Israel’s claim to protect Syria’s Druze is a smokescreen

Israel will use any excuse to divide and weaken the region. That is the end game, precisely what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu believes is the way to hammer together a new Middle East. The geopolitical fallout from the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel has provided him and his fellow fanatics with a golden opportunity to accelerate the process whose outcome would be a greater Israel that is the region’s uncontested superpower: a “Pax Judaica.”

Whether it is Iraq, Syria, Lebanon or Libya, Israel’s new generation of leaders — ultranationalists aligning themselves with ultrareligious extremists — believe that for Israel to become a regional hegemon, it must destroy the concept of multiethnic and multireligious nation states. The objective is for Israel, a primarily Jewish state, not to be the exception. For that to happen, it must fragment all nation states that stand in its way and create multiple ethnoreligious statelets in their stead. These statelets can then ally themselves with mighty Israel.

In their view, such a scenario can work best in Lebanon and Syria, with their diverse ethnic and religious minorities. The concept of partition and independence has been considered by minority groups in Lebanon, Iraq and Syria at various stages since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Israel has used minority groups in the region to challenge and upset the existing nation-state structure, leading to or contributing to bloody civil and sectarian wars.

It is, therefore, ludicrous and quite cynical for Israel to threaten and attempt to destabilize the new regime in Syria using the pretext of protecting a minority group there — in this case, the Syrian Druze. It has used recent clashes between state security and Druze activists to issue a stern warning to President Ahmad Al-Sharaa and his government. That warning came in the form of an airstrike close to the presidential palace in Damascus last week.

It has used recent clashes between state security and Druze activists to issue a stern warning to Al-Sharaa and his government

Osama Al-Sharif

Last December, Israel did not need an excuse to send its tanks into the 1974 buffer zone in the Golan Heights, days after the fall of Bashar Assad. Israel was not provoked or attacked, yet its army took over the remainder of the Syrian Golan and ventured deeper into parts of southern Syria, attempting to reach Suwayda, a province that the Druze predominantly inhabit.

Netanyahu and his extremist government partners made it clear that Israel was in Syria to stay. Its air force carried out multiple strikes against key Syrian army targets, including airports, air defense batteries and naval bases. Israel’s invasion and aggression were deliberate and part of a larger scheme.

One does not need to look further for Israel’s real motives in Syria than Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, whose Religious Zionist Party is a major partner in the far-right coalition. At a pre-Memorial Day event in the West Bank last week, Smotrich declared that Israel would only stop fighting following the partition of Syria and the displacement of “hundreds of thousands” of Palestinians from Gaza.

Regardless of Israeli claims and warnings, the new regime in Damascus has the obligation and responsibility to assure minority groups that they are part of one Syria that is for all its citizens. That is the only way it can restore national unity and ensure the territorial integrity of Syria. So far, the regime has come under severe criticism for the bloody events that took place in March in Syrian coastal towns, where a significant number of Alawites live.

Accusations of sectarian infighting have been reported elsewhere in Syria. The new government in Damascus must safeguard all Syrians, regardless of ethnicity or religion.

So far, Al-Sharaa and his Foreign Minister Asaad Al-Shaibani have been saying the right things: underscoring national unity, distancing themselves from sectarian rhetoric and calling for Israel’s withdrawal from Syrian territory. In a speech at the UN last week, Al-Shibani said: “We have repeatedly announced our commitment that Syria will not constitute any threat to any of the neighboring countries or any country around the world, including to Israel.”

Israel is the clear aggressor in the case of Syria. Its claim that it is intervening to protect Syria’s Druze is both deceitful and ironic. The Syrian state protects its citizens and not any foreign country. Israel’s approach is neocolonial at heart.

One only has to look at Israel’s record in the treatment of its own minorities — non-Jewish citizens — to expose the hypocrisy and fallacy of its claims. While its Declaration of Independence mentions legal equality for all citizens, significant disparities undermine the country’s Palestinian, Druze and Bedouin populations. These disparities manifest themselves across multiple areas of public and private life, creating disadvantages for approximately 21 percent of Israel’s citizenry. These disparities appear in the country’s economic, social and political inequalities, mainly affecting Palestinians and Bedouins.

One only has to look at Israel’s record in the treatment of its own minorities to expose the hypocrisy and fallacy of its claims

Osama Al-Sharif

Perhaps Israel’s most discriminatory piece of legislation is the so-called Nation-State Law of 2018, which marked a significant constitutional shift by formally defining Israel as “the national home of the Jewish people,” without counterbalancing language about equality for all citizens. The law downgraded Arabic from an official language to one with “special status.” For many non-Jewish citizens, particularly the Druze, who serve in the military, this law formalized their perception of second-class citizenship.

A closer look at the disparities and segregation opens debate about the education system, in which Arab schools receive lower per-student funding than Jewish schools. The criminal justice system represents another area of inequality for Palestinian citizens, who are subjected to heightened police interventions, while experiencing inferior responses to intracommunity violence. This has contributed to a dramatic disparity in crime rates, with Palestinians accounting for 60 to 70 percent of murder victims, despite being only 21 percent of the population.

There are other issues in the social, economic and political fields, in which Palestinian, Druze and Bedouin minorities in Israel provide evidence of discrimination and inequality. Of course, one can always point to Israel’s apartheid system in dealing with more than 5 million Palestinians under brutal military occupation in the West Bank and Gaza.

Israel’s track record in dealing with minorities is dismal, to say the least. Syria’s minorities should be aware of the dangerous game that Israel is trying to play, whose final objective transcends any local community interest or well-being. Syria’s Druze have overwhelmingly rejected Tel Aviv’s overtures. However, Israel’s determination to fulfill its grand desire will not be easy to stop. What it fears is a united Syria along its border.

• Osama Al-Sharif is a journalist and political commentator in Amman. X: @plato010