US roadmap for Syria sanctions removal includes Israel normalization, expulsion of Palestinian factions
The Cradle | May 23, 2025
A State Department proposal circulated among officials lays out “sweeping conditions for future phases of relief or permanent lifting of sanctions” on Syria, including normalizing relations with Israel by signing the Abraham Accords, AP reported on 23 May, citing an anonymous US official familiar with the matter.
US-imposed sanctions have devastated the Syrian economy, plunged millions into poverty, and blocked post-war reconstruction. They were imposed as part of the US and Israeli effort to topple the government of former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.
Assad was ousted in December by militants from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the former Al-Qaeda affiliate, with US, Israeli, and Turkish assistance. HTS leader Ahmad al-Sharaa is now the de facto Syrian president.
However, the US is not yet ready to remove sanctions.
A document issued last week by the State Department’s policy and planning staff has proposed a three-phase road map for sanctions relief, starting with short-term waivers. Permanent lifting of sanctions would only be given after several conditions are met.
According to the document, “Palestinian terror groups” must be removed from Syria to get to the second stage.
The Syrian government must also take control of detention facilities housing ISIS fighters in northeast Syria and carry out a recent deal to incorporate the US-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) into the Syrian army. The SDF currently controls the prisons housing ISIS members and their families, as well as much of Syria’s oil fields.
Phase three would require Damascus to normalize relations with Tel Aviv by joining the Abraham Accords, as well as prove that it had destroyed all of the previous government’s chemical weapons.
If normalization happens, Syria would de facto acknowledge Israel’s annexation of the occupied Syrian Golan Heights.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has previously pushed for US President Donald Trump’s administration not to lift sanctions on Syria.
President Trump raised expectations that all Syria sanctions would quickly be removed when he announced in Saudi Arabia last week that he would “be ordering the cessation of sanctions against Syria in order to give them a chance at greatness.”
“We’re taking them all off,” Trump said a day before meeting the Syrian president, a former deputy of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
“Good luck, Syria. Show us something special,” he went on to say.
However, when asked what sanctions relief should look like overall, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said relief would be “Incremental.”
Washington has levied sanctions against Syria since 1979 for its foreign policy opposing Israel.
To block Syria’s post-war reconstruction, the harshest sanctions were imposed in 2019 by Congress through the passage of the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act.
As a result, a new law in Congress must be passed to remove the Caesar sanctions. Trump is only able to issue six-month waivers, which is not enough to encourage investors to return to doing business in the country.
On Friday, two Palestinian sources told AFP that the leaders of Palestinian resistance factions have left Syria under pressure from the new authorities in Damascus.
The leaders include Khaled Jibril, son of Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC) founder Ahmad Jibril, as well as Palestinian Popular Struggle Front Secretary-General Khaled Abdel Majid and Fatah al-Intifada Secretary-General Ziad al-Saghir.
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The lies about the 1967 war are still more powerful than the truth
By Alan Hart | June 4, 2012
In retrospect it can be seen that the 1967 war, the Six Days War, was the turning point in the relationship between the Zionist state of Israel and the Jews of the world (the majority of Jews who prefer to live not in Israel but as citizens of many other nations). Until the 1967 war, and with the exception of a minority of who were politically active, most non-Israeli Jews did not have – how can I put it? – a great empathy with Zionism’s child. Israel was there and, in the sub-consciousness, a refuge of last resort; but the Jewish nationalism it represented had not generated the overtly enthusiastic support of the Jews of the world. The Jews of Israel were in their chosen place and the Jews of the world were in their chosen places. There was not, so to speak, a great feeling of togetherness. At a point David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s founding father and first prime minister, was so disillusioned by the indifference of world Jewry that he went public with his criticism – not enough Jews were coming to live in Israel.
So how and why did the 1967 war transform the relationship between the Jews of the world and Israel? … continue
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