Israel Doesn't Actually Care About the Fate of the Druze in Syria
Gideon Levy, May 4, 2025
Haaretz
Sometimes it's hard to believe what one is reading: Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar is calling on the international community to "fulfill its role in protecting minorities in Syria, specifically the Druze community, from the regime and its terrorist gangs, and to not turn a blind eye to the grave incidents taking place there."
Israel long ago established a reputation for insolence, but it seems as though it has outdone itself this time around. The foreign minister is calling on the world to intervene and help a minority being oppressed by a government in another country, while other political leaders are already taking action in this matter.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has given instructions, Israel Defense Forces' Eyal Zamir has ordered the army to hit specified targets and Defense Minister Israel Katz has already threatened that Israel will respond "harshly"; the IDF has already bombed. A veritable army of salvation defending the oppressed Druze.
Israel's foreign minister has no moral right to open his mouth and utter even a single word about the oppression of a nation or minority, certainly not to call on the world to come to their defense. Israel, which is turning a blind eye to Ukraine after doing the same thing during the civil war in Syria, also has no right to call on the world to open its eyes to events in Syria.
The lack of self-awareness of Israel's leadership breaks all records. When Gideon Sa'ar talks about an oppressive regime and gangs of terrorists, he should first and foremost talk about his own country. There aren't many countries in the world in which an oppressive regime and terrorist thugs flourish as they do in Israel, tormenting members of another nation. And how does Israel react to calls for the world to come to the defense of the oppressed nation living here? With howls and cries of antisemitism.
And how would Israel respond to a military intervention by another state or player coming to the aid of the oppressed? This is exactly what Arab countries have said in the past, and what Hezbollah and the Houthis are saying now – they are intervening against Israel in order to protect the Palestinians.
Just as the local Druze are now demanding that Israel come to the help of their brethren in Syria, so the public in Arab countries is demanding that their governments intervene on behalf of their brethren who are under Israeli occupation.
And what about the blood brothers of Israeli Arabs, who were massacred in Gaza, Syria and Lebanon? Has Israel ever even considered coming to their aid?
In Lebanon, Israel set the Phalangists against the Palestinians. When the Haifa-based Palestinian painter Abed Abadi tried to extricate his sister, who had been born in this country, from the besieged Yarmouk refugee camp in Syria in 2014, Israel refused. But in order to "save the Druze," Israel is ready to bomb.
Imagine the French bombing Israeli settlements in the occupied territories because it sees them as "terrorist bases," from which terrorists emerge in order to harm Palestinians. What an outcry would erupt here!
The demand is steeped in cynicism. After all, Israel doesn't really care about the fate of the Druze in Syria, just as it didn't really care about the victims of the previous Syrian regime. After passing the nation-state law, it's obvious that the government doesn't even care about the rights of Israel's Druze population.
Mobilizing in the defense of Syria's Druze is no more than a cynical ruse, another pretext for attacking Syria in its weakness, possibly also a nod to Likud's Druze voters. Instead of affording the new regime an opportunity, Israel is warmongering. That is the only language it has been employing in recent years: hit, bomb, shell, kill, demolish, as much as possible and in all locations.
If Israel wishes to promote justice anywhere, let it begin at home, where horrific wrongdoing and crimes against humanity are increasingly being perpetrated.
Even Israel's plea to the world that it send firefighting equipment to help overcome the wildfires near Jerusalem last week, while it has been preventing food and humanitarian aid from entering Gaza for over two months, is an impudent request that should have been rejected. A country that starves two million people is not entitled to help from the international community – yes, even when fires threaten its communities. |
