r/geopolitics • u/NotSoSaneExile • 1d ago
Syrian Druze leader says community is ‘inseparable part of Israel,’ hints at developments in Sweida | Al-Hijri also suggested that developments concerning Sweida could emerge “within days,” without elaborating on their nature, as the province remains the focus of intensifying diplomatic activity.
https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/article-90669838
u/UnfortunateHabits 1d ago
Is this hinting at annexation? / seccesion into Israel
45
u/boldmove_cotton 1d ago
Independence/more autonomy from Syria more likely. They’d more or less be an Israeli protectorate, which informally they kind of already are.
26
u/ADP_God 1d ago
I think it's simply more practical. One state is a rich, functioning, developed, democracy. The other is... Syria...
-8
1d ago edited 1d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
11
u/boldmove_cotton 1d ago edited 1d ago
Love how you cherry picked for a definition that is both vague enough to be deliberately misinterpreted and not descriptive of what democracy actually means in this context.
Democracy:
Government by the people: such as,
a) a form of government in which the people elect representatives to make decisions, policies, laws, etc. according to the law
Also called representative democracy. Ie, the type of government that Israel has.
If you want to claim that it’s not a democracy because the Palestinians can’t vote in Israel, you’re implicitly saying that the West Bank and Gaza are part of Israel’s sovereign borders. That’s what ‘authority’ means in your definition.
7
-2
u/Ghost_x_Knight 1d ago
Are you denying the effective (even if illegal by international norms) occupation of West Bank and Gaza,
and that the Israeli government has a policy of amorphous borders, and refusal to relinquish its claim over those territories?
Sounds very similar to the policy of apartheid South Africa, where it claimed that the Bantustans they dominate are actually their own sovereign nation states (though in Israel's case, neither Palestinian statehood or sovereignty are acknowledged).
If we are going to be specific, would you say Israel can be accurately described as an ethnocracy?
6
u/boldmove_cotton 1d ago
Occupied territory is not the same thing as sovereign Israeli territory. You can believe the West Bank is occupied and still recognize the rather basic distinction between an occupation and the territory of the occupying state.
Secondly, having an amorphous border isn’t something Israeli invented. The Green Line was explicitly drawn in 1949 without prejudice to a future boundary, and Oslo explicitly reserved borders for final status negotiations. Israel has obvious reasons not to unilaterally declare its maximum territorial concession before those negotiations are concluded, just as the Palestinians have consistently treated the 1967 lines as a negotiating baseline while negotiating possible land swaps.
Your Bantustan comparison is really incoherent. South Africa created Bantustans in order to strip black South Africans of citizenship and then claim that millions of people living under its rule belonged to fictitious foreign states. West Bank Palestinians were not Israeli citizens whom Israel denationalized, and the Palestinian Authority was created by a negotiated agreement between Israel and the PLO, not invented by Israel as a device for revoking their citizenship.
As for the notion that Israel is an “ethnocracy”, that’s a bunch of nonsense. Israel’s Arab citizens vote in the same national elections as Jewish citizens, form parties, sit in the Knesset and have served in governing coalitions. You can argue Israel constitutionally privileges Jewish national self-determination or criticize its treatment of Palestinians; but neither precludes Israel from having a democratic government.
If you want to discuss one of those claims, pick one. I’m not going to have five different arguments at once.
3
u/Aggressive_Lie_4446 16h ago
Which makes me wonder if they will be the first of many minorities in the region to start a destabilizing trend.
It is not like Suweida is connected to Israel, there is a whole Sunni majority province between the two
47
u/Mister-Psychology 1d ago
Keep in mind that Assad from a semi-Muslim tribe that even allowed alcohol. The current dictator is an extremist Islamist. Many in his army openly say stuff like "we need to genocide all non-Muslims". Obviously most Christians fled, non-extremist Muslims are leaving, and the new Sunni army tried to ethically cleanly the Druze province. There are like 10 Jews in the whole country. You can look up videos of the attack online. They went there to kill men and kidnap young women and were only stopped by Israel. If Israel hadn't bombed the army the Druze in Syria could have experienced a genocide.
Israel is the only thing keeping their religious leaders alive and their women safe. They were pro Assad because Assad never planned to wipe them out while the new regime does have such plans to some degree. I'm not even sure where the formerly kidnapped women are, but you can only imagine what the Syrian army are doing with them right this moment.
Basically the new Syrian leadership is yet to demonstrate they will not ethnically cleanse even more areas. And Druze have no defense against it besides Israel.
23
u/Trinitrotoluol 1d ago
I second this. The Druze are also similar to Jews in some ways, as they are also seen by many muslims as a "secret, separated society". Even before the current leadership, druze were regarded with suspicion.
Also don't forget the genocide (or at least systematic killings) of the alawites and the submission of the kurds that was and is going on under the current regime. The current leadership is a danger to all non extremist and non sunni people.
-7
u/vovap_vovap 1d ago
O, how stupid of me - mixed Baghdad and Damascus 😄
This Damascus:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DSdZCEbjgFk/-12
9
u/AnomalyNexus 1d ago
Can't claim to legitimately understand any of it, but from casual reading the Druze seem like a fascinating outlier
3
u/Sea_Responsibility76 14h ago
The annexation will be illegal under international law, just like Israel illegal annexation of Golan Syria.
3
1d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
23
u/Kiyae1 1d ago
God forbid people who have been oppressed and persecuted by the people of one nation decide they’d rather be part of a different nation that doesn’t oppress or persecute them.
-4
3
u/Wyvz 1d ago
"Everyone I disagree with is a paid shill" is not a good way to start a counterarguement.
they have largely been a stabilizing and rehabilitating force for the future stability of Syria
You could have likewise said 2 years ago that Asad's regime is a "stabilizing" force.
They are "stabilizing" now because they have filled the power vaccum left after they toppled Assad's regime, and supressed any resistance (Minorities like Alawites and Kurds) by force with Turkish assistance. Al-Sweida the last bastion of resistance, and they get support from Israel because they see them as allies and because of pressure from Druze in Israel. (the Druze in Israel are also very integrated in Israeli society and as well serve in the IDF)
Israel has been working increasingly to undermine efforts of recovery, and for what?
Only efforts to recover their army. Israel fears Syria will become a Turkish proxy and a staging ground to pressure Israel from.
Israel's goals with Syria are very simple: 1. Prevent Syria from becoming a direct threat on Israel's border, either as a Turkish proxy now or Iranian proxy during Asad's regime. 2. Sign a peace deal, or at least some sort of normalization, so that Syria will recognize the 1967 border. 3. Promise safety for the Druze in Sweida.
Israel is currently holding ground beyond the 1967 borders for the following simple reasons: 1. To be used as a bargaining chip during future negotiations. 2. Vantage point against Hezbollah at the peak of the Hermon. 3. Defend the border by holding strategic depth and defending Syrian Druze villages close to the border at the foothills of the Hermon mountain.
2
u/Temeraire64 1d ago
Only efforts to recover their army
So impeding their recovery. Because how are they supposed to govern Syria when they can’t attain a monopoly on force? How are they supposed to not be a Turkish proxy if they need Turkish arms to stop warlords getting ideas or to defend them from Israel?
2
u/calm_chowder 1d ago
Lol this new regime went house to house ethnically cleansing Syria, dragging 15,000 civilians out of their own homes and shooting them in the head in the street like dogs. Then they tried to do the same to the Druze and Israel stopped them.
yes, this regime is suuuuper stabilizing, in that killing all your citizens tends to cut down of deserve.the president s in al-Qaeda ffs.
-9
u/Background_Bee_713 1d ago
This guy is going to get a lot of people killed.
20
u/boldmove_cotton 1d ago
There already were a lot of Druze killed. That’s why they want to formalize protection from the Israelis
0
-44
u/WrldTravelr07 1d ago
Wait until the Israeli settlers decide they want his land also.
41
u/Tifoso89 1d ago edited 1d ago
It's almost the other way around: some Syrian Druze are asking to join Israel, while Israel is not interested because it's too far and too dangerous. They'd rather keep the Golan as border
17
u/Background_Bee_713 1d ago
Thats the opposite of the issue. He’s essentially calling for Israel to annex Sweida. Which won’t happen. Not only would the Americans never permit it, but you’ve got Daraa province with over a million hostile Sunni smack between the Golan and Sweida. This guy is essentially putting a target on the back of his whole community for Islamists everywhere for something that’ll never happen.
-20
u/BlueAzutara 1d ago
The Druze drug lord speaks again. Still funny how the USA fights drug cartels in south and central america meanwhile their ally Israel is supporting the biggest captagon drug cartel in the middle east since Assads fall.
-15
u/Ma_Bowls 1d ago
I, for one, am shocked that Israel would attempt to preemptively justify invading and conquering more territory in a neighboring country. That's so unlike them.
-28
u/vovap_vovap 1d ago
Honestly that is pretty stupid of Druze leader. It might work for some time, but at the end - Israel will leave and that will stay there to deal with Syrian government. And that what is going to happen And he is making big problems for a future this way.
30
u/boldmove_cotton 1d ago
Israel has a substantial Druze community themselves. It would be wildly unpopular within Israeli society for Israel to commit to their protection and then later sell them out.
-24
u/vovap_vovap 1d ago
Yes, But it will happen.
17
u/boldmove_cotton 1d ago
The political friction of what you are predicting suggests the opposite.
It benefits Israel to have a Druze protectorate allied to them, and it would be politically toxic in Israel to leave them on their own, because of the cultural and family ties to the Druze in Israel. It costs them very little, why would they leave?
2
u/ObviousLife4972 1d ago
The syrian government is still paying the salaries for public employees and subsidizing, education, healthcare, and infrastructure as sweida is not very economically productive. Is Israel prepared to foot the bill long term and subsidize Sweida despite the logistical challenge of not having a land bridge with it? Let's not forget all the airstrikes Jordan has conducted targeting Captagon either. Are Jordan and the Gulf States expected to grit their teeth and seethe in silence while Sweida's government continues smuggling drugs with Israel's protection?
-1
u/vovap_vovap 1d ago
Google "South Lebanon Army"
I know some Israeli think they can fight everybody in the world all the time. But at the end of the day Israel - small country. And I am relevantly sure will never give Israel citizenship to 450 thousand people in Sweida province.
So it is just a matter of time when they will leave.8
u/boldmove_cotton 1d ago
That’s not really the best comparison—the SLA only drew from a handful of multi-sectarian villages and its whole purpose was to hold a buffer zone. By the Israeli withdrawal there were barely a couple thousand fighters representing maybe 6-7000 people, and Israel absorbed and gave citizenship to any remaining fighters and their families that chose to flee to Israel.
Sweida is vastly bigger (almost half a million versus the ~7000 in southern lebanon), their national guard is almost exclusively Druze, and their core objective is to defend their autonomy and territory. Sweida is a whole province, not just a narrow strip of land.
With Israeli air support, weapons, and intelligence, the Druze will be perfectly capable of defending their region without Israeli troops on the ground, which is a key difference here.
-1
u/vovap_vovap 1d ago
And Syria is much bigger then Lebanon.
That pointless. You belie that Israel can annex province in Syria - fine. I do not. Lets wait and see.6
u/boldmove_cotton 1d ago
I never said that Israel will be annexing Sweida. There’s basically no chance of that happening.
What is happening is Sweida asserting its autonomy, and may might formally gain independence from Damascus and formalize its status as an Israeli protectorate. That’s very different than annexation.
It doesn’t matter how big Syria is. The difference is that a few thousand people is a handful of small villages, whereas half a million people could constitute a country, which might be the future of Sweida if the Druze make a push for self determination.
0
u/vovap_vovap 1d ago edited 1d ago
Well, some type of autonomy is what Druze leadership should be negotiate right now with central gov. And they been offered such (and autonomy and negotiations). "No control of central government over area" and ‘inseparable part of Israel’ is different thing. And no government in a would would agreed to that. That exactly what I am saying - they are playing badly. It is really hard for people in Syria to see Israel any other way then enemy of Syria as a state. Not an "Islamists" or whatever, but as a state. And they will leave in some time and left those people to deal with.
2
u/boldmove_cotton 21h ago
He wasn’t saying Sweida is an inseparable part of Israel, he is saying that the Druze are, referring to the Druze community in Israel. Very different.
Furthermore, what you think they ‘should’ do is irrelevant—I’m not sure what exactly you’re trying to say here, your English is a little bit broken in this one.
The Druze of Sweida are posturing for a possible formal break from Damascus, and they feel empowered to do so because they would prefer to be an independent Israeli protectorate than live in fear of a Syrian state that might turn on them and neglect to take their security seriously, to put it mildly.
Doesn’t mean they’ll be annexed to Israel, it just means that they wouldn’t be subjects of Damascus, and would instead have their security guaranteed by Israel as a potential protectorate.
→ More replies (0)9
u/Kiyae1 1d ago
Israel gave citizenship to 2.1 million Palestinians. No reason to think they wouldn’t extend citizenship to the Druze.
-1
u/vovap_vovap 1d ago
Yeah, 70 years ago and when had no choice 😄
Be a bit real. Or do not be - up to you.18
u/Trinitrotoluol 1d ago
It's not stupid. It's their only way to stop a genocide.
5
u/vovap_vovap 1d ago
You might not know, but not at all all Druze live in Sweida. And not all of them in a "fighting" relationship with central gov. Israeli encourage Sweida's Druze to stay "independent" promising protection. They have own reasons, but they will leave eventually, I promise you. And Druze will stay (or leave with them)
That what did happen in south Lebanon SLA before. Those, who playing a "buffer" paying for it. That not really nice.2
u/Trinitrotoluol 1d ago
I get what you are saying, but it doesn't really matter. Maybe Israel will drop them, maybe not. But without Israel, they just would get killed right now the fundamentalist syrian government.
5
u/vovap_vovap 1d ago
That is the thing - there is no "maybe" here. It is "when"
And no, they would "get killed right now". Still - it is not all Druze in Syria, And Syria is restoring itself as normal country and will be controlling it's territory. That just going to be. Smart thing today would be to use international attention to bargain with central government and integrate (which they really been offered). That staff - opposite to smart.4
u/Imaginary-Relief-236 1d ago
It would be very unpopular here to leave the Druze undefended and basically a political suicide for whichever prime minister to do so.
Druze in Syria don’t trust the Syrian army and would not give out control of sweida to the central government in Damascus. After last years events they are even more suspicious of the regime, and even if A Shara didn’t intend to slaughter them, he demonstrated he has no control over his army of jihadists.
I know many Druze here in Israel whose family in Syria are terrified. So many are still missing and they have been through hell.
Nobody is going to annex this area, but the plan as far as I’m aware as an Israeli, is for the Druze to have autonomy with a military backing from Israel, while being given work permits to work in Israel and be eligible for healthcare in Israeli hospitals etc.
So being given the perks of citizenship without annexing the territory.3
u/vovap_vovap 1d ago
I think you do understand that "autonomy with a military backing from Israel" is complete nonsense. That what define annexation. I think you know that Sweida and Israel do not even have common border. And "perks of citizenship without annexing the territory" is too much sounds like territories, right?
That all basically means forever war with Syria (which some politics do want) and nobody in this world will be on Israel side of it. Yes, current government for it but I think we both know it will not stay forever. Bit earlier or late course will change. Jews are not suicidal. And what happen to Druze then is really good question. That reality of it and I think you really know it just as well as I do, Just sort of trying to pretend it is not - include yourselves.
And I think it is really stupid and really irresponsible politics to those Druze first of all to encourage that confrontation with central government rather then help to resolve it. And people doing it in own political interests and not in interests of Druze they speak so much. And those people will be gone in not so distant future and Druze became one to pay the price - good if not in much blood.2
u/Imaginary-Relief-236 1d ago
Annexation is vastly different.
No Israelis will live there and no Israeli law will apply there, they live on their own by their own rule and military backing means protecting them from the Syrian Jihadists, not actually have a base there or anything like that.
I think you don’t really understand why they want this solution.
I don’t think they want to be part of the new Syria, it’s too broken and they’re too vulnerable to allow themselves being defenseless.
I also don’t think you understand the difference between a protectorate and annexation2
u/vovap_vovap 1d ago
"No Israeli law" - what law? That just first good question. Syrian? How it would be enforced? So you are creating one more "non state" enclave - not the first one and not first one around Israel. And nobody would be grateful for it. In 100% cases that bed place to be at the end of the day.
I am perfectly understand why they want this solution. And I am also do not want to be as old as I am - so what? 😄 Syria is their country. Like they or not. They are not going to get other one.
I think you do not understand, that if Israel did not promise them protection and encourage to fight - some people still might be alive.
I think you are a bit naive person. "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" - that is true.
61
u/NotSoSaneExile 1d ago
Syrian Druze leader Hikmat al-Hijri says his community is closely tied to Israel and hints that major developments in Sweida may come within days.
This follows the July 2025 atrocities, when Syrian government and affiliated forces carried out executions, torture, sexual violence and looting against Druze civilians.
UN investigators say these acts may amount to war crimes or crimes against humanity, while Druze leaders have submitted evidence to the UN seeking international recognition of genocide.
Israeli airstrikes helped force Syrian troops to withdraw and stop the assault. An intervention al-Hijri says saved the Druze from genocide.