As Syrian Druze plight deepens, Israel’s regional strategy emerges

The 22,000 Druze who live on the Golan Heights, which Israel occupied from Syria in 1967, have retained their Syrian citizenship and have been among Assad’s most loyal supporters.

The Syrian army has been in retreat since January, overwhelmed on many fronts by the now-better-equipped and better-organized rebel groups in the north and south, and by ISIS forces in the east.

The collapse of the Syrian 52^nd Brigade near Sweida in south Syria, and the hasty retreat of the Syrian army toward Damascus, have left the Druze in the Jabal al-Druze area exposed to anti-regime rebels – both moderate and Islamists.

The Druze in Israel – and the Druze on the Golan Heights – have been pressing the Israeli government to intervene on behalf of the Druze in south Syria, but the Israeli government has so far refused.

Israeli political and military officials did say, however, that the tacit understanding established with the Syrian rebels, including the Nusra Front, since 2011 allowed Israel to convey to the rebels that Israel would prefer if the rebel groups left the Druze alone.

So far, the rebels have complied with Israel’s requests.

Israel has also asked the United States to send military aid to the Druze through Jordan. Since January, the Druze have stopped sending military-age men to Syrian army recruiting centers, preferring to keep them close to home in the event the retreat of the Syria army would force the Druze to create their own self-defense militia. The Druze now have about 27,000 military-age men available, and with the right military supplies and training, and the creation of a command structure, could build a capable force.

Israel’s emerging strategy
The Times notes that the incident Tuesday morning displays the spiraling anger inside Israel’s Druze community, and among the Gola Heights Druze, over what they see as Israel taking the side of the anti-Assad rebels.

Israel has studiously avoided becoming involved in the Syrian war – with the exception of periodically bombing convoys trying to deliver advanced weapon systems from Syrian depots to Hezbollah in Lebanon – but it is not a secret that if Israel had to choose between a continuation of Assad in power and a rebel victory, it would prefer a rebel victory.

It was not always the case. There used to be a time – from the 1940s to the 1980s – when the Zionist movement and, since 1948, Israel, had tried to form a coalition of regional “outsiders” – what David Ben-Gurion called the Periphery Alliance. It was a dynamic and shifting construct, but at various times it included countries on the geographic periphery of the Middle East (Iran, Turkey, Ethiopia); ethnic minorities (Kurds, Druze); and religious minorities (Shi’a, Christian).

Advocates of this approach – typically grouped toward the more hawkish pole of the Israeli thinking on national security issues – argued that a coalition of the groups and countries threatened by the Sunni majority would balance this majority, and allow these countries and groups to prosper.

The ultimate, and final, manifestation of the Periphery Alliance approach was Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982, which Defense Minister Arik Sharon launched not only to kick the PLO out of south Lebanon (the declared goal of the war), but, more importantly, in order to impose the Christian Phalanges as the new rulers of Lebanon, and in the process force 200,000 or 300,000 Palestinian refugees out of Lebanon and into Jordan so they would topple King Hussein and turn Jordan into a Palestinian state (thus lessening the pressure on Israel to relinquish the West Bank to allow the emergence of a Palestinian state there).

The IDF’s intelligence branch objected to Sharon’s more ambitious – some described it as hubristic – goals, saying it would never work. The IDF put Beirut under siege, and Arafat and fellow PLO leaders left Lebanon and moved to Tunisia — but Sharon’s broader plan collapsed after Syrian intelligence operatives, on 14 September 1982, assassinated Bachir Gemayel, the Christian president anointed by Sharon.

In retaliation for the killing of their leader, Phalanges fighters entered two Palestinian refugee camps, Sabra and Shatila, and systematically killed about 1,000 Palestinian men, women, and children. An Israeli investigative commission found Sharon responsible “for ignoring the danger of bloodshed and revenge” and “not taking appropriate measures to prevent bloodshed.” The commission concluded that his failure to protect the civilian population of Beirut, which was under Israeli control, amounted to a non-fulfillment of a duty with which the Defense Minister was charged. The commission recommended that Sharon be dismissed from his post as Defense Minister. Sharon initially refused to resign, but eventually bowed to public pressure and left office.

For a discussion of the Periphery Alliance, see Trita Parsi, Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the U.S. (Yale University Press, 2007).

The Peripheral Alliance approach was criticized by more dovish elements in Israel’s national security establishment, and also by people with deeper knowledge of the Arab world and the region (two examples: Moshe Sharet and Abba Eban, who served as Israel’s foreign ministers in the 1950s and 1960s, and who were fluent in Arabic). This wing argued that the Sunnis are the majority in the region – and the overwhelming majority among Muslims worldwide. The way for Israel to “normalize” its condition – that is, be accepted by its neighbors and allowed to live in peace – was to find a modus vivendi with the Sunni states.

After the costly failure of the 1982 invasion – and the subsequent 18-year costly occupation of parts of southern Lebanon – there is no longer support in Israel for the notion of a coalition of regional outsiders (except on the fringes: see Caroline B. Glick, “Israel’s great opportunity: The plight of the Druse grows more dire from day to day,” Jerusalem Post, 18 June 2015).

The notion that Israel should side with the Sunnis is expressed, for example, by the three contributors — Elliott Abrams, Itamar Rabinovich, and Amos Yadlin — to “Israel’s Northern Border and the Chaos in Syria: A Symposium,” Jewish Review of Books (Summer 2015)

Elliott Abrams is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and served, most recently, as deputy assistant to the president and deputy national security advisor in the administration of President George W. Bush. He is the author of Tested by Zion: The Bush Administration and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. Itamar Rabinovich was Israel’s ambassador to the United States in the 1990s as well as chief negotiator with Syria between 1993 and 1996. He has written six books, including The View from Damascus: State, Political Community and Foreign Relations in Modern and Contemporary Syria. Major General (res.) Amos Yadlin has had a long career in the IDF (he was one of the pilots selected to bomb Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor in 1981) and served as the head of the Israeli Military Intelligence Directorate. He is currently the director of the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University.

Rabinovich and Yadlin are clear about their strategic vision, and about the policy recommendations regarding Syria which are derived from this strategic vision: The most serious threat to Israel is posed by Iran and its regional allies. The best policy to enhance Israel’s security, therefore, would be to support anybody who opposes Iran and its regional allies.

In Syria, this policy might see ISIS and Nusra Front increasing their influence, at least in the short run, but Rabinovich, a Syria specialist, is fine with that. He writes:

Syria also became the arena for a proxy war between Iran and its regional rivals. Israel has a major stake in the outcome of this conflict. It realizes that Assad’s fall could be the prelude to a change in Lebanon and to a weakening of Hezbollah [which] would constitute a blow to [Israel’s] most threatening regional enemy: Iran. If this were to occur, it would be worth the price of an ISIS presence on Israel’s border, undesirable as that might be.

Yadlin agrees, writing:

Most importantly, Assad’s departure would deal a serious blow to the Iranian-led radical axis, which is currently Israel’s primary strategic concern. Any Sunni terror organization that could seize control of Syria would find itself responsible for a country and therefore could be deterred from taking wild actions against us. Nasrallah himself repeatedly stated that Assad’s fall would be a great victory for Israel and the United States and an existential threat for Hezbollah. Moreover, in this endeavor, Israel shares strong interests with potential allies in the Arab Gulf, which could serve to deepen regional cooperation.

Assad’s demise and the collapse of the radical axis is the best strategic outcome Israel could expect. Iran’s support of Assad with tens of billions of dollars is not accidental and represents an understanding in Tehran that its influence in Syria is strategically important.

In the short-term, Israel is better off with its enemies fighting one another, rather than focusing their power against the Jewish state. In the long run, however, it would better serve Israel’s interest to team up with the United States, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia to bring Assad’s hold on Syria, and its horrific civil war, to an end.

Rabinovich and Yadlin are thus at the other end of the spectrum from Ben Gurion’s – and the early Sharon’s – Periphery Alliance approach.

Their argument is based on the recognition that the Middle East is dominated by Sunnis. The key to Israel’s survival is thus to find a way to live with the Sunnis. Finding a modus vivendi with the Sunnis — for example, by allowing the emergence of a an independent Palestinian state — will also have another salutary effect: it will strengthen the moderate majority among the Sunnis, turning them against the jihadist minority.

Much of the impetus for the emergence of Sunni jihadist groups like al-Qaeda and ISIS is rooted in the Sunnis’ sense of grievance and marginalization (probably exaggerated, but a motivating force nonetheless). Here are some of the steps the United States, and Israel, should take to demonstrate to the Sunni majority that the United States and Israel are on their side: Toppling Assad and allowing the Sunni majority to rule Syria; securing the rights of Sunnis and Kurds in a unitary Iraq – or allowing for a loose Iraqi federation to be formed with Sunnis and Kurds enjoying autonomy; allowing an independent Palestinian state to emerge; crushing Hezbollah in Lebanon; defeating the Houthis in Yemen; and containing Iran’s hegemonic influence (for a “hybrid” approach which calls for redrawing the map of the Middle East in order to accommodate the interests of both religious and ethnic minority groups, on the one hand, and the Sunni majority, on the other hand, see Grant Lally, “A framework for destroying ISIS and creating stability in the Middle East,” HSNW, 28 October 2014).

Which brings us back to Israel and the Druze. Israel should be in the business of protecting Israel’s interests — and these interests dictate that Israel align its policies so they agree, to the extent possible, with the preferences and sensibilities of the moderate Sunni majority in the region. This is why it is good news that Israel and Turkey — post-Erdogan defeat in the recent parliamentary elections — have unofficially resumed talks late last week on normalizing relations between the two countries.

Israel’s reference points should be the policies and preferences of Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States, Jordan, and Morocco. Israel should take steps which strengthen its relations with these countries, and abstain from taking steps which undermine the relations with them.

Israel should thus not ally itself with the Druze or the Kurds or the Christians in the region— except for strictly local, tactical purposes, and for extending humanitarian aid where necessary. This does not mean that Israel should be indifferent to the fate of these groups, only that Israel should be aware that where there is a conflict between such groups and a Sunni state or a Sunni majority — for example, between the Kurds and Turkey inside Turkey; between Assad-supporting Druze in Syria and the Sunni majority there; between Hezbollah-supporting Christians iand the Sunnis of Lebanon — Israel should tread softly.  

Regarding the Druze in Syria: Israel should exert its influence, as it has done so far, to prevent atrocities against the Druze, but the tacit, on-going cooperation between Israel and moderate Syrian rebel groups — and between Israel and Nusra Front — is the right long-term strategy for Israel.

Ben Frankel is the editor of the Homeland Security News Wire