The Druze as a Litmus Test to New Syrian Regime's Honesty

The West must demand the regime to stop violence against minorities. So far the evidence points to the opposite being true: genocidal incitement is going on whilst a beautiful face is presented to gullible Western decision makers. Fall of Assad breeds this wishful thinking in the West needlessly and behind the smiles is also hope, that migrant flows from the Middle East would cease, so that the extreme right would not grow stronger and defeat the centrist decision makers in Europe.

Situation in Syria is Volatile and Atrocities are Taking Place

In December last year the Assad regime finally collapsed and a grouping called HTS (“Organization for the Liberation of the Levant” or Hayat Tahrir al-Sham), supported by Turkey’s proxies, came to power. Jihadists of HTS are allowed to use deception against infidels as per their interpretation of islam. Showing a beautiful face towards the West is part of this strategy when they try to get rid of Assad-era sanctions. Minorities in Syria view HTS with suspicion: Kurds in the North have refused to hand over weapons and now the Druze are doing the same. They have good reasons for doing so. Immediately after HTS came to power Alawites were repressed and massacred. 

West is Thinking Wishfully and HTS is Exploiting That

HTS is led by a person named Ahmed Hussein al-Sharaa, who has "fairly solid" islamist credentials to put it mildly. Now a curious cosplay is taking place in Paris, where Macron has invited him. This will help HTS to gain credibility in the gullible Western media echo chamber. HTS wants to get rid of sanctions that the West has imposed and France is helping them to do exactly that. The fact that the fall of the Assad regime has an impact on the migrant flows to Europe will help further this Western wishful thinking. Geopolitically Syria is a pawn in the brutal Middle Eastern power games, weak country, but source of huge problems geopolitically: these problems radiate immediately to Europe too. State building dreams are purely a fantasy that HTS is selling to gullible Western decision makers. Atrocities against minorities are taking place fueled by vicious islamist incitement in their social media ecosystem: Alawites were accused of planning rebellion, Bedouins were usurped to attack the Kurds, Christians and the Druze, well I guess they deserve to be enslaved any day of the week among other non-believers. HTS pretends not to be involved for fear of international reaction. HTS is testing the waters on how much atrocities they can get away with, when the world pretends to care but really does not. World reaction will be stoked only if Israel gets involved and this will fuel the fire of global intifada echo chamber, with its millions of millennial useful idiots as pawns.

EU policy is likely directed towards policy failure regarding Syria guided by narrow French business interests. The French are apparently taking a page out of the Chinese playbook of economic colonialism, and asking to be the operator in Latakia port for decades among other things. During visit to Paris in May 2025 Al-Sharaa committed to protecting minorities and Marcon promised to lobby for sanctions relief.

The Druze

10th Century people left islam and formed Druze religion and found refuge in mountains of nowadays Lebanon, Israel and Syria as minorities like other Middle Eastern minorities like Jews, Christians. They are considered as apostates by muslims as it is not possible to leave islam: in a way they are worse than Jews and Christian as they are born that way but the ancestors of Druze left islam. This region of Druze came to be called Jabal Druze. To become Druze both parents must be Druze. They also believe in reincarnation after death, which is not mainstream islamic belief. By many ways they remind me of Cathars in Europe, which were persecuted in the Middle Ages.

They behave in ways of takiya to survive: behave like their muslim countrymen to stay alive. But in the privacy of their home they might do things like enjoy a glass of wine, a thing that muslim would not do as it is considered haram (forbidden). Under Ottoman times they enjoyed autonomy, which lasted for Centuries. Rebellion against the French led to defeat and near starvation of Druze in Jabal Druze in 1920’s and they were forced to join the Syrian state. Israel saved the Druze from islamists. In Israel Druze felt safe and felt as an integral part of the Israeli nation. Men usually join IDF combat units as volunteers with a ratio higher than Jews and rise in high positions in its ranks and women join Israeli police. The most famous of them is Salim Shufi, who served in Sayeret Matkal as leader together with many people who became top leaders in Israel like Binyamin Netanyahu, Benny Gantz, Amnon Lipkin-Shahak and Yonatan Netanyahu.

The extreme islamist faction now in power in Damascus views the Druze as heretics, who can be repressed using barbarism: humiliation, torture, massacre and sexual slavery. Syrian jihadists are refraining from broadcasting their atrocities to social media like ISIS did and therefore helping HTS to maintain deniability to the international community to some extent. The only outside protector for the Druze has been Israel, who has communicated to HTS in no uncertain terms that Druze are not to be touched. Israel has also made good on this declaration and helped the Druze any way they can. Western leaders have dangerously fallen under the spell of HTS and condemned Israel as per usual.