[Order Michael Finch’s new book, A Time to Stand: HERE. Prof. Jason Hill calls it “an aesthetic and political tour de force.”]
The Syrian government of Ahmed al-Sharaa has done nothing to prevent, and much to encourage, the horror now unfolding in southern Syria, where Sunni Arabs affiliated with the government in Damascus have been torturing, raping, and murdering helpless Druze, following the playbook of Hamas on October 7, 2023. As yet, the UN has not said a word about this, a real genocide, nor have any of the other groups that have had no problem labeling Israel’s war in Gaza, most inaccurately, a “genocide.” More on this atrocity which deserves to be called a genocide can be found here: “Testimonies from Syria: First the genocide, now the famine,” by Danielle Greyman-Kennard, Jerusalem Post, October
As winter approaches, the conditions in the already deprived Druze villages of southern Syria are only expected to deteriorate further.
Efforts for Damascus and Jerusalem to reach a security pact are reported to depend on the Syrian Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham government’s willingness to allow a humanitarian corridor into the province of Sweida, where a crisis has unfolded after months of massacres, attacks, and blockades by HTS and state-backed Bedouin groups.
Members of the community told The Jerusalem Post that over 2,500 people were murdered in the violence, 291,000 people displaced, and more than 250 abducted, including women and children. Homes were destroyed, livestock stolen, and villages pillaged.
Those who survived the waves of attacks have been living on meager resources sporadically permitted by HTS, along with whatever their own agriculture could provide. But the situation is growing increasingly desperate, according to a Syrian Druze activist and an Israeli Druze woman with close relatives across the border.
A., a Syrian Druze activist residing in Europe, lost 14 loved ones to the recent violence. He asked not to be named, fearing retribution against his surviving relatives should authorities realize he spoke with Israeli media.
Explaining that 38 Druze villages remain under the control of Bedouin tribes and government forces, A. painted a difficult reality of life in southern Syria for the proud ethnic minority sect. The true number of casualties remains unknown, he said, as bodies lay in the streets two months after the attacks began.
The sadism demonstrated in the attacks was something shocking to A., as “even in horror movies” he couldn’t imagine the scenes that unfolded. When messages first came in about the attacks, A. said he thought it was just the media playing up the violence for clicks and traffic, but then videos from his relatives came, and he saw the carnage for himself.
He described how three-month-old babies were murdered and their bodies left in boxes “like a gift,” and detailed how elderly and disabled people were burned alive in their wheelchairs and children raped.
A. said he is still haunted by a video filmed by the attackers: a young boy shot multiple times as his wounded father crawled toward him, bleeding heavily from his legs. “They let him crawl for just a meter or two, only to kiss his dead son. And then he died,” A. recounted, visibly emotional. “He died while hugging him…. And I still ask myself why we had to go through this.”…
The Druze are a non-Arab people, with their own religion that should not be confused with Islam. There are two million Druze in the world; 750,000 of them live in Syria, and another 750,000 in Lebanon next door. Right now, Sunni Arabs connected to the government of Ahmed al-Sharaa are raping, torturing, and killing the Druze people, with his knowledge. In addition, they are now suffering from a real famine. Al-Sharaa won’t allow his government to deliver any food aid to the Druze. The Druze have been relying on the food parcels that the IDF has been dropping from planes, or bringing in by trucks that Israeli Druze drive. The Syrian Arabs have so tormented the Druze in recent months, and are continuing to do so, that for many of them there is no going back to being part of Syria. Most of the Druze in Syria now dream of becoming citizens either of an independent state or, what would be more secure and thus even more desirable, to be assimilated into the state of Israel.