Ever since regime change in Syria last December, the country had not exactly offered safety to its minorities, despite President Ahmed al-Sheraa’s (al-Julani) fine words that he is the head of all Syrians, not just Sunnis.

Druze have been murdered in the town of Suweida, there has been massacre, mutilation and humiliation.

In fact there are suspicions that Al-Julani’s own forces slaughtered the entire staff at Suweida’s hospital along with their patients and carried out extrajudicial executions.

The international community has been conspicuous by its silence: no Jews, no news. The international media have reverted to form, obscuring who are the real aggressors and blaming Israel for de-stabilising Syria. They have deflected from Syrian atrocities against the Druze by decrying Israel’s symbolic bombing of the Ministry of Defence in Damascus.

Only one country has rushed to intervene to save their Druze blood brothers: Israel.

The Druze are an ancient offshoot of Islam but are viewed by Islamists as heretics. Israel is committed to protecting its 150,000-member Druze minority. They serve in the IDF, often with distinction, and in the security services.

But there is a wider significance to Israel’s intervention – the Jewish state has taken on the mantle of champion of Middle Eastern minority rights.

Until the destruction of the Jewish communities of the Arab world, Jews were one of the oldest indigenous minorities in the Middle East, itself a rich tapestry of different tribes, religions and sects. Yet people insist on viewing political rights in the region as belonging exclusively to Arab Muslims: 22 Arab states were created by European colonialists (who drew arbitrary lines on a map). Only Zionism is treated and rejected as a a creature of western colonialism.

Mesmerised by the romance of the Palestinian cause, the West routinely ignores the plight of other minorities. There are five times as many Kurds as Palestinians, but where are the calls for their rights?

While disproportionate attention has been paid to the Balfour Declaration’s call for a homeland for the Jews, it is often forgotten that Kurds, Assyrians and other non-Arab minorities also sought self- determination the wake of World War One. They were betrayed by colonial powers, who broke their promises and surrendered to the demands of the pan-Arab nationalists.

Instead of giving minorities the right to be different the nationalist ethos has invested a predominantly Arab Sunni elite with power, and oppressed Berbers, Assyrians, Baloch and Kurds.

Religious minorities – Copts, Druze, Baha’i’s, Yazidis, Mandaeans – do not aspire to self-determination but do deserve to have their rights protected. The record of Arab regimes here has been abysmal. It’s a safe bet that even if Israel had not existed, Jews, Zoroastrians, Bahais and Copts would continue to have been pushed out of the Middle East.

This is because, to quote the great historian Bernard Lewis:’ in the Muslim world view it is right and proper that power should be wielded by Muslims and Muslims alone. Others may receive tolerance, even the benevolence of the Muslim state, provided they clearly recognise Muslim supremacy.’

Israel stands out as the only sovereign non-Muslim state in the Middle East (Lebanon was carved out of Syria by the French as a safe haven for Maronite Christians, but these are now a dwindling minority in a fragmented state until recently dominated by the Iran-backed Hezbollah.) Without an army, Israel would be as vulnerable to massacre as the Yazidis – who were targeted for rape, massacre and forced conversion by ISIS in Iraq.

This could conceivably have been the fate of Mizrahi Jews, 99 percent of whom have fled the Arab Middle East. In his essay ‘Mizrahi Nation’, the Israeli journalist and author Matti Friedman writes: “The construction of the state of Israel, in which Mizrahi Jews have been partners of numeric equality (if not other forms of equality) for over 66 years, provided the stateless Jews of the Middle East with self-determination in their native region and turned them from an endangered minority into half of a majority.

Indeed, as Friedman puts it, having your own sovereign state and the power to defend it is the only way to survive in the hostile environment that is the Middle East. His words have never been truer.

Lyn Julius

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