Salman Masalha
The Slaughter in Syria Was Known in Advance
Salman Masalha
Chronicle Of A Massacre Of Druze In Syria Foretold
The acts of slaughter in Syria and all the ensuing horrors instigated by
the jihadi militias and the tribal rabble from among the supporters of the new
Syrian ruler were engraved in the 14th century in religious rulings by Ibn Taymiyya, the spiritual teacher of al-Joulani and his motley crew of jihadist
disciples.
What has been happening in the Arab world for
generation after generation is closely connected to the lack of a national
identity that transcends sectarian and tribal borders. It is possible to
declaim endless high-flown slogans about “one Arab nation,” but over and over
again the reality comes along and smacks the sloganeers in the face.
The Nationalism is a Colonial Invention
On August 30, 1915, Vincent Arthur Henry McMahon, the British High
Commissioner in the Sultanate of Egypt sent a missive to the head of the
Hashemite dynasty and the Emir of Mecca, Sharif Hussein. In flowery Arabic, he
assured in his letter that His Majesty’s Government is prepared to recognize
and support the independence of the Arabs. He assured in his letter that His
Majesty “would welcome the resumption of the caliphate by an Arab of true
race”. McMahon reconfirmed His majesty’s desire for the “independence of
Arabia and its inhabitants, together with our approval of the Arab Khalifate
when it should be proclaimed.” He praised the Arab people, as opposed to
the Turks, in an attempt to obtain Arab aid in defeating “the German and the
Turk… the new despoiler and the old oppressor”, in what has become known as
World War I.
In other words, it appears that the pan-Arab awakening
in this region was fundamentally an invention by His Majesty’s Government. No
Arab caliphate arose in the wake of the fall of the Ottoman Empire. Britain
and France divided up the region among themselves in the Sykes-Picot Agreement
that was signed in 1916, arbitrarily delineating the borders.
Additionally, the publication of the Balfour Declaration in 1917 prepared the
ground for a Jewish national home.
Among the states that
sprang up in the region after the withdrawal of the colonial powers, Syria is
a test case for these “national” entities. In this context, in 1925 the Druze
in the Sweida Province, led by Sultan Basha al-Atrash, were the spearhead in
the war against the French Mandate and in support for a united Syria that
ultimately received its independence from France in 1946. However, it was not
long before a series of coups began, culminating in the wresting of control by
Hafez al-Assad, a member of the Alawite sect who for three decades led a cruel
and oppressive regime. As he approached his death, he took care to
bequeath his rule to his young son Bashar al-Assad.
The Arab Spring
At the end of 2010, the protests known as “the Arab Spring” flared up in
Tunisia and sparks began to burn in demonstrations in Egypt and the rest of
the Arab world that was under oppressive regimes. In an interview to The
Wall Street Journal, Bashar al-Assad hastened to say that Syria was an
exceptional case. “We are not Tunisians and we are not Egyptians,” he
declared. He justified his remarks by saying that what was happening in those
countries stemmed from the public’s anger at the regimes and from what the
West was perpetuating in Palestine, Iraq and other Muslim countries. He
repeatedly claimed that Syria was immune to upsets like those because of its
steadfast stance vis-à-vis Israel and the United States.
Clearly
Syria is not Egypt, but not for the reasons Assad gave. Egypt is different
from Syria and different from the other Arab states. This is because in Egypt
there does exist a kind of Egyptian national identity. None of the the
Egyptian presidents – neither Nasser and Mubarak nor Sisi – based themselves
on any particular tribe or sect. The regime in Egypt is based on national
institutions, especially the institution of the military, which is not
sectarian at all. That is not the case in the other Arab states, which have
been ruled by bloodthirsty dictators, the sole prop for whose regimes has been
tribal and sectarian, and who have been fawned upon by sycophants from other
interest groups.
It is worth mentioning another facet of what
is called “the Arab spring.” It is not by chance that this “spring” was not
experienced in countries that are kingdoms, like Morocco, Jordan, Saudi Arabia
and the other emirates. The Arab kingdoms survived the tribulations of the Arab spring because royal regimes have been deeply embedded in Arab societies
for centuries. All the regimes that are called republics have flown the banner
of nationalism in vain. In none of those states has a nation been
created nor has a nationalism sprung up that blends citizens from different
sects, ethnic groups and religions into a single, inclusive civic
identity. Neither in Iraq nor in Syria has a nation arisen and begun to
walk. In none of those countries has a ruler succeeded in establishing, or has
even intended to establish, a nation state for its citizenry worthy of the
name. There is no light at the end of the sewer of the Arab tribal-sectarian world.
Thus, for example, there is the hostility between the
two tyrannical regimes in Syria and Iraq under the rule of the Ba’ath Party,
with its motto of pan-Arab nationalism, which was equal to or greater than
their hostility towards Israel. In this context, Hafez al-Assad did not
hesitate to support the United States in its war against Saddam Hussein,
thereby revealing the hollowness of the Ba’ath slogan “One Arab
nation.”
Nor did the elder Assad, as he was dying, hesitate
to change the rules and lower the age of eligibility for the presidency as
stipulated in the Syrian constitution, in order to pave the way for his son,
young Bashar, to inherit his rule. The amendment of the constitutional
provision for the sake of Bashar al-Assad was approved in a national
referendum by a majority of 97%, as befits regimes of that sort.
At
the start of his regime in 2000, many pinned hopes on Assad Junior, an
ophthalmologist educated in the West. At the outset, he released political
prisoners and to some extent permitted freedom of speech. However, that spring
in Damascus did not last long. It quickly became clear that Bashar al-Assad
had not fallen far from his father’s sectarian-tribal tree, and he began to
oppress political opponents. Further along, he sent buses to park in front of
the American embassy in Damascus and filled them with Islamist volunteers to
fight against the United States in Iraq. These Islamists and others who fought
the Americans in Iraq ultimately formed the “spiritual” basis of ISIS. Among
those who flocked to Syria in the early 2000s was none other than Abu Muhammad
al-Joulani. There he met Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a senior jihadist in al-Qaeda.
Al-Joulani was captured and spent several years in an American prison. After
he somehow managed to slip out of there, he met Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the
leader of al-Qaeda, and he returned to Syria with al-Baghdadi’s blessing to
fight Assad’s regime. He gathered around himself jihadists from all over:
Chechens, Uyghurs, and Arabs from many different places, for a war against the
Assad regime and to conquer extensive areas of Syria.
In
2013, al-Joulani sent a letter to al-Baghdadi, in which he set out his plan to
expel the minorities from all of Syria and establish a purely Sunni Islamic
state there. Al-Joulani, as he told American journalist Martin Smith who met him in Syria, did not admire al-Baghdadi, neither as leader nor from an
intellectual perspective. In this context, in addition to the struggle for
control in the entity straddling the border between Iraq and Syria,
al-Baghdadi decided to move into Syria with his people, adopt a new name and
declare the establishment of the Islamic State.
In an interview to Al-Jazeera in 2015, al-Joulani noted that the disagreements
between al-Qaeda and his faction, Jabhat al-Nusra, stemmed, inter alia, from
the breaking of the oath ISIS has sworn to al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri.
Additionally, he said, most of the ISIS leaders were Iraqis who focused on
action inside Iraq, who did not devote attention to the war on Assad’s regime
in Syria and who had no qualms about killing people from Jabhat al-Nusra. As
proof of his statements, he told the interviewer that ISIS people were killing
Shi’ites in Iraq but refraining from killing Alawites in Syria, the bedrock of
Assad’s regime. The Alawites, too, according to Ibn Taymiyya’s doctrine, are
heretics like the Druze.
The First Massacre of the Druze
For hundreds of years, a Druze minority of about 20,000 souls lived scattered
in a number of villages in the Idlib Governorate of Syria, which borders on
Turkey. Al-Joulani’s plan regarding the future of the minorities in Syria
began to be implemented in the Druze villages there, in a way involving crimes
like those ISIS committed against the Yazidi minority in Iraq. Al-Joulani’s
jihadists began the campaign of oppressing the Druze minority in northern
Syria by destroying their prayer halls, blowing up sites holy to them and
forcibly compelling Druze to convert. In June of 2015 they carried out the
first massacre of Druze. This happened in the village of Qalb-Loze. There, the
Jabhat al-Nusra people murdered tens of Druze elders and children in cold blood.
It must be noted here that, ever since the days of
Hafez al-Assad, who ruled Syria on a tribal-sectarian basis, the Islamists
have borne in their hearts burning hatred for the Ba’ath regime. They
have not forgotten for a moment that the elder Assad slaughtered members of the Muslim Brotherhood in the city of Hama in 1982. The younger Assad
inherited his father’s rule and perpetuated his sectarian-tribal legacy. When
the sparks of the “Arab Spring” reached Syria, he began slaughtering members
of the “Arab Nation” and even surpassed his father’s murderousness. When he
saw that the uprising against him was gaining strength and undermining his
rule, Bashar al-Assad asked Russia, Iran and its affiliate Hezbollah for help.
For another decade he continued to bomb and destroy indiscriminately the
cities of Syria, killing their inhabitants until the moment the regime
collapsed at the end of 2024, when he fled to Moscow.
Slaughter Follows Slaughter
As al-Joulani’s militias moved from the Idlib area in the direction of
Damascus, Assad’s army rapidly disintegrated. Within a short time, al-Joulani
entered the presidential palace in Damascus as a victor. However, before doing
so he went, surrounded by his people, to the Umayyad Great Mosque in Damascus,
on the ruins of a Byzantine church that had been built on the ruins of a Roman
temple that had been built on the ruins of an Aramean temple. It was not
by chance that he first entered the grand mosque that is a symbol of the
Islamic caliphate of the Umayyad dynasty. After entering the presidential
palace, he stripped off his uniform and donned a suit and tie. He also
discarded his nom de guerre and returned to his original name, Ahmed
Al-Sharaa.
However, Al-Shaara’s caliphate in a suit did
not change the essence of the new regime. His entry into the Great Mosque
surrounded by his supporters was a symbolic move that signaled what was to
come. Al-Joulani was borne aloft into the presidential palace on by jihadist
militias from all kinds of tribal and ethnic groups, some of which are not
Syrian and some of them not Arab. All these groups are imbued with an
ISIS-Islamist ideology, like the new leader himself.
The Druze Position in the Civil War
When the Civil War in Syria began in 2011, and the magnitude of the killing
Assad was carrying out among people of “his nation” became clear, the Druze
leadership in Jabal al-Druze came to the decision prohibiting young Druze men
from joining Assad’s army that relied on the Alawite sect, because it realized
that the war was becoming a sectarian war in which they did not want to take
part. Initially, the leadership adopted a neutral position and demanded that
the Druze soldiers remain in the Sweida Governorate on order to defend
themselves in their own areas in the midst of the general chaos, and also to
resist the jihadists if they approached their areas.
The ISIS Slaughter of the Druze
This position was inimical to Assad, who depicted himself as the guardian of
the minorities in Syria vis-à-vis ISIS. And in July of 2018, ISIS militias
invaded Druze villages in the governorate, killed and abducted children and
women and in a series of suicide attacks in the city of al-Sweida killed and
wounded hundreds of Druze. Ultimately the Druze militias in the Jabal Druze
succeeded in defeating the ISIS jihadist militias. The Druze accused the Assad
regime of collaborating with the ISIS fighters who brought people in buses
from the Yarmuk Refugee Camp near Damascus into the desert area east of Jabal
al-Druze. That was in the framework of an agreement between the Syrian regime
and ISIS people who controlled the refugee camp. Druze inhabitants related
that the day before the massacre all the means of communication in the area
were cut off and there was total silence.
As noted, the Druze
had tried to maintain a low profile and distance themselves from all the
bloodshed that was inundating Syria. They gave refuge in the Sweida
Governorate to tens of thousands of Muslims who fled from the Assad regime’s
army that was slaughtering them. In recent years the Druze also held mass
demonstrations every Friday in the city of al-Sweida and demanded the toppling
of the Assad regime.
Two years later, on December 8, 2024,
the blood regime came to its end, Assad was boarded onto a plan and smuggled
by the Russians to Moscow. The Assad army fell apart and al-Joulani’s militias
entered the presidential palace in Damascus.
Will the Leopard Change Its Spots?
As noted, al-Joulani was borne aloft into the presidential palace by many
jihadist militias. Despite his initial moderate declarations, it was the
Alawites’ turn to suffer under the blows of the jihadist ideology. In March of
2025, al-Joulani’s people and other militias attacked Alawite communities in
the Syrian coastal hills and slaughtered thousands of civilians, claiming that
this was in a clash with soldiers from the remnants of the previous regime’s
army, and out of a desire to disarm the remnants of the previous regime. From
the perspective of the other minority sects, this was a flashing blood-red
warning light.
The Druze in the Sweida Governorate refused to
hand over their weapons as the new regime in Damascus demanded before
receiving assurances as to the nature of the regime that would arise in Syria.
They demanded that before disarmament they had to come to agreements as to a
number of principles having to do with the character of the new regime. Among
other things, they insisted on the principle of participation all the
sectarian and ethnic elements in in the governing, as well as separation of
religion and the state. The response by al-Joulani’s army in cooperation with
the jihadist militias was the perpetration of a massacre in Sahnaya and
Ashrafiyya, Druze areas in the suburbs of Damascus. This took place at the end
of April 2025, in the wake of the distribution of faked recording in which a
Druze sheikh is supposedly heard speaking in condemnation of the Prophet
Muhammad. This slaughter aroused great anger both in the Sweida Governorate
and among the Druze in Israel, who demonstrated and demanded intervention by
Israel. In the wake of that, Israel warned the al-Shaara regime against
attacks on the Druze and made it clear that it would not hesitate to intervene
if the attacks on the Druze did not cease.
Agreements were reached
between the Druze leadership in Sweida and people from al-Joulani’s government
to the effect that the local Druze inhabitants would run matters in the
governorate in cooperation with a governor appointment by the authorities in
Damascus. Thus, a head of the governorate on behalf of Damascus was appointed,
he entered into talks with the Druze leadership and it appeared that the
situation had calmed. Additionally, an officer from al-Joulani’s army was
appointed to serve as the governor in the Quneitra Governorate and was
subsequently put in charge of internal security in the Sweida Governorate.
This officer, Ahmad al-Dalati by name, had served in the past as a liaison
officer with Israel and it has been reported that he has met several times with the Israeli side in the Golan Heights with the aim of reducing the
tension between Israel and al-Shaara’s regime.
On Saturday, July
12, Israeli and Syrian representatives met in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan,
to discuss the situation between the two countries in southern Syria, the
Golan and especially Jabal al-Druze. Details of the agreements between the two
side at this meeting have not leaked. However, Ahmad al-Dalati, who is in
charge of security in Sweida, sent a kind of summary of the talks in Baku to a
person who is living in London. Al-Dalati wrote: “The Israelis told us that
they no longer consider the al-Sweida Governorate to be a red line for them,
and that we can continue to implement the necessary security measures as they
have been implemented in the other Syrian governorates.”
The very
ext day al-Joulani’s forces headed towards Jabal al-Druze on their killing
spree. They bombarded the Druze villages, beheaded people, looted, abducted
women and children and shaved the mustaches of Druze sheikhs as a symbol of
religious humiliation. In short, nothing was missing from the crimes of the
jihad against “the heretics,” as enumerated in the chronicles of tribal and
Islamic history.
The outcry among the Druze in Sweida and their
pleas for help from the Druze in Israel, who demonstrated against the
slaughter in Sweida and burst across the border into Syria. This impelled
Israel to bomb the Syrian military command headquarters and the grounds of the
presidential palace in Damascus.
Al-Shaara’s regime went on
to take revenge on the Druze in another way. Claiming that the Druze had
attacked Bedouin in the area of Sweida, Sunni tribal militias, were recruited
and sent to slaughter Druze. Government forces also participated in the spree
of killing and destruction in the Druze villages in the Sweida
Governorate.
Just as in the massacre by Hamas on October 7 in
the Gaza border communities, here too in Jabal al-Druze the murderers recorded
themselves carrying out the crimes as they shouted “Allahu akbar.” A BBC correspondent reported from the region that the commander of one of the
jihadist militias, Abu Hudhayfa by name, gave orders to his people and
explained that “the aim is to kill the Druze heretics.” He added: “We don’t
want to take prisoners. Kill everyone you find, whether a child or an old
person.” Christians, who are also “heretics” in the eyes of the jihadists and
who live in peace with the Druze in Sweida, were also a target for the
murderous raids. In one locality, they massacred an entire Christian family of
about 20 people. The father of the family was originally a Druze, who
converted to Christianity and became a priest and the head of the local
church, living in peace for years with the Druze and the Christians
there.
In a leaked recording attributed to al-Dalati, the man
in charge of security in Sweida, he asks his security people and the other
militias not to upload the videos they film to the internet. In the meantime,
he is heard saying, it is necessary to let the security forces and the tribal
people crush the sons of bitches. After they take over the place, you can
upload as much as you want.
Even if the recording is not of
al-Dalati but rather of the commander of some other jihadist militia, the
remarks speak for themselves. In videos posted by Al-Joulani’s people
and jihadist militias, they filmed themselves raiding Druze communities and
they are heard reciting quotations from 14th century religious rulings about
how to treat the Druze.
What Do Those Religious Rulings Say?
The reference is to a ruling by Ibn Taymiyya, who is known as Sheikh al-Islam
and is considered the guiding light by disciples of the jihadist movement such
as al-Qaeda, ISIS, Jabhat al-Nusra and the like. This is the “spiritual”
breeding ground of al-Joulani and others among the Islamist fanatics. With regard to the Druze, Ibn Tamiyya wrote in his ruling that “there is no one
among the Muslims who disagrees that the Druze are heretics. And anyone who
doubts this is himself a heretic like them.” He added that they are even worse
than the Jews and the Christians and other idolators: “They do not have the
status of People of the Book or the polytheists who also have other gods
beside Allah.” And about how treat them he added: “It is prohibited to eat of
their food, their women will be taken captive, and their property will be
confiscated ... They must be killed everywhere they are to be found, and their
repentance must not be accepted.”
This is the “cultural
baggage” on which the jihadists have been educated. Thus, there is no cause
for astonishment at the horrific acts of slaughter in the Jabal Druze that
were carried out by al-Joulani’s messengers, the jihadist agents and the
tribesmen assembled from all kinds of places in Syria with the aim of
murdering, slaughtering, abducting and carrying out whatever they are ordered
to do by their incurable teachers of the above-mentioned murderous
ideology.
It is hard to know what will happen in Syria in the
foreseeable future. However, looking at the jihadist tradition and the
modern history of Syria with its decades of oppressive and murderous rule by
Assad the father, Assad the son who inherited the rule and oppression from his
father and even surpassed him in murderousness, and now the holy spirit of the
new murderous regime from the school of Ibn Tamiyya and his disciples, there
is apparently no light at the end of this sewer. Syria, as it is sprouting up
before our eyes is perhaps the clearest symbol of a double failure, the
failure of pan-Arab nationalism and the failure of what might be called Arab
nation-statism.
As long as those who dwell in this part of
the world do not understand the source of this failure, it does not look as
though the future is offering them any change for the better.
***
Published in MEMRI
For Hebrew press here
