaining its legitimacy right now … irrespective of other things,” Boms said. “But there is a window of opportunity. Israel will be asked to also do its part.”
Saudi Arabia Remains the Central Test
Saudi Arabia would represent a far larger diplomatic breakthrough than any previous expansion of the Abraham Accords, but all four perspectives point to serious obstacles despite Trump’s pressure.
Boms argued that Riyadh was unlikely to enter the existing framework without attaching normalization to the Palestinian question. “Saudi Arabia is not going to join the Abraham Accords,” he said. “The Saudis, I think, would like to maybe show that at some point they’re able to move forward and create a breakthrough when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. That will be their path to a potential rapprochement.”
Landis was equally doubtful that the current regional environment could support Saudi normalization. He argued that the ongoing war in Iran and the unresolved Gaza conflict made the timing particularly unfavorable. “Saudi Arabia has made it very clear that they’re not going to move ahead on Abraham Accords unless there’s a pathway for Palestinian statehood,” he said. “And I don’t see that happening.”
Saudi Arabia has made it very clear that they’re not going to move ahead on Abraham Accords unless there’s a pathway for Palestinian statehood
The former Bahraini diplomat emphasized that Saudi Arabia’s status as the custodian of Islam’s two holiest sites makes the reputational consequences of normalization different from those faced by smaller Gulf states.
“Saudi Arabia’s stature as the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques in Islam represents its ultimate soft power and geopolitical weight across the Islamic world,” he said.
“I believe that surrendering this leverage easily through formal normalization without an explicit, irreversible path to Palestinian statehood carries a reputational cost that far outweighs the incremental security benefits of the Accords,” he asserted.
In his opinion, Riyadh recognizes that intelligence, economic, and technological cooperation with Israel can be deepened pragmatically behind the scenes without the political exposure of formal embassies.
A Region Without Fixed Blocs
The competing interpretations converge on one conclusion: The emerging regional order is no longer adequately explained by a single division between an Iranian axis and a US-aligned camp.
Mechtaly described the process as “a race toward normalization,” but one driven by different interests and levels of commitment.
“The most important development, however, is that the region can no longer be understood as one or two fixed blocs,” she said. “We are witnessing the death of the GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council], and the death of the Arab world as ideologically bound units. Every state has its own interests, vulnerabilities, and theory of survival.”
The former Bahraini diplomat similarly described increasingly divergent Gulf strategies. Oman and Qatar continue to favor engagement and mediation, Saudi Arabia is attempting to preserve both US security ties and diplomatic channels with Tehran, while the UAE, Bahrain and Kuwait have leaned more heavily on Western-backed defense structures.
We are witnessing the death of the GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council], and the death of the Arab world as ideologically bound units
“The current confrontation demonstrates the structural limits of relying solely on military deterrence or containment to secure vital maritime corridors and regional stability,” the diplomat said. “If Washington’s campaign fails to achieve a decisive outcome against Iranian asymmetric capabilities, the Gulf states—including those currently leaning on Western/Israeli security guarantees—will inevitably be compelled to pursue a new, pragmatic security framework that accommodates Iran as a permanent regional stakeholder.”
Landis offered the most pessimistic view of the conflict’s trajectory, predicting that neither the United States nor Iran was positioned to make the concessions required for a comprehensive settlement. “I see it as a forever war that’s going to stumble forward,” he said. “And the Lebanon situation is a forever war which is going to stumble forward, and it’s going to suck Israel in. Israel will stay there, and it’ll sort of be a low simmer.”
Boms saw greater room for regional actors to shape the outcome but agreed that the United States was increasingly unwilling to police and resolve every conflict itself. “America is not going to be able to, does not have the will to … lead the policing or the solutions for the region overall, and the region needs to do this itself,” he said, adding that this could lead to some “real opportunities.”
Whether those opportunities produce formal agreements—or merely limited arrangements intended to manage an ongoing war—may depend on unresolved questions about the future of Iran’s military capabilities, Hezbollah’s weapons, Syria’s territorial integrity, Palestinian statehood and the willingness of Arab governments to absorb the domestic costs of closer relations with Israel.
