EXCLUSIVE: The US-Israeli plot to partition Syria's West

Tel Aviv and Washington have birthed a dangerous geopolitical project uniting Israel, sectarian Salafist militias, and foreign lobbying networks to reshape Syria and Lebanon under the guise of 'minority protection.' Will the Levant fall for it?

Abdullah Suleiman Ali

AUG 13, 2025

https://thecradle.co/articles/exclusive-the-us-israeli-plot-to-partition-syrias-west

“When you look at the map of Syria, I mean, it looks like a flat Rubik's cube because of the way that the country is divided up, and what we are talking about is mainly the governance of the western part of the country.” -Senator James Risch during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on 13 February

It began with a seemingly offhand statement by US Senator James Risch, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, just weeks ahead of the March coastal massacres in Syria against the Alawite minority.  

“My idea,” he expounded, “is we need to focus on this western part and continue to look at the others. But the first objective is if you do not get a handle on this you are not going to get a handle on the rest of the country.”

Testifying before the Committee on US policy post-former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, managing director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Michael Singh, responded: 

“I think that we can focus on what is happening in western Syria, deal with the government there, while also trying to encourage and maybe facilitate this process of coming together among these groups.”

But these remarks have since crystallized into a structured, multi-front operation now moving steadily toward execution. The “Western Syria” project has now shed any ambiguity, emerging as a concrete blueprint that fuses sectarian engineering with foreign military coordination, aimed at carving out new realities on both sides of the Syrian–Lebanese border – under Tel Aviv’s supervision. 

A plan spanning Syria and Lebanon 

The scheme extends deep into Lebanon, where an orchestrated campaign against Hezbollah is intended to disarm the resistance movement while redeploying armed Syrian factions from Lebanon to the coastal strip. The right-wing Israeli government, acting as both sponsor and chief architect, directs the plan through two named coordinators –General “Yael” and Captain “Robert.” 

Marketed publicly as a mission to safeguard minorities, especially Christians, the plan’s hidden mechanism is to stage attacks on churches, monasteries, and heritage landmarks across the coast. These provocations are designed to inflame sectarian tensions, creating the pretext for an Israeli-led intervention. 

One of the earliest signs emerged in Tartous, where internal security announced the arrest of a cell accused of plotting to attack the Mar Elias Maronite Church in Safita, not to be confused with the suicide bombing of the Mar Elias Greek Orthodox Church in Damascus in June. The revelation – delayed by three weeks – sparked suspicions of Israeli infiltration of Syrian security structures. 

Internal Security Forces Chief in Tartous, Abdelal Mohammad Abdelal, said the plot was foiled in a “high-level security operation” after extensive surveillance and was based on “precise intelligence indicating that an outlaw group affiliated with remnants of the deposed regime was surveilling Mar Elias Maronite Church in the village of Khreibet, in the Safita countryside.”

However, many saw it as a calculated move to unsettle Christian communities and justify external involvement. 

Two days before that announcement, partisan media channels circulated an unverified statement claiming the formation of a so-called “Christian Military Council” under the name Elias Saab – a figure absent from any credible public record.

The declaration spoke of organizing Christian fighters who had defended their communities against extremist factions like Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), who are now integrated into the state’s security forces. 

It called for uniting fighters from Mhardeh, Al-Suqaylabiyah, Sadad, Maaloula, and Tartous under one legal and military umbrella, documenting crimes against Christians for presentation to international bodies, ensuring their representation in any political settlement, and opposing partition while defending a unified, secular Syria.

While this narrative has circulated in partisan outlets, there is no independent verification of its authenticity or the council’s existence. Its sudden appearance, timed just before heightened tensions in the coastal region, has fueled speculation about its role as a manufactured proxy front to justify foreign involvement under the guise of ‘minority protection.’

The US-Israeli scheme takes shape

On 5 August, in the US capital, the government relations and strategic advisory firm Tiger Hill Partners announced it would serve as the official representative of the “Foundation for the Development of Western Syria.” 

Specializing in government relations and strategic lobbying, Tiger Hill pledged to advocate for Christians, Druze, Alawites, Kurds, and “moderate Sunnis” while working with US policymakers to shape Syria’s political transition. The one-year contract, valued at roughly $1 million, was filed publicly and framed as a mission to ensure minority rights remain central to Washington’s Syria policy. 

In late July, a coastal faction calling itself “Men of Light – Saraya al-Jawad” made its debut. The group’s statement attacked Abu Mohammad al-Julani (Ahmad al-Sharaa), Qatar’s emir, and Turkiye’s president, while offering thanks to Egypt, Israeli journalist Eddy Cohen, and notable expatriate Alawite, Druze, and Christian figures – including Sheikh Hikmat al-Hijri, Mazloum Abdi, and Patriarch John al-Yaziji. Although ridiculed for its unusual tone, its appearance dovetailed with coordinated moves behind the scenes.

That coordination became more visible on the 17 July, when the Tel Aviva Hotel in Israel hosted a closed meeting between government officials, Syrian Alawites, and Syrian Druze figures. The attendees included seven long-exiled Alawites and Druze linked to Sheikh Muwafaq Tarif’s circle – the Druze leader in Israel – both Syrian and Israeli nationals. A second meeting followed on the 21^st–22^nd, just before Saraya al-Jawad’s unveiling and the release of its operational footage.

An Alawite–Druze alliance

On 6 August, Eddy Cohen, an Israeli journalist and commentator on Arab affairs, announced on his Arabic-language Facebook page the preparation of an Alawite–Druze alliance in the US. Observers have paired this with an alleged leaked audio recording of a Syrian woman – said to be related to a former senior officer with Israeli ties – speaking to another participant in the Tel Aviv meetings. 

In the recording, she reportedly described coordination between a secular Syrian expatriate network and Israeli intermediaries, noting specifically that one of the councils involved held shares in Tiger Hill. The recording also alleged plans to covertly deploy some 2,500 foreign fighters into Syria, dispersing them across Homs and the coastal region. 

Despite the project’s determined momentum, domestic and external actors are moving to block it, even offering intelligence support to the Sharaa administration despite disputing its legitimacy. This counter-effort has already thwarted the Safita church attack and prevented a major bombing in Damascus.

A partition map in the making 

As one credible regional security source informs The Cradle:

“Israel seeks to exploit Syria’s sectarian and ethnic divisions to use minorities as political and military tools, serving its plan to partition the country and open two strategic corridors: an eastern one linking Suwayda to Hasakah, and a western one running from Syria’s coast to Afrin, securing multi-front influence and encircling the Turkish axis from within.”

“Western Syria” may remain in the shadows or step fully into the open, but its trajectory is unmistakable: a deliberate dismantling of Syria’s territorial cohesion, draped in the language of minority protection and enforced through foreign-backed militias and political fronts. 

For Damascus, Beirut, and the wider region, this is no distant or hypothetical threat, but an active campaign already reshaping the map to the advantage of outside powers.