Druze is the only minority group in Syria playing smart politics to ensure its survival regardless of the outcome of the war. Almost 140,000 Druze are living in Israel, maintaining family and cultural ties with fellows in Syria and Lebanon. The Arabic-speaking Druze, followers of an esoteric religion containing elements of all the monotheistic faiths as well as Greek philosophy, have a complex relationship with the states under which they live.
The “authorities of the Israeli occupation” are moving the wounded terrorists of Nusra Front from the outskirts of the Syrian town of Hadar to the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights to treat them, official SANA news agency reported.
An ISIL Takfiri terrorist has been killed by a group of Syrian Druze residents in the occupied Golan Heights as he was being transported to Israel for treatment.
As the remnants of the Syrian army-backed by Iran and its Lebanese ally, Hizbullah-have lost ground, Islamic State (IS) has drawn near the main Druze population on the Jebel Druze mountain range. DEBKAfile: Israeli Druze claim that some of the wounded Syrians hospitalized in Israel belong to Al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front rebel forces which threaten their community in Syria and with which Israel cooperates.
SANA said the Druze had inflicted “the punishment on them for their participation in the aggression on the mother homeland, Syria, and its people”.
On Tuesday, the Israeli chief of general staff said that the Israeli military would act in the vicinity of the Syrian border if necessary, in order to prevent the massacre of Syrian refugees, apparently referring to Druze refugees.
As Druze and as Israeli citizens, it is our obligation to demand that Israel stop this unquestionably immoral support for Jabhat al-Nusra.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (right) meets with the spiritual leader of the Druze community in Israel, Sheikh Moafaq Tarif, in the village of Julis in northern Israel, April 25, 2013. The army’s plans may include setting up an emergency field hospital in no-man’s-land on the border.
One shell hits near the village of Hadar, a Druze village of 2,500.
The al-Nusra Front, an al-Qaeda affiliate, seized tanks and artillery from a Syrian Army base two weeks ago.
The attack came amid growing concern for the fate of Syria’s Druze minority, traditional allies of President Bashar al-Assad, who are surrounded by rebels in the country’s more than four-year civil war.
Earlier Monday, an army ambulance was pelted with stones in the Israeli-Druze village of Hurfeish by locals who believed that it may be carrying injured Syrian jihadists seeking medical care in the Jewish state.
Israeli officials say they are monitoring the situation closely, but so far the tense skirmishes on the Syrian side involving the Druze have been limited. “We will do everything in our power to help them defend themselves against any attempt to butcher them exclusively because of their Druse background”.
Moti Yogev, a hawkish coalition lawmaker from the Jewish Home party, said Israel’s “mutual commitment” to the Druze supersedes the complexity of engaging in Syria and the emotional difficulty of aiding those who have been loyal to Assad and who cooperated with Israel’s arch-enemy Hezbollah.
Israel must work to establish the “Middle East Minorities Pact” which will place all these minorities under one umbrella, even if they once fought each other, as the Shiite Hezbollah and Jews do.
