Israel seeks the partition of Syria by aiding the Druze minority
This week there have been serious incidents in southern Damascus, beginning in the town of Jarmana. This is not good news. A recording insulting the Prophet Muhammad is circulating, but we don't know if it's a deliberate provocation. It probably is. The audio was reportedly recorded by a cleric from the Druze ethnic group, a religious minority dating back to the Middle Ages, with communities in southern Syria, Lebanon, and Israel. The audio has caused unrest among Sunnis, resulting in a dozen deaths on the first day, including some police officers; a death toll that this Friday rose to more than eighty.
The police are investigating the case. Try to identify the voice of the person in the audio in order to arrest and prosecute them. In the meantime, the situation is highly tense. Let's remember that Syria is under a Sunni Islamist government somehow linked to so-called political Islam, which took power in December after the collapse of Bashar al-Assad's regime, who fled to Moscow. The country is in a period of uncertain transition, not exempt from violence. A month ago, there were more than 1,500 deaths in the western territories of the country, where a considerable portion of the Alawite minority lives, protected by the regime.
Following these initial incidents in Jarmana, the Israeli army bombed a target in the Damascus area on Wednesday, causing two deaths. A joint statement by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz stated that Israel will defend the Druze in Syria. On Friday, it sent a "warning" with an attack near the presidential palace in Damascus. Israel maintains a handful of military positions on Syrian territory. In recent months, it has reinforced its presence in Syria and appears to have a strong interest in remaining there indefinitely. The most basic Israeli policy is to exacerbate feelings of ethnicity, nationalism, and religion, as is also the case in Syrian Kurdistan.
The incidents became more complicated on Thursday when the mayor of Sahnaya, south of Damascus, and his son, both of Druze ethnicity, were assassinated. In societies where sectarianism is dominant, minorities suffer constant tensions. The previous Baathist regime had problems of this kind but managed to control them, at least to a certain extent, sometimes with a soft touch and sometimes with force. The most serious case was that of Hama in 1982, when a Sunni uprising was put down with bombings that killed tens of thousands of people.
On Wednesday, Israeli Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a leading ultra-religious nationalist and close associate of Benjamin Netanyahu, said that the military campaign in the Gaza Strip would continue until "hundreds of thousands" of Palestinians had left. As for the Syrian military campaign, Smotrich added, it won't end until the country is divided. He said this clearly, leaving no room for much interpretation, while European leaders remain paralyzed or occasionally make ceremonial but useless declarations.
Destabilizing capacity
Israel's enormous destabilizing capacity is at its peak not only in the Gaza Strip, but also in Syria. The partition of Syria is one of Israel's primary objectives at the moment.
Just a few weeks ago, Israel allowed Druze delegations into its territory, and Israel's contacts with Syria's Druze minority have existed throughout the long civil war and are well documented. Right now, while bombing Syria, it maintains close relations with the Syrian Druze. So it seems unlikely that Netanyahu will give up the goal of dividing Syria, which Minister Smotrich has so clearly defined.