BEIRUT — To serve its project of dismantling the fabric of West Asia’s minorities and to accelerate its Israelization project, Israel has been exploiting the Druze since October 7, 2023, by enticing them to abandon their Syrian identity and join the so-called “State of Israel”. 

This is done under the auspices of the spiritual leader of the Druze of occupied Palestine, Muwaffaq Tarif, particularly in the occupied Golan Heights, where the estimated population is approximately 42,000.

About six months after the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham regime seized control of Syria, Israeli intervention has resurfaced. It tries to portray itself as the protector of the Druze.

Since the signing of the ill-fated Sykes-Picot Agreement, the Druze have indeed been paying a heavy price. They thwarted the French Mandate project to divide Syria into four states.

Before that, during the Ottoman occupation, Syria’s Druze also fiercely defended the unity of the Levant, forming, along with the Druze of occupied Palestine, a front against the systematic Israelization conspiracy.

In the 1950s, despite the persecution of former President Adib Shishakli, they rejected the Israeli exploitation of their cause; Shishakli invaded Sweida with 10,000 soldiers, shelling them with heavy weapons, killing dozens and destroying their homes.

When the Israeli enemy occupied the Golan Heights in 1967, the Druze rejected “Israeli identity” and formed resistance groups that rebelled against the Israeli military rule several times. However, their role declined after the war imposed on Syria.

Before 2011, President Hafez al-Assad and his son Bashar al-Assad succeeded in preserving the Druze status in state institutions. However, some officers from Sweida and Jaramana quickly defected during the first year of the war imposed on Bashar al-Assad government.

Nevertheless, many Druze officers participated in repelling the takfiri aggression, including the martyred hero Issam Zahreddine.  

In 2014, the Druze were subjected to a massacre in the town of Qalb Lawzeh by HTS to force them to “convert to Islam.” Since then, Druze villages have become a haven for families of Takfiri terrorists. So, the Druze had no choice but to resist, fearing the loss of their lands!

After HTS took control of Syria in late 2024, the Druze found themselves once again under the terror of an ideologically motivated army run by foreign terrorists who viewed the Druze as “non-Muslim dhimmis” who should be killed or, at best, forced to convert to Islam.

The Druze once again found themselves in a spiral of terror after the massacres on the Syrian coast and the events in Jaramana and Ashrafieh Sahnaya.  

The Druze once again found themselves in a whirlpool of chaos and anxiety about Syria’s future, especially since Foreign Minister Asaad al-Sheibani did not hesitate to divide Syrians into minorities and majorities from the UN podium, confirming Druze fears that the current regime, every time it is drowning in bloodshed, rushes to make a grave political concession to appease foreign powers; this was the case when the Americans extracted an agreement establishing semi-autonomy for the Kurds.

The de facto regime has not stopped sending messages—direct and indirect—to reassure Israel that Syria no longer poses a threat to it, and that it is ready to normalize relations and surrender Mount Hermon and the entire Golan Heights for free.

Meanwhile, if the Israeli enemy claims to be treating the Druze with “special treatment,” it is because the Druze inhabit a geostrategic area that it has long sought to control.

Thus, the recent air campaign it launched under the pretext of defending the Druze was intended to win them over, consolidate the division by force, and seize their lands!