We want to establish ‘peace’ with Israel: Hayat Tahrir al-Sham official

The new “governor” of the Syrian capital Damascus says the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) militant group, which took over the Arab country earlier this month, is after establishing “peace” with the Israeli regime.

“Our problem is not with Israel,” Maher Marwan told NPR in remarks that the American public broadcaster published on Thursday, adding that the militants “don’t want to meddle in anything that will threaten Israel’s security, and Tel Aviv’s concern over new regime is ‘natural.’”

He said that the militant group wanted to have cordial relations with the regime, and noted, “We have no fear toward Israel, and our problem is not with Israel. There exists a people who want coexistence. They want peace. They don’t want disputes.”

“And we don’t want to meddle in anything that will threaten Israel’s security or any other country’s security,” he said, signaling his recognition of the Israeli regime in those terms, and Tel Aviv’s occupation of huge expanses of regional territories.

“We want peace, and we cannot be an opponent to Israel or an opponent to anyone.”

He also claimed that the regime’s initial apprehension after the fall of the former president Bashar al-Assad was “natural.”

“Israel may have felt fear,” he said. “So it advanced a little, bombed a little, etc,” the official added, in an apparently considerable underestimation of the regime’s markedly intensified ongoing attacks against the Arab country in the run-up and the aftermath of the militant takeover.

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The Israeli regime alleges that the aggression that has targeted Syria’s military and civilian infrastructures has been aimed at preventing the country’s defensive means from falling into the “wrong hands and hostile elements.”

The regime has also expanded its invasion of occupied Golan Heights in a move that has drawn international condemnation.

This is while Tel Aviv has claimed that it did not seek to interfere with the situation in the country and its seizure of a so-called buffer zone inside the mountainous territory was a “defensive measure.”

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Earlier this month, the head of the HTS, Abu Mohammad al-Julani, claimed that his group was “committed to the 1974 agreement [between the regime and Damascus that set up the buffer zone] and we are prepared to return the UN [monitors].”

“We do not want any conflict whether with Israel or anyone else and we will not let Syria be used as a launchpad for attacks. The Syrian people need a break, and the strikes must end and Israel has to pull back to its previous positions,” he alleged in remarks to The Times.

The HTS is among the militant organizations that have taken on Syria since 2011 with massively deadly and devastating effects on the country’s people.

The HTS stance on the Israeli invasion of Syria comes as numerous regional and international states and organizations have slammed the Israeli incursions, emphasizing preserving the country’s national sovereignty and territorial integrity.

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