Some grim news out of the Middle East this morning: a community under attack by government forces, dozens slaughtered, civilians being evacuated, chaos.

The victims are the Druze residents of Sweida, a southern Syrian city, and the forces are those of the Syrian government. Don’t expect to see protests in the streets of the West on behalf of this beleaguered population. Don’t expect even so much as hand-wringing.

The Druze, a small non-Muslim minority in Syria and Lebanon, are hated by Islamists. How this group would fare under the new regime led by Ahmed al-Shara, himself once part of an Islamist group linked to al-Qaeda, has been just one question as the region’s tectonic plates keep shifting. The government moved into Sweida after clashes between Druze and Bedouins, another minority group. Was this on al-Shara’s orders or a rogue militia action? There’s much that is still uncertain.

In Israel, too, there is a Druze minority, whose members participate fully in Israeli life and institutions, including as loyal defenders of the state by service in the police and the military. Israel is taking military action in Syria to defend the Druze, keeping its promise to the Israeli Druze community. In a particularly dramatic action, the military headquarters of the Syrian army in Damascus was bombed.

Naturally, you should also expect to see no appreciation by the activist left for Israel’s actions in defense of a minority that few in the West are even aware of, or its critical role as a bulwark against Islamist brutality.