The Goal is to Break Up Syria and Establish a Dependent 'Druze State'

Regardless of the heinous, humiliating, and condemned act committed by units of the army of the state of Sharia or the militias of al-Jolani against the members of the Druze community in Sweida, the intervention of Israel under the pretext of "protecting the Druze" and its bombing of Sweida and the capital Damascus is a blatant aggression against Syrian sovereignty, and an additional episode in the series of continuous Israeli assaults on Syrian territory, which began before the fall of Bashar al-Assad's regime and continued and intensified after its fall, targeting the destruction of the military and strategic capabilities of the Syrian state, occupying new areas of its territory, and imposing Israeli control in southern Syria.

Israel had previously claimed to protect Christians in Lebanon when it installed Bashir Gemayel in 1982 and signed the May 17 Treaty, which was toppled by the Lebanese resistance, then later established the "Lebanon Army" in the occupied south, and worked on arming, training, and funding it under this pretext. In reality, this client army was the one protecting its borders and served as a shield for its soldiers during the more than twenty-year occupation of southern Lebanon, not the other way around. When it withdrew, it did not even inform Lahd and his soldiers of the timing of its army's withdrawal, leaving thousands of its elements at the mercy of the Lebanese resistance, which was lucky for them, as it showed mercy towards them.

This is what Israel is trying to do in Syria by exploiting the evolving situations and employing the plight of the "Druze" to revive the vision of Yigal Allon from 1967 to establish a "Druze state in southern Syria that is free, aligned with the West, and reconciled with Israel, based on support from regional partners".

The American "Wall Street Journal" previously outlined the framework of the Israeli vision for a future Syria as seen by Israel, which consists of a federal system for ethnic regions enjoying autonomy, while the southern border area with Israel remains demilitarized. This was confirmed by Israeli Foreign Minister Gidon Saar when he stated: "A stable Syria can only be federal, bringing together different autonomous regions that respect different lifestyles," during his presentation of the Israeli vision for the future of Syria at a recent European Union meeting held in Brussels.

According to this logic, weakening the unified Syrian state and central governance is an Israeli goal that encompasses the destruction of Syrian military and strategic capabilities and the continuation of Israeli strikes on Syrian capabilities in general and on the new ruling regime, without considering its reconciliation with it and with the United States and the ongoing negotiations between them to reach security understandings and relations that optimists believe may lead to Syria joining the "Abraham Accords" for peace.

In this context, Israel will not miss any pretext to continue striking the capabilities of the state, which forms the basis for the unity of Syria, in order to facilitate its fragmentation. It exploits, in turn, its complex relationship with the Druze within Israel and in the Golan Heights to create a strategic depth within Syria.

While seeking to create a buffer zone within Syria under the pretext of defending its borders, its military operations are leading Syria towards federalism and an autonomous region under "Druze control" along its northern borders, a scenario that transforms Syria into a collection of small states uniting under a weak central rule that cannot threaten Israel.

In this context, Netanyahu's statements about a demilitarized zone south of Damascus, where the Syrian army is prohibited from being present, bring to mind the old plan that Israel attempted to implement after the 1967 war, which consisted of establishing an autonomous region in "the eastern shoulder of the Hermon," where 600-700 thousand Druze of Syria live, distributed over several areas, the most important being Sweida and Jabal al-Arab.

In light of that, one can understand the false "Israeli enthusiasm" for supporting the "Druze of Syria," crowned by more than 150 airstrikes on Sweida, Daraa, and Damascus, and the employment of genuine humanitarian feelings by some "Druze of Israel and the Golan" to break border barriers with Syria and enter Syrian territories and normalize the opening of borders with the supposed autonomous region in southern Syria, which has already begun bringing in Syrian workers to work in the settlements of the Golan.