Druze' future uncertainty amd Israeli sirens and roots in Damascus
As theMiddle East that is completley reconfigured, the time has come for the Druze community, scattered between Lebanon, Syria, Israel and Jordan, to make choices. Hostile to a new Islamist government in Syria, the Jewish state that annexed the Golan Heights in 1981 is trying to win the community's allegiance. Walid Joumblatt's manoeuvres to avoid the Israeli embrace and his presence at his father's tribute.
Beirut (AsiaNews) - Torn between its historical attachment to an Arab Syria, but also seduced by the offers of a dominant Zionism that seeks to deal the Palestinian cause a death blow, the Syrian Druze community is in an identity crisis and is being called upon to choose sides. From Lebanon, where this community occupies a dominant political position - despite its negligible demographic weight - Walid Joumblatt, one of its most charismatic leaders, is doing his best to protect the Syrian Druze from the temptation of swearing allegiance to Israel.
In a press conference held on 2nd March, the former leader of the Progressive Socialist Party (PSP), a group affiliated to the Socialist International, declared that the objective of the Jewish state is to dismantle the region and that its ‘biblical project has no boundaries’. With this statement he was referring to the project for a ‘Greater Israel’ that extends ‘from the Nile to the Euphrates’ promoted by Jewish messianic elements and by some ministers in the government of Benjamin Netanyahu. This vision is also supported by the most important branch of evangelical Christianity in the Anglo-Saxon world, a ‘Christian Zionism’ for which the creation of the State of Israel paves the way for the second coming of Christ and to which the US President Donald Trump is akin.
Dissolution of armed groups
The warning from the Druze leader comes in the context of the disbanding of all armed groups, of which Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), commanded by Ahmed al-Shara, was the glue and the main force, and their merging into a single Syrian national army. However, the various Druze armed groups are opposed to this process. In Jaramana, a town on the outskirts of Damascus populated mainly by Druze and Christians, clashes broke out on 28 February between Druze fighters and the security forces of the new Syrian government, who had come to extend their authority. The result was one member of the Druze community dead and nine wounded.
In reality, although they have welcomed the fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime, Syrian Druze are reluctant to disarm before a new Constitution is adopted and the system of government clarified. ‘They fear the social and political discrimination brought by Islamism, of which some signs are already visible such as the ban on mixed-gender public transport and schools, the first imposition of the division between the sexes’ explains Tigrane Yégavian, researcher at the Institut d'études politiques de Paris. ‘In addition to this,’ continues the scholar, “there is also the social obligation to wear the veil in some parts of Syria, particularly in Homs”.
Israel threatens Damascus
Meanwhile, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz took the opportunity of the clashes in Jaramana to demonstrate - and justify - his country's commitment to protecting dissident forces. ‘We have ordered,’ he said in a public announcement, ’the army to prepare and send a firm and clear warning: if the regime harms the Druze, we will strike.’ The Druze are particularly sensitive to Katz's promises because many of them have family in the Golan Heights, which Israel annexed in 1981, even though many inhabitants of this region still refuse Israeli identity cards and the benefits that come with them. Enlisted in the army, particularly as border guards, Israeli Druze are well integrated in the Jewish state. However, despite having fought in Gaza and southern Lebanon, they still consider themselves Arabs and have kept using their language.
While a part of the Druse population has sworn allegiance to Abu Mohammad al-Shara and firmly adheres to the vision of a unified Syria with Damascus as its capital, some other groups are in favour of autonomy and self-government for the region of Soueida, in southern Syria. Furthermore, this movement is apparently encouraged by the Kurds, even if it fits in with the Israeli vision of the ‘crumbling’ of the region denounced by Joumblatt.
Hamadé: the Druze are not a nation
‘The Druze are not a nation, but a rite derived from Islam,’ the Druze deputy Marwan Hamadé told AsiaNews. ‘This is not the case for the Kurds, who have their own language and literature and who are not of Semitic origin but Indo-European’, he continued. “Like a tree, the Druze grow where they are planted”, added the deputy. ’They are citizens of the country in which they live. It's a principle: they don't move. When Palestine was divided, the Druze did not leave. They never lived in the refugee camps’.
At last weekend's press conference Walid Joumblatt defended the unity of the Druze and strongly criticised Mubarak Tarif, the leader of the community in Israel, who soon opted for an alliance with the Jewish state in the occupied Golan. The Lebanese Druze leader also reiterated his total opposition to any form of peace with Israel, ‘until a Palestinian state is created and a solution is found for the Palestinian refugees’.
Regional escalation?
Fearing a regional contagion and a perverse effect in Lebanon and Jordan, he finally warned the Arab world. ‘Let us not forget that Syria is at Lebanon's doorstep. Let us still remember the partition attempts promoted by the Jewish state during the Lebanese civil war between 1975 and 1990. In this regard, the Druze leader has asked for an audience with the Syrian president, to personally plead for the establishment of a pluralist regime open to diversity and modernity in Syria. And at the same time he has announced that on 16th March he will commemorate the assassination of his father, Kamal Joumblatt, which took place in 1977 on the orders of Hafez el-Assad.
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15/09/2021 13:55
15/06/2017 16:16
