The IDF has been instructed to prepare to defend the Druze minority in the Damascus suburb of Jaramana, as Israel’s military invasion of southern Syria expands and the pretext of protecting the Druze minority in Syria becomes part of the narrative.
Israel invaded Syria in early December in the immediate wake of the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad. The invasion started with seizing territory within the UN Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) demilitarized zone between Syria and the occupied Golan Heights, but has since expanded slowly to include parts of the Quneitra and Daraa Governorates.
The matter grew even more complicated last week when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that Israel was imposing a demilitarization of all of south Syria, insisting no Syrian forces would be allowed in the entire Quneitra, Daraa or Suwayda Governorates. Some reports from Israeli officials couched it as simply no Syrian forces south of the capital city of Damascus.
However, Israel appears to have expanded this order to include more territory, as Israel subsequently launched attacks in areas that included Rif Damashq Governorate for Syrian “violations” of the order, even though Rif Damashq had not previously been mentioned as being demilitarized.
Jaramana is in Rif Damashq as well, and east of Damascus as opposed to south of it, so Israeli movements there would expand the demilitarization zone further.
Over the weekend, there was a focus on Jaramana because of a clash between gunmen from a Druze group and government forces at a checkpoint. The fighting left one person dead and nine wounded, and Syria has deployed additional troops into Jaramana in the wake of the incident, though reportedly it has been calm since.
The Druze have a substantial presence in Jaramana, though the city/suburb contains more Christians than Druze. Jaramana was a popular destination for Iraqi Christians displaced during the US invasion of Iraq and the subsequent war there. It’s location is also close to the traditionally Christian neighborhoods of Damascus.
On the whole, Druze are estimated to be only 3%-4% of the overall population of Syria, making them a small minority indeed. Though some obviously live in Jaramana, the majority of the Druze live in the area that was historically Jabal al-Druze. Jabal al-Druze is in modern-day Suwayda Governorate, and was an autonomous state during the French Mandate. At the time of a French census in 1922, an estimated 84.8% of the Jabal al-Druze population were Druze.
Many Druze are insisting that they consider themselves part of Syria and do not have separatist ambitions, though a group calling itself the Suwayda Military Council was established almost immediately after Israel announced the demilitarization in the area, and has reportedly been making statements extremely positive about Israel’s involvement in the area. The council is also accused of harboring separatist inclinations, though they deny that this is the case.
Given the hostility Syria’s Islamist rulers showed toward suggestions of the Kurdish SDF maintaining measures of autonomous in the northeast, a Druze separatist movement would no doubt be opposed by them as well.
Israel’s role in all of this is still speculative at the moment. Israeli media has been couching their military involvement in Syria as defending the Druze minority, and Israel issued a joint statement from Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz declaring “if the regime harms the Druze they will face consequences from us.”
Only a few days ago Israel started making overtures to Syrian Druze in the areas that the IDF have recently occupied, offering them permits to enter the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights to work. Israeli forces reported presented these work permits as comparable to what Palestinians are given to work inside Israeli territory, suggesting the occupation of the south is going to be long-term.
As early as January, Israeli cabinet ministers reportedly met to discuss the outright partition of Syria, supposedly as a means to help the Syrian Kurds and prevent Turkey from gaining too much influence in post-Assad Syria. Recent reports are that the partition plan would aim to create an Israeli “corridor” up to the Euphrates River, linking them to autonomous Syrian Kurdistan (Rojava).
Obviously, even hypothetically establishing an independent Israel-friendly Druze state in Suwayda wouldn’t create such a corridor. However that state would be close to the US-controlled zone around al-Tanf, in Rif Damashq Governorate, and expanding it along the sparsely-populated Syria-Iraq border from there would ultimately connect them with Deir Ezzor Governorate and the Euphrates River, where the US-backed SDF hold territory.
Such a corridor would ultimately require taking materially the entire Syria-Jordan border over, above and beyond the land already seized in southern Syria since the regime change. Syria’s government would doubtless object, but so far it has not been particularly inclined to resist Israeli military incursions into its territory.
