Assad, rebels both turn to Israel. How to respond.

Last week, Syria asked Israel for help against the Islamist rebels. This week, an Islamist rebel commander returned the favor and asked Israel for help against Syria.

Israel rightly answered Syria that it would help only if basic conditions were met. These were along the lines of breaking off all ties with Iran and Hezbollah, and expelling the Iran-backed militias from Syria. It probably should also have suggested that it was time for a new kind of land-for-peace deal: Syria recognizes the fact that Israel henceforth owns the Golan Heights; Israel agrees to peace and friendship with Syria.

As Assad gets more desperate, he will have reason to grow more willing to meet Israel’s conditions. Israel should continue following up on his overture last week. It should not leave it to die forgotten. It should prepare itself with the full set of conditions that would be best asked of Assad, and then bargain fast and hard with Assad over this in order to secure the essential ones.

For the rebels, Israel could respond the same way it did to Syria: any help would require that strong conditions be met. For Islamist rebels, the conditionality must be especially strict. They must completely renounce their Islamism, not just say for tactical purposes that they’re not going to impose it on anyone (for now). They kick out their leading Islamists. They must formally recognize the state of Israel, using some special formality for this, and incorporating this recognition into their charter. They must adopt the goal of an Abraham Accord with Israel, and work out some terms for this in advance with Israel. They must declare themselves in their charter permanent strategic allies of Israel and the West.

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It is still unlikely that either new alliance will be forged in practice. But as the Syrian begins counting its expected survival time in shorter and shorter timeframes — as it sees how little Iran and Russia can save it in its time of need — it grows more desperate. The odds improve.

The chance for the Israel-Syria alliance keeps growing more real this way. It would mean a complete reversal of the situation in the Middle East, one that would be much for the better for peace – and for Israel.

It is a matter of days, not weeks or months, to use or lose this opening for a transformed Middle East. The odds may still be well under 50-50, but it is well worth chasing this will-of-the-wisp. It could just yet turn into something real.