Israel: A protector of minorities in the Middle East - The Druze and Kurds are looking for allyship with Israel after the fall of Syria.

(December 25, 2024 / JNS)

(https://www.jns.org/israel-a-protector-of-minorities-in-the-middle-east/)

By: Joseph Puder

As the only Jewish state, Israel has always sought natural allies among the sea of Muslim Arab neighbors. In Syria, the opportunity to forge a natural alliance currently exists with two minority groups seeking to build a bond with Israel.

These two communities each have a particular identity that stands out from the Sunni Muslim Arab majority. The Kurdish community, which is not ethnically Arab, represents more than 10% of Syria’s population. The other community is the Druze. While Arab by ethnicity, they are not considered Muslims. In the Druze secretive religion, they consider Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, as their major prophet. Many among the Muslim majority view the Druze as “infidels.”

These two communities reside in different geographic areas. The Kurds occupy a large swath of Syrian territory in northeast Syria, estimated to be about 40% of the country’s territory. The majority of Druze live in enclaves around “Jabal Druze,” the Druze mountains in southwestern Syria. This area is geographically close to the Israeli Golan Heights where a strong Druze community resides.

Israel has had a long history of support for the Kurds, especially those in Iraq, with Israelis fully identifying with the Kurdish people’s struggle for self-determination and statehood. In the early 1960s, Mullah Mustafa al-Barzani, a legendary Iraqi Kurdish freedom fighter and Kurdish military leader, was trained in Israel. Barzani sought to create an independent Kurdish nation for the approximate 40 million Kurds living on the borders of Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey.

Given the Jewish people’s two millenniums of wandering without access to their homeland, it’s only natural for Israelis to empathize with the Kurdish people and their desire for a state of their own. In past conflicts between Turkey and the Kurds, such as in the fall of 2019, Jerusalem declared its support of the Kurdish people. As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Facebook that October, “Israel strongly condemns the Turkish invasion of the Kurdish areas in Syria and warns against the ethnic cleansing of the Kurds by Turkey and its proxies. Israel is prepared to extend humanitarian assistance to the gallant Kurdish people.”

Just last month, the newly installed Israeli foreign minister, Gideon Sa’ar, emphasized the importance of forging a “natural alliance” with the Kurdish nation.

The Turks, Iranians and the Arab regimes in Iraq and Syria share little in common, except a unifying desire to prevent the creation of a Kurdish state. Turkey and Iran, in particular, have been aggressively persecuting their Kurdish population. The major ambition of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is to impede any manifestation of Kurdish independence or autonomous status in Syria.

Erdoğan has trained and financed the rebel groups that ended the Bashar Assad regime’s control of Syria. While the jihadist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group focused on capturing Aleppo, Hama, Homs and Damascus, Erdoğan’s proxy—the National Syrian Army—focused on killing Kurds and conquering Kurdish majority communities in northern Syria.

Israel has a security and strategic stake in an alliance with the Kurds in Iraq and Syria, as well as supporting the Kurds in Iran and the Druze community in Syria. Strong alliances with these minorities would create a barrier against any future attempts by Iran and its Shi’ite Iraqi proxies to infiltrate Syria and link up with Hezbollah.

A prominent Syrian-Kurdish leader told me that while words of support from Israeli government officials are nice, the Kurds need action. The Kurds want an alliance with Israel and they want military assistance. I responded by noting that while it has been difficult for Israel to aid the Kurds militarily given the close military relations Israel had with the Turkish army and intelligence apparatus, Erdoğan’s openly hostile declarations indicate him to be a declared enemy of Israel. As a result, this has changed the calculations in Jerusalem and, Israel may now be prepared to render military assistance to the Kurds.

An alliance with the Druze is much easier given the proximity of the Golan Heights to the Druze villages in southern Syria. As seen in a widely circulated video on social media, some Druze leaders have expressed a desire to become part of Israel to prevent assaults by “radical Islamists.”

These Druze villagers remained loyal to the Assad regime until the end. As a minority, they were always watching their backs, and now they fear retribution from the Sunni jihadist rebels who have taken over Syria. In terms of the bigger picture for the Druze, they would like to be granted an autonomous status in southwestern Syria, realizing that right now, an independent Druze state is unrealistic. Given the weight of the Israeli Druze community, coupled with the prestige and affection with which they are held by the Jewish majority, Syrian Druze feel compelled to choose sides. Their fear of jihadist rule and the prospect of joining with their fellow Druze in Israel under the protection of the Israeli Defense Forces’ umbrella, makes for an easy choice.

A Christian-Lebanese friend of mine recently told me that “Israel must become the protector of the minorities in the Middle East.” He had in mind not only the Kurds and the Druze but the Christians in Lebanon and Syria. Although it is a tribute to Israel’s recent military victories, which have projected Israel as the “strong horse” in the region, those objectives, however, might be far beyond Israel’s resources. Still, an alliance with the Kurds and the Druze in Syria has considerable merit.