Lawmakers and expert witnesses pushed back at a Helsinki Commission hearing on Tuesday on efforts to reimpose sanctions on the Syrian government for its assault against the Kurds and other minorities, and pushed for the U.S. to facilitate a diplomatic arrangement between Israel and Turkey that would allow for a greater Turkish presence in Syria — in part as a counterweight to Russia.

Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) introduced legislation last week to reimpose sanctions on the Syrian government, in response to Damascus’ attacks on the Kurds, which for years had been backed by the U.S. as the minority group fought the Islamic State.

Meanwhile, Israel has remained deeply skeptical of the new Syrian government and is resistant to an expanded Turkish presence in Syria, given Ankara’s open hostility toward Israel in recent years, which has included threats to invade, and ambitions for regional dominance.

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and leading advocate for sanctions repeal in the Senate, criticized colleagues who were pushing to re-impose sanctions, arguing that the repeal of the sanctions has been “successful,” suggesting that their reimposition would push Syria into Russia’s hands.

“The empirical record shows that countries that we’ve sanctioned and tried to coerce, if they are strong enough, will bandwagon, will hedge against us, try to find other patrons,” Richard Outzen, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, said. “That’s how Russia has a back door here.”

The hearing was focused primarily on finding ways to counter the Russian presence in Syria.

Outzen asserted that sanctions would not lead to the results their advocates seek, but rather renewed violence and fragmentation.

Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC), a champion in the House for sanctions repeal, said he hopes to see any remaining sanctions, including Syria’s designation as a state sponsor of terrorism, repealed as well.

Witnesses at the hearing noted that Russia is taking steps to entrench its presence and expand its relationship with the Syrian government, and that Syria remains heavily reliant on Russia. They largely called for increased engagement and incentives for the new Syrian government to counter Russia rather than coercive measures.

“The way to not abandon the Kurds is to not abandon Damascus. The best way to do that is to remain engaged and provide pathways to regional roles for Turkey and others, and not to give in to voices that say, we can’t trust [Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa],” Outzen said.

Asked about whether al-Sharaa can be trusted to protect minorities in Syria, Outzen argued that the bigger issue is whether he has the ability to control his own forces, given that many in al-Sharaa’s ranks are jihadists.

“The greatest way to protect [minorities] is to institutionalize and reform the Syrian military. That comes with a stabilized state, and frankly, probably comes with the U.S. providing oversight, whether that’s U.S. forces or contract mechanisms to insist on reforms so that the sort of people that have been responsible for atrocities fighting on that side are weeded out quickly, and, if they’re not Syrians, are sent out of the country,” Outzen said.

Michael Doran, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, likewise said that al-Sharaa’s “biggest problem … more than whatever he has in his heart — he has a cadre of people around him who are quite happy to go out and slaughter minorities. And they need to be kept on a short leash, and they need to be trained up,” he continued.

Doran described Turkey as the “key partner” in helping to build and professionalize the Syrian military.

Wilson expressed support for an expanded Turkish military presence in Syria as a path to removing Russian bases from Syria. He said he wants to see a deal between Turkey and Israel to facilitate that goal.

“Sadly, some in Israel prefer a weak and divided Syria and view an extended Russian presence as a buffer against Turkey. I believe this is suicidal for Israel,” Wilson said. “This will only be possible if Israel and Turkey deescalate and reach a detente in Syria.”

Wilson said that it was “startling to me” that Israel saw a Russian presence in Syria as a counterweight to Turkey.

“Our ability to expel the Russians from Syria, in the end, is going to be dependent on our ability to strike a balance between the Turks and the Israelis, and this is going to take a very sustained commitment on our part,” Doran agreed.

“I think the American leadership in pulling the Turks and the Israelis together and encouraging them, almost forcing them to talk to each other, is, I think, the starting point for solving this problem,” Doran said.

“I think the greatest fear of Israelis, more than the ideological onslaught of the Islamists against Israel and the Syrian minorities, is that Syria will become a Turkish military base — the front lines in an effort to annihilate Israel,” he continued. “I think we have a major role to play here, in getting the two sides to come to an accommodation.”

He said he wants to see Syria become a “buffer state” between Turkey and Israel, comparing it to Jordan as a buffer between Israel and Iraq.

Outzen said that outreach will be needed to the Israeli government to push back on their approach, bring together Israeli and Turkish security officials and emphasize Turkey’s role as a NATO ally and a close partner of the Trump administration — in spite of Israel’s own deep concerns about Turkey’s regional ambitions.

Members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and expert witnesses on Wednesday debated the meaning and significance of President Donald Trump’s edict in September that he “will not allow Israel to annex the West Bank,” which came amid a reported effort earlier this year by the Israeli government to assert sovereignty over all or part of the territory.

The at-times contentious hearing focused on “Understanding Judea and Samaria: historical, strategic and political dynamics in U.S.-Israel Relations,” referring to the biblical term for the West Bank preferred by members of the Israeli government and also used by Republicans on the Foreign Affairs Committee.

Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY), the chairman of the Foreign Affairs subcommittee on the Middle East, which hosted the hearing, asserted that Trump was only expressing his opposition to the annexation of territory not currently controlled by Israel.

“When the president is talking about annexing, again, I think it’s important to actually look at the map,” Lawler said. “Sixty percent of the West Bank is under Israeli control.” 

Lawler’s comments came in response to a remark from ranking member Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) highlighting Trump’s position on the issue.

“While some have argued that you don’t need to annex the West Bank because it’s already part of Israel, clearly that’s not what President Trump had in mind,” Sherman argued.

The back-and-forth set off a spat between the two members, with Sherman shouting a demand to be given additional time to respond to Lawler, and Lawler rebuking him in hushed tones as the hearing continued.

Lawler previously organized a private briefing for committee members with U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee on a similar subject.

Rep. Brad Schneider (D-IL) pressed GOP witnesses over their apparent disagreements with Trump on the issue. Like Lawler, they made the case that Trump’s position had been misrepresented.

Eugene Kontorovich, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, argued that Trump’s position and the situation have not been “accurately characterized.”

“There have been proposals to extend Israeli civil law to those areas where Jewish communities are, in other words, to incorporate under Israeli law, parts of Judea and Samaria,” Kontorovich said. “President Trump’s plan is consistent with his 2020 vision for peace, where Israel would, in fact, expand Israeli civil jurisdiction specifically to those areas, and it seems his comments were simply a reaffirmation of that, that’s how I understand it.”

Schneider responded: “I think his comments were clear: ‘There will not be annexation,’ was I believe exactly what he said,” to which Kontorovich interjected, “of the West Bank.”

The Vision for Peace plan that Kontorovich referenced would also have created a Palestinian state. Plans announced by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the time to annex Israeli settlements immediately upon the release of that plan were rejected and blocked by Trump in 2020.

Multiple Democrats along with Democratic witness Jon Alterman, the Brzezinski chair in global security and geostrategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, raised comparisons between the political and governance situation in the West Bank and eastern Ukraine — noting that ethnically Russian Ukrainians had a voice and vote in the Ukrainian government prior to the Russian invasion, and that they are now disenfranchised under Russian occupation. 

Alterman said that allowing annexation would also weaken the U.S.’ argument against Russia’s attempted annexation of parts of Ukraine.

Democratic lawmakers and Alterman also warned that full annexation would create a politically untenable position for Palestinians in the West Bank, where they are disenfranchised under Israeli control or expelled — a situation that could prompt further international outrage — or have voting rights and would have sufficient voting share to fundamentally change the nature of Israel. Alterman added that the status quo breeds Palestinian resentment and opposition from the global community.

“If we’re honest with ourselves, we need to recognize that not only are there competing claims here, but there are competing legitimate claims, and that’s if we just consider what’s clear from the historical record. When we bring in faith values and interests which aren’t universal, the issue becomes even more complicated,” Alterman said. He urged lawmakers to seek solutions that preserve space for peace between the Israelis and Palestinians.

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) floated the question of whether the U.S. should, instead of a full separation of Israel and a Palestinian state under a two-state solution and in light of the Palestinian Authority’s dysfunction, be “looking for a solution that is not a conventional state, one that has levels of autonomy, levels of governance, but … the borders would inherently be porous, the question of militarization would be dealt with in some ways as though it is one nation and in other ways clearly with a recognition of the facts on the ground.”

Alterman said that would inevitably involve certain compromises to Israel’s own sovereignty and decision making with “some sort of outside [entity].”

Kontorovich argued that such a proposal would make a “lot of sense,” comparing it to the situation in American Samoa, whose residents are not U.S. citizens and do not have a vote in federal elections. Issa responded that American Samoans do “stand among us and have a say.”

Mort Klein, the president of the Zionist Organization of America, repeatedly emphasized that the PA continues to pay the families of terrorists who conduct attacks against Israel and indoctrinates Palestinian children with anti-Israel and antisemitic ideologies, and that Palestinian Arab opposition more broadly is responsible for the lack of peace in the region. Some Republicans echoed the same point.

Klein said that the PA’s actions “make peace virtually impossible until they have a dramatic reformation and transformation of their actions and their regime,” also noting the escalating security threats in the West Bank.

He focused in his opening remarks on the historical Jewish ties to the region and asserted that Palestinian Arabs have no such claims. “If Israel does not control the Jewish heartland in Judea and Samaria, peace will be impossible. Again, Judea and Samaria are Jewish Israeli land, it’s Jewish land, legally, religiously, biblically, politically and morally,” Klein said.

Sherman argued in his opening statement that modern borders should be based on the modern state of affairs, rather than historical Jewish territories — noting that Tel Aviv had not been Jewish territory for most of the Kingdom of Judea’s history, and that defining international borders based on the “maximum you ever controlled in history” would be a ridiculous exercise.

At the end of the hearing, a group of Code Pink activists confronted Yossi Dagan and Yisrael Ganz, the heads of two Israeli regional settlement councils, surrounding and screaming at them. Capitol Police demanded the activists leave the hearing room.

Ganz said in a statement, “We will do everything to apply sovereignty to Judea and Samaria.” Dagan added, “The hearing is a milestone in the cancellation of the lie of the ‘occupation.'”