Daily Inspiration Quote by Moshe Sharett

Realpolitik rarely sounds so naked. Sharett’s line reads like a private aside that escaped into the record: Israel will “adjust our position” to match whoever truly matters, because the region’s temperature isn’t set in Damascus but in the capitals that can tighten borders, broker alliances, or legitimize (or suffocate) a young state. The blunt punch - “Syria is unimportant” - isn’t ignorance; it’s a calculation about leverage.

The intent is managerial: reassure an interlocutor that Israel can be flexible on “the Syrian question” because the real relationship to cultivate is with “the decisive factor” among the neighbors. In the 1950s, that often meant Egypt and Jordan far more than Syria, whose instability and fragmented power made it a difficult anchor for durable agreements. Calling Syria “unimportant” is also a way to downgrade a dangerous frontier problem into a secondary file, something to be handled through the larger balance of forces rather than direct accommodation.

The subtext is colder: smaller states become chess squares, not partners. Sharett signals that disputes are not primarily moral or legal contests but instruments in a wider strategy of containment, recognition, and survival. It’s also a glimpse into internal Israeli debates. Sharett, the diplomat among warrior-politicians, believed in bargaining, persuasion, and the value of external patrons. The irony is that Syria would prove “important” in the ways realpolitik often misses: not as a stable negotiator, but as a recurring flashpoint - water, borders, raids, and eventually the Golan - that repeatedly forced the region to pay attention.