New Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa discussed last week his conditions for normalizing relations with Israel with Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R-IN), who was one of the first American lawmakers to visit the country since the overthrow of the Assad regime.

Al-Sharaa’s apparent openness to normalization is a striking step given his history as a fighter and leader in Al-Qaida and ISIS, and the campaign of Israeli military strikes against Syria, motivated by concerns about al-Sharaa and other new Syrian leaders’ jihadist pasts, among other issues.

During a meeting at the presidential palace in Damascus, al-Sharaa told Stutzman that his concerns regarding Syria’s relationship with Israel are keeping Syria as a unified country and not allowing regions to be divided off, Israel’s military encroachment into Syria around the Golan Heights and the Israeli bombing campaign targeting Syrian military assets. 

Al-Sharaa said any agreement with Israel would have to address those points, but Stutzman told Jewish Insider last week that “outside of those couple of items — and I’m sure there’s going to be other issues that he would bring to the table, but [al-Sharaa] was open to those conversations about normalizing relations with Israel.” Stutzman said he felt al-Sharaa was being honest and upfront about those conditions.

He said they did not specifically address the issue of whether al-Sharaa’s government is seeking to reclaim the Golan Heights, which Israel captured in the Six-Day War in 1967. Israel has floated the prospect of attempting to create and protect an autonomous zone for the Druze minority in southern Syria and strongly opposes any sanctions relief for the regime, as has been floated by lawmakers in the U.S.

The congressman noted that al-Sharaa used the word “Israel” on various occasions, rather than using euphemisms like “Zionist [entity]” preferred by Israel’s antagonists in the region, which Stutzman suggested was a positive sign.

The Indiana congressman said he believed al-Sharaa, who some in the United States and Israel — including members of the Trump administration — think still harbors jihadist aims, is sincere in his interest in reforming Syria and moving beyond Islamist extremism. 

“He sees the prosperity of the West, it seems to me like he may want to be a part of that, and I think that’s something we should be open to,” Stutzman explained. “His past is dubious. We can’t ignore it. But at the same time, it seems like he’s stretching a hand to the West to have a dialogue.”

Stutzman called for a “trust-but-verify approach” to the new regime. He said that he and al-Sharaa had discussed the issue of lifting U.S. sanctions, which Stutzman said would ultimately be a decision best left to President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. 

“He wanted to keep Syria unified. That was a really top priority for him,” Stutzman said. “And respecting all human rights, religious rights, he seemed agreeable to that. Actions speak louder than words, and that’s what we have to watch, but I truly believe that we should be engaging in a conversation with him.”

“He’s already pushing Hezbollah and the Iranians out of the region, and he has a good relationship with Turkey for the most part, and is reaching out to the countries in the Middle East,” Stutzman added, saying that welcoming members of Congress into the country for an unrestricted visit was another positive sign.

Stutzman said he believes al-Sharaa is currently committed to keeping Iran, Russia and China out of Syria, but said that if al-Sharaa cannot find friends in the West, he will likely turn to American adversaries.

He said that al-Sharaa is highly interested in building economic relationships with Gulf states and making Syria peaceful and prosperous.

“He was very thoughtful and measured, but you could tell a couple of times he got excited, he was getting excited when I asked him about his vision for Syria economically, and he started talking about trade and commerce and tourism and the relationship with Qatar and Saudi Arabia and UAE, and the fact that they could be an energy resource to the West as well as trade routes,” Stutzman said.

Al-Sharaa pitched to Stutzman plans to build rail lines and trucking routes through Syria to the Gulf and the West to cut down shipping times, as well as a gas line to Europe that could help undermine Russia’s energy dominance.

The Indiana lawmaker noted that he was particularly struck by the fact that a Christian woman, Hind Kabawat, is a member of al-Sharaa’s Cabinet. She met with Stutzman and Rep. Cory Mills (R-FL), who also traveled to Syria, and took them to meet with other Christian leaders.

He said that he was also impressed by al-Sharaa’s opening of the presidential palace to the Syrian people. 

Stutzman added that, in general, he saw a sense of optimism among the Syrian people, which “shows you how bad it was before.” He added, “their spirit is not broken,” drawing stark contrasts between his visit to Syria and the dejected people he saw on a visit to Russia in 1995 after the fall of the Soviet Union.

“There seemed to be a sense of hope and optimism,” he said. “The opportunities there are endless if President al-Sharaa takes advantage of it.”

He said that Christian leaders in Syria with whom he met were aware of but did not seem especially worried by al-Sharaa’s jihadist background. The Christian leaders noted that al-Sharaa’s father was an academic, that some of them had known al-Sharaa in their school days and that al-Sharaa, while a member of terrorist groups, had been fighting against the Assad regime.

The surprise trip came about through long relationships between Stutzman and members of the Syrian American community, including the leaders of the Syrian American advocacy group that organized the trip, who live in Indiana.

“I’ve learned a lot from them, and they asked me to be supportive of lifting sanctions,” Stutzman said. “I said, ‘It’s hard to just say that without knowing more and seeing what’s on the ground.’ And so the opportunity came to go over, and that’s why I went.”