Druze community leaders in southern Syria spoke in favor of being annexed to Israel’s Golan Heights overnight Thursday, speaking amid fears of retribution by Sunni Islamist rebels who recently toppled the Assad regime, to which they have been historically loyal.
According to unverified videos posted to social media, the pronouncement was made during a council meeting of six Druze villages held in Hader in the Jabal al-Sheikh region on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights.
أهالي حضر في الجولان السوري المحرر يطالبون بضمهم الى اسرائيل . pic.twitter.com/eMQBDrLw65
— مركز دراسات الازمات nidal hamade (@nidalhamade2) December 13, 2024
A translation of the video quoted a local Druze representative as asking, “What’s our fate, my brothers?” with the crowd responding: “Israel.”
He continues: “In the name of all the people of Hader, and if anyone objects, please say,” with no objections heard. “If we have to choose, we will choose the lesser evil, and even if it’s considered evil to ask to be annexed to the [Israeli] Golan. But it’s a much lesser evil than the evil coming our way. ... That evil might take our women, might take our daughters. They might take our homes.”
Syria is home to more than 600,000 Druze, the largest Druze community in the world. Most reside in the Jabal al-Druze (“Mountain of the Druze”) area in the southeast of the country. More than 20,000 Druze reside in four villages in the Israeli Golan Heights.
The Knesset passed the Golan Heights Law in 1981, applying Israel’s government and laws to the Golan Heights. In 2019, under then-President Donald Trump, the U.S. recognized the Golan Heights as part of the State of Israel.
The Druze population in Israel is estimated at over 150,000—about 1.6% of the population, according to figures from the Central Bureau of Statistics.
A religious sect that began in Egypt about a thousand years ago as an offshoot of Shi’ite Islam, the Druze, who number about one million worldwide, primarily live in Syria, Lebanon and Israel, as well as in smaller communities in Western cities around the globe.
The insular and close-knit Druze faith was influenced by the Quran, Christianity and Judaism, as well Greek philosophy and Eastern mysticism, according to the American Druze Foundation.
