A two-day national dialogue conference to focus on transitional justice, a new constitution and economic reform in the wake of the Dec. 8 ouster of Syria’s former dictator Bashar al-Assad is set to kick off Tuesday in Damascus. The convening of the conference to plot Syria’s future course has been a key pledge of former al-Qaeda affiliate Hayat Tahrir al Sham and its leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, who assumed the role of president earlier this month after seizing control of the capital, ending more than five decades of Baath Party rule.   

The event, which is being billed as an inclusive political process, is getting off to a bumpy start. Representatives of the Kurdish-led administration who control a third of the country were excluded, probably due to pressure from Turkey, which insists that they are part of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). But it is Israel’s shadow that looms the largest as it continues to egg on divisions between the new leadership and the Druze. 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that Israel would not tolerate the presence of HTS forces in southern Syria nor any others affiliated with Sharaa, and demanded that the area where the Druze are concentrated be demilitarized. 

“We will not allow forces of the HTS or the new Syria army to enter the territory south of Damascus. We demand full demilitarization of southern Syria, in the provinces of Quneitra, Daraa and Suwayda,” Netanyahu said at a graduation ceremony for cadets.