The red carpet was rolled at Paris Wednesday for a former jihadist terrorist, Syria’s interim president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, who is seeking world recognition as a statesman. His envoys are even secretly talking to Israeli counterparts, but does the Damascus strongman have a stronghold over the country?

Speculation is swirling in the Mideast over President Trump’s promised “big announcement.” A day after the president said that before traveling to the Gulf next week he would have an announcement that would be “as big as it gets,” he told White House reporters on Wednesday that news on Gaza will be made “probably in the next 24 hours.” Yet, other topics also figure in the region’s guessing game, including a breakthrough on Syria. 

As speculation grows, Mideast leaders are presenting themselves as possible interlocutors for a Gaza pact or for widening the Abraham Accords, for cutting an American-Saudi deal, or for dealing with other disputes in the region and beyond, including the Ukraine war. On Wednesday, Reuters reported that one of the countries the president will visit next week, the United Arab Emirates, “has set up a backchannel for talks between Israel and Syria.”

Israeli sources say that such talks to reduce tensions have been going on for some time. Yet they are lowering expectations that a Jerusalem-Damascus peace accord is in the offing. One reason: Israel is not even sure how long Mr. Sharaa, a former leader of Syria’s al Qaeda offshoot, could last in power. Earlier this week, Israeli jets menacingly flew over his presidential palace. 

Syria’s Druze community is under assault by armed men allied with the president, who as a jihadist leader was known by a nom le guerre, Mohammed al-Julani. “I’m not sure these attackers are under Julani’s control, or are his paid soldiers,” a Haifa University Mideast studies professor emeritus, Amatzia Bar’am, tells the Sun.

Armed Sunni men, including past affiliates of Mr. Sharaa, are seen in widely disseminated video clips committing atrocities against Druze at a Damascus suburb and in southern Syria. In one such clip, the jihadists appear to force Druze men to shave mustaches, ritually worn by men of the sect. The Druze’s largely secretive religion is an offshoot of Islam.        

Southern Syria, where the latest skirmishes have erupted between armed Sunnis and Druze, “is a no-man’s land,” Mr. Bar’am says. “For the jihadists, anyone who has left Islam must be killed. This means Druze, Alawites, Shiites, Kurds. If these guys that are attacking the Druze are on Julani’s payroll, that’s a huge problem. My guess is they’re not.” The interim president, he adds, appears to have no control over the county’s numerous armed gangs. 

Since assuming power in January after a Turkey-backed campaign to oust the Assad clan, Mr. Sharaa has made efforts to shed his jihadist past. Europeans are eager to take him at his word. Following a lavish reception at the Élysée Palace on Wednesday, President Macron’s office said France will help Mr. Sharaa set up a “free, stable, sovereign Syria that respects all components of Syrian society.”

 Israelis, in contrast, are skeptical. They have systematically destroyed the former regime’s arms depots, including chemical weapons, to prevent the jihadists from acquiring them. Prime Minister Natanyahu’s government has also vowed to defend Syria’s Druze, whose brethren are Israeli citizens.

At the same time, Israeli meetings with Mr. Sharaa’s representatives have been conducted secretly to avoid direct confrontation and convince Damascus to prevent its powerful neighbor, Turkey, from occupying Syria’s military bases. The report that the UAE is mediating such talks might have been pushed by Abu Dhabi. 

“Like everybody in the region trying to appeal to Trump’s desire for a peace breakthrough, the UAE is presenting itself as a go-between,” an Arab world analyst on Kann News, Roy Kays, says. “It’s like the Egyptians and the Qataris, who are competing to advertise their diplomatic chops as mediators between Israel and Hamas.” 

Israel’s latest plan involves transferring Gazans to an area in the southern Strip in order to separate civilians from Hamas terrorists. There, Israel would ensure security in the parameters of a safe zone, where foreign, American-led companies would distribute humanitarian aid to the population. Civilians would increasingly be able to leave the Strip in accordance with Mr. Trump’s “Gaza Riviera” vision.  

While a similar plan might be the core of the president’s widely anticipated bombshell announcement, Israelis increasingly fear that Mr. Trump might put their concerns aside as he highlights other interests, including separate deals with enemies such as the Houthis and their Iranian patrons.