Syria after Assad: Why Israel's vow to 'protect' the Druze is hollow

Middle East Eye

6 days ago

It is impossible to remain indifferent to the scenes emerging from southern Syria, particularly from Sweida province.
These events are unfolding at a rare moment of regional consensus - among Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar and the United States - after 14 years of bloody civil war that displaced millions of people. For the first time since the fall of Bashar al-Assad's regime last December, there was real hope that Syria could finally enter a new chapter of national stability and reconstruction under President Ahmed al-Sharaa.
But anyone who assumes this transition will be smooth is mistaken. The war left deep scars.
Millions endured unspeakable horrors under Assad's rule, as a sectarian structure underpinned the regime's survival strategy. This legacy is now re-emerging.
Last week, sectarian tensions reignited in Sweida as violence broke out between Druze communities and Bedouin tribes. These events demonstrated once again the dangers of sectarianism in a country still grappling with thousands of former fighters and youth who have yet to reintegrate into civilian life.
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Syria faces years of structural and societal rebuilding - a process that hinges on the ability of the new regime to promote an inclusive, national dialogue. So far, this process has not been particularly successful, but only time will tell.
Adding to the instability is Israel's recent decision to launch air strikes against regime forces, including military headquarters in Damascus. These actions suggest not a strategy for peace, but an effort to sow chaos and obstruct Syria's return to normalcy.
Israel framed these attacks under the pretext of protecting the Druze. But soon afterwards, Israeli leaders issued veiled threats against the Syrian regime and even Sharaa himself. Some commentators have openly discussed dividing Syria and establishing a Druze autonomous region in the south.
Strategic quagmire
This discourse reflects Israel's strategic quagmire - a trap of its own making. The war in Gaza, alongside Israel's perpetual war doctrine, is not only morally catastrophic; it also serves as a distraction, allowing Israel to posture as the defender of Middle Eastern minorities.
According to this narrative, Israel's violence in Gaza is legitimised through a vision of the region modelled after itself: fragmented, divided along ethnic and religious lines, and incapable of producing multiethnic, pluralistic nation-states.
Israel has previously proposed dividing Syria into cantons. But beyond being logistically and politically unfeasible - requiring a rare international consensus - such proposals fail to grasp Syria's social complexities.
Israel's prolonged war in Gaza has shown its limitations, even in a much smaller, besieged area and with the support of western powers
Syria's diverse social fabric cannot be easily partitioned. Breaking it apart, even under the guise of 'protection', would only fuel further chaos.
Such chaos may well serve Israeli interests. After all, Israel has historically viewed Syria's civil war as a strategic advantage.
If Israel proceeds with a plan to divide Syria to 'protect' the Druze in the south, it would have to send ground forces into Sweida - an area nearly a quarter the size of Israel. Military conquest might be the easy part; holding the territory would be far harder.
Israel's prolonged war in Gaza has shown its limitations, even in a much smaller, besieged area and with the support of western powers. An occupation of Sweida would further overstretch Israeli manpower at a time of domestic exhaustion and military burnout.
Israeli officials understand this. The US and key regional actors oppose further destabilisation. Even within Israel's military leadership, there's resistance to expanding into Syria. The Gaza war has taught Israel a painful lesson: stable Arab countries tend to avoid entanglement in Gaza, while fragile states like Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen pose continuous threats.
Mounting pressure
Nevertheless, pressure is mounting within Israel from its own Druze citizens, who are divided into two distinct groups: those from historical Palestine, whose leadership - at least in part - chose to accept the state of Israel after 1948 and were gradually integrated into Israeli state structures, most notably through mandatory military service; and the smaller Druze community in the occupied Golan Heights, which has historically rejected Israeli rule.
Around 80 percent of Druze men and women enlist in the Israeli army, with 39 percent of conscripts serving in combat units. Amid a growing personnel crisis, the political withdrawal of ultra-Orthodox parties due to a dispute over draft exemptions, and declining reservist morale, the Druze - while comprising less than two percent of Israel's population - wield outsized influence in military decision-making.
Their influence was evident this month, as hundreds of Israeli Druze breached the fence in the occupied Golan Heights and entered southern Syria. While most have since returned, dozens reportedly remained behind to contribute their military expertise. According to international law, they would now qualify as unlawful foreign fighters, violating the sovereignty of another state.
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Despite Israel's militaristic rhetoric, it will not truly endanger its strategic interests for the Druze. The same country that denies Druze citizens symbolic recognition in its nation-state law and fails to protect them from organised crime is unlikely to risk open war on their behalf.
Rather, Israel's intervention in Syria is an attempt to balance domestic pressures with its regional agenda. In doing so, it exposes both the emptiness of the professed Jewish-Druze brotherhood and its frustration with a new international consensus around Syria that contradicts its goals.
But the greatest tragedy lies within Syria itself. The videos released by both sides recall Lebanon's civil war and the horrors of sectarian violence. The urgent task for Syrians is not to claim towns or military victories, but to ask hard political questions: what kind of shared society can be rebuilt? What will integration look like across religious and ethnic lines?
Even if Druze separatists succeed in creating an Israeli-backed autonomous region, they will face social and economic fallout. Families will be separated, men will die fighting and communities will become dependent on Israeli interests. This would impact Druze populations in Lebanon, Jordan and across Syria.
Ironically, some of the most powerful images from this conflict have been of Druze families reuniting across the Golan border - loved ones separated for decades by Israeli occupation. Should the crisis deepen, more families will be torn apart.
And Israel will not come to their rescue.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.