Druze in the Golan Heights. 'Show some consideration to our distress'
Photo: Avihu Shapira
Dr. Reda Mansour
Photo courtesy of Israeli Embassy in Brazil
What do Israel's Druze want?
Op-ed: We don’t want a single Israeli soldier to set foot in Syria in order to save the Druze, but we do expect Israel to stop providing medical care to Syrian rebels who have murdered Druze in cold blood.
Some of the Jewish Israelis don’t understand what the Druze in Israel want. Do they really want Israel to intervene in the civil war in Syria in order to save the country's Druze? Do they want Israel to open up its borders and let hundreds of thousands of Druze refugees in?
So let's make a few things clear on behalf of ourselves, rather than by commentators who interpret us as if we can't speak. First of all, we'll clarify what we don't want: We don't want a single Israeli soldier to set foot in Syria in order to save the Druze over there. We haven't survived in the Middle East for 1,000 years thanks to external aid and we won't start now.
The Jewish reader asks himself, and rightfully so: Don't we have enough trouble? Hamas is on the fences in the south, Hezbollah is on the fences in the north, and the spirit of the Iranian nuclear program hovers above it all.
Syria Crisis
Op-ed: As jihadist attacks on Druze villages increase, it's time for Israel to make a decision – either to take action or to witness a bloodbath on the other side of its northern border.
The Druze never had external backing like the Christians or Sunnis and Shiites. They always knew how to defend themselves even at the cost of tens of thousands of casualties. That is one of the reasons why we remain only a million and a half Druze after 1,000 years.
We understand that free protests of tens of thousands of Druze in our villages in Israel should not be taken for granted (Photo: Efi Sharir)
The Druze don't want Israel to open up the fence and take in hundreds of thousands of Syrian Druze either. You can rest assured that there won't be hundreds of thousands of Druze refugees. Just like we didn't flee Israel in 1948 in view of Palestinian gunmen's daily attacks on our villages, and just like the Druze in Lebanon didn't flee in the 1967 civil war after being stormed by militias and foreign armies, the Druze will not flee Suwayda. If they leave, it will be after tens of thousands are killed in battle, and they will return with a counterattack, and the majority of survivors will not move from their homes.
So what do we really want from the State of Israel and from our Jewish friends in it? First of all, we expect empathy. Showing understanding means, for example, halting the medical care being given in Israel to members of Jabhat al-Nusra (an organization affiliated with al-Qaeda), especially after they massacred 20 Druze people in cold blood.
We don’t have to explain to the Jews what it means to be a minority which is connected with all its heart on one side of the world to the members of its religion and people on the other side of the world. This feeling should be clear to the Israelis, who supported their people behind the iron curtain in the Soviet Union or sent planes to bring Jews from villages in Ethiopia.
We have reached a situation of complete emotional solidarity with you. Not just through 400 fallen IDF soldiers or tens of thousands of Druze who have already served in the IDF, but solidarity in its deepest sense, which includes Druze officers and students who participate in the March of the Living in Auschwitz every year at their own request, and Druze diplomats who work diligently to maintain the Jewish continuity in the Diaspora and strengthen the connection of Jews abroad to Israel. I believe I have visited more synagogues and taken part in more Kabalat Shabbat ceremonies than any secular Jew in Israel.
We would like you to show some consideration towards our distress. Regardless of what you decide to do, don't choose to stain the Druze on the other side of the border as an excuse. Despising all the Druze in Lebanon because of the actions of a despicable murderer like Samir Kuntar is like staining all the Jews in Israel because of Baruch Goldstein.
Instead of inciting, you should remember that during the first Lebanon War and thanks to the intervention of the Druze in Israel, the IDF managed to cross the entire Chouf Mountains without a single gunshot being fired at it.
To those who respond to articles here I would like to say: Don't write that you don't care about the Druze in the Golan Heights and in Syria and that they can all be slaughtered because they have declared their support for Syrian President Bashar Assad. These Druze are trying to survive, and their other choices are the Islamic State and al-Qaeda's Jabhat al-Nusra. They are no different from the leaders of Iran's Jewish community, who declare their "animosity towards the Zionist enemy" every week at the parliament in Tehran, and who did it even during the Mahmoud Ahmadinejad era.
We would also like you to know that the Druze were never ungrateful. We understand very well that free protests of tens of thousands of Druze on the streets of our villages in Israel should not be taken for granted. This happened only in the Israeli democracy, while the Druze in Lebanon and Jordan remained in their homes. Moreover, we understand that it is only thanks to the standard of living in Israel that we were able to collect $3 million within one week and transfer it to the Druze in Syria.
Finally, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot's declarations of support for us moved us and are engraved in our memory. As you know, minorities have a good memory. The State of Israel and the IDF are a warm home and family and we won't do anything which could get them entangled in adventures beyond the border.
How many of you can say, like I can, that they come from a family which already has four or five generations of fighters in the IDF? My grandfather was a combat officer in the War of Independence and my son is serving in a combat unit these days.
But beyond this restriction, we will remain loyal to our tradition and help our Druze brothers in any way and anywhere as we have been doing for 1,000 years now and as you have been doing for 2,000 years now. This isn't something you are not familiar with.
Dr. Reda Mansour is the Israeli ambassador to Brazil. His doctoral thesis focused on Syria's modern history.
