US President Donald Trump said Friday that he did not consult with Israel about Washington’s decision to recognize the new Syrian government, despite Jerusalem’s deep suspicion of Syria’s Islamist ruler, Ahmed al-Sharaa, who spearheaded the ouster in December of Iran-backed president Bashar al-Assad.
“I didn’t ask them about that. I thought it was the right thing to do. I’ve been given a lot of credit for doing it. Look, we want Syria to succeed,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One, shortly after departing Abu Dhabi at the close of a four-day trip to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
Trump, who met with Sharaa in Riyadh on Wednesday, had announced Tuesday that he would restore ties with Syria and lift sanctions that the US had placed on the former Assad regime.
The US president said after the meeting with Sharaa that Israel had been informed of Washington’s plans to lift the sanctions. An Israeli official told AP that Trump’s decision to lift the sanctions overruled Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s appeal to Trump, during a visit to the White House last month, to keep the sanctions intact.
Trump’s restoration of US-Syria ties was the latest in a series of White House moves that appeared to sideline Israel, after Washington negotiated indirectly with Hamas on the release of an American-Israeli captive soldier, resumed nuclear talks with Iran, inked a ceasefire in Yemen that allowed its Iran-backed Houthi rebels to continue targeting Israel, and reportedly dropped normalization with Israel as a condition for Saudi Arabia to advance its civilian nuclear program.
Trump’s meeting with Sharaa was the first meeting between a US and Syrian leader in a quarter century. During the meeting, Trump urged Sharaa to join the Abraham Accords, which normalized ties between Israel and four Arab nations during the US president’s first term.
Despite its misgivings, Israel has reportedly been holding secret talks with Syrian officials on the possibility. Sharaa confirmed last week that security-related talks were being held through mediators, though he did not comment on potential diplomatic relations.
Speaking on Air Force One after meeting Sharaa, Trump praised him as a “young, attractive guy. Tough guy. Strong past. Very strong past. Fighter.” The new Syrian leader, who established a jihadist group formerly linked to al-Qaeda during the civil war, had been wanted by the US for terrorism from 2018 until December 2024, with a $10 million reward for his arrest.
Israel has cautioned against swift recognition of Sharaa’s government, expressing deep skepticism about the new Syrian leader after his Islamist-led rebel coalition toppled Assad. Reuters reported in February that Israel lobbied the US to keep Syria decentralized and isolated.
Following Assad’s ouster, Israel moved troops into the Syrian side of the two countries’ demilitarized buffer zone, citing fear that it would fall into the wrong hands. Israel also struck army bases across Syria, destroying much of what remained from Assad’s military.
Israel, home to some 150,000 Druze, has also in the past month carried out what it called “warning strikes” to Sharaa’s regime — including near the presidential palace in Damascus — following deadly clashes between Syrian Druze and Syrian security forces.