Solidarity with the Druze is ‘a must’

The Druze community in Jordan shares with its brethren in Lebanon and Israel the great worry that 800,000 Syrian Druze are facing an existential threat by Al Qaeda affiliate Jabhat Al Nusra.

This Jihadi Salafist group had recently strengthened its positions on the Syrian Golan Heights. When Jabhat Al Nusra came in control of Idlib province, weeks ago on June 10, it killed 20 Druze in the Qalb Loz village. 

Amman this week witnessed a flurry of activities by Druze politicians from Lebanon and Israel. They asked Jordan to take preemptive action to stop the slaughter of the Suweida inhabitants by Nusra fighters who consider Druze heretics.

Lebanese political leader Walid Kamal Junblat, a Druze, met with His Majesty King Abdullah and urged Jordan to play its traditional regional role: Amman supported the 1925 revolt of Syrian Druze against the French Mandate.

Some prominent Druze leaders from Nazareth came to Amman and got in contact with their Suweida brethren to donate $2 million to enable them to defend themselves.

So far, 40,000 young men have been mobilised to defend the nearly 70 villages around Suweida, digging trenches, building barricades and dividing each neighbourhood into several enclaves, with one person taking responsibility for each.

Their religious belief motivates them to fight more fiercely, since martyrdom, to them, is another way to a new life. But their weapons are no match to the tanks and missiles used by Jabhat Al Nusra.

To have the Syrian Golan under the control of Nusra is as much of a strategic threat to Jordan as it is to the Druze.

The nearly 1.4 million Druze in the region can show their solidarity with their brethrens by stopping the efforts of Sameer Qintar and other Hizbollah activists from recruiting more Suweida young villagers into Hizbollah suicide networks.

The Lebanese Druze have managed to smuggle some light weapons, but advanced sophisticated weaponry is needed to match that used by the Jihadi Salafists who could repeat in Syria against the Druze the same abominable atrocities that their colleagues perpetrated in Mosul against the Christians.

One prominent Druze leader in Suweida, Sheikh Waheed Al Balous, issued a press statement in the name of other “Mashayekh Al Aql” [elderly of the Druze] saying that the Bashar Assad regime had abandoned them and they need to find ways to protect their families.

It is in nobody’s interest to abandon the Syrian Druze like the Assad regime did.

Their strategic military location on the Syrian Golan Heights and the historical ties of friendship with Jordan renders a solidarity stand an obligation and a must.