After more than a year of efforts to improve relations with Lebanon through emissaries, Syria's President Ahmad Al Shara this week tried a different approach to drive home his country's interest in rebuilding ties “ruined by politics”.
Mr Al Shara donned trainers and stood among the basketball teams of both countries ahead of a friendly match in Damascus, attended by thousands at a renovated sports hall.
He likened politics to basketball’s offensive and defensive plans before declaring that whatever the result “there is no winner or loser between us. If one side wins, then we all do.”
Lebanon is in the middle of a 10-day truce after six weeks of war between Hezbollah and Israel, which started after the Lebanese group fired missiles at Israel in support of Iran. The US declared a ceasefire shortly after mediating preparatory peace talks between Lebanon and Israel in Washington last week.
Iran-backed Hezbollah is the only militia to have kept its weapons after the end of Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war, despite a peace agreement based on the disbanding of all the country's militias.
After the latest Israel-Hezbollah war began in early March, Mr Al Shara deployed elite troops along parts of the border with Lebanon to prevent the smuggling of weapons to Hezbollah, which, together with Tehran, has had the final say on Lebanon’s foreign policy for decades. The intervention of Iran, Hezbollah and other Tehran proxies was crucial for Bashar Al Assad’s survival in the Syrian civil war from 2011 to 2024.
Although Syrian officials said the troop deployment was defensive, pro-Hezbollah politicians in Lebanon saw it as a possible preparation by Syria to enter areas controlled by the group.
In December 2024, forces led by Mr Al Shara ousted the Alawite-dominated regime of Mr Al Assad, ushering in the political ascendancy of Syria’s Sunni majority. Syria then left the orbit of Iran and Russia and quickly developed ties with the US.
However, many Lebanese Sunnis, especially in Tripoli and Sidon, see in Mr Al Shara an ally who could help redress the waning of Sunni political influence in the country since the assassination of former prime minister Rafic Hariri in 2005. Three years later, Hezbollah extended its dominance after a week of sectarian warfare that threatened to plunge Lebanon into a second civil war.
Lebanon was under Syrian control from the end of the civil war in 1990 until the Hariri assassination. However, Lebanon acted as a business springboard for Syria, whose economy was relatively closed off, and Lebanese banks held billions of dollars of Syrian deposits. An undetermined part of these deposits evaporated after Lebanon’s 2019-2020 financial meltdown.
After the Assad regime collapsed, the US and other western countries encouraged efforts to co-operate on border security and resolve the issue of 2,000 Syrian prisoners in Lebanese jails who are branded as militants. But most of these Syrians are still held in Lebanon and Hezbollah remains in control of stretches of the border.
Mr Al Shara said people-to-people contacts had been ruined by politics and that both sides had been hurt by wars and tragedies. “It is time to put a stop to this situation and rebuild,” he said.
Waiel Olwan, head of research at the Jusoor Centre for Studies in Damascus, said Mr Al Shara “was telling the Lebanese as a people that the new order in Syria is showing goodwill and that it does not want chaos inside or outside Syria”.
“He was saying very nicely that he has not interfered in Lebanon and does not want to,” Mr Olwan told The National.
A Syrian official agreed, saying that despite Sunni support for Mr Al Shara in Lebanon, Syria would not interfere. The two countries, he said, are “now playing on the same board” because both have become open to talks with Israel. “If any disarming of Hezbollah occurs, it will not happen through Syria but through talks,” he said.
Before taking the basketball, Mr Al Shara warned it could take him 100 attempts to score. He tried several free throws before making a layup. Music by the late Lebanese diva Fairuz was played while the two teams warmed up.
The game was a rout, with Lebanon winning 110 to 73.
