Trump-Putin Rapprochement Casts a Shadow Over Europe… UN Resolutions Outline the Ukrainian Settlement /  Netanyahu’s Syria Plan Looms Over the Region… Gaza Agreement Wavers Amid Calls for Extension

 February 25, 2025

The political editor wrote

U.S. President Donald Trump has forced Europe and Ukraine into a new reality by opening up to Russian President Vladimir Putin and laying the groundwork for an initial agreement on Ukraine. French President Emmanuel Macron’s visit to Washington and his remarks alongside Trump underscored Europe’s limited ability to act independently from the U.S., despite earlier bold rhetoric from European leaders. Meanwhile, recent UN resolutions reflected a growing focus on ending the war as soon as possible, omitting the usual preconditions, such as condemning Russia or demanding a full withdrawal from Ukrainian territories. While Moscow declined to comment on the U.S.-Ukraine metals deal that Trump seeks to recoup American financial aid to Kyiv, Trump stated that he does not believe Putin would oppose a European role in providing security guarantees for Ukraine after the war.

In the region, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s statements on Syria and his plan to establish a security zone spanning the southern provinces of Damascus, Quneitra, Sweida, and Daraa have drawn significant attention. His proposal includes a special status for Sweida and the Druze community, from which laborers have already begun to be recruited for work in the occupied Golan Heights. Announcing this plan at a military officers’ graduation ceremony, Netanyahu delivered a direct challenge to Syria’s new government, which had anticipated U.S. support in curbing Israeli provocations. However, the plan presents an even greater challenge to Turkey and Qatar, both of which back the Syrian Salvation Government linked to Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham. American signals suggest that a Syrian-Israeli peace agreement recognising Israel’s annexation of the Golan and granting additional security privileges could facilitate sanctions relief, without which, European financial leniencies would have little practical impact. This places Syria’s new government, along with Turkey and Qatar, in a dilemma: either accept Israel’s conditions and face popular backlash for capitulating to the occupation, thereby legitimising a new wave of national resistance against the occupation. It would also reposition the previous regime as a patriotic alternative – one that the new government would lack if it were to comply with occupation demands in exchange for sanctions relief.
Alternatively, maintaining the status quo that existed under the previous regime, marked by sanctions and possibly even harsher living conditions, would weaken the government’s ability to project sovereignty, especially if it fails to prevent the occupation from reaching the outskirts of Damascus. Meanwhile, Turkey, a powerful Islamic state, now shares a border with occupied Palestine yet does nothing.

In Lebanon, the town of Deir Qanoun al-Nahr in the south witnessed the funeral of Hezbollah’s former Secretary-General, the martyred Sayyed Hashem Safi Al-Din. Today, Hezbollah will receive condolences for its two fallen leaders, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and Sayyed Hashem Safi Al-Din. Meanwhile, Lebanon’s government faces a parliamentary confidence vote today and tomorrow, where the first session is expected to be dominated by political speeches addressing the broader national situation, particularly Lebanon’s stance on the Israeli occupation, Resolution 1701, and the resistance, in light of the events of the war and its aftermath, culminating in the funeral of Sayyed Nasrallah.