Syrian flag
On the main square of the Druze town of Majdal Shams in Israel’s Golan Heights, Nabi Halabi mingled with dozens of fellow residents waving Free Syria flags to loud music at an impromptu celebration on Monday of the fall of Bashar Assad’s regime.
Halabi, 57, greeted his neighbors with a hearty “mabrouk”—Arabic for congratulations—as boys from his community danced around the square’s imposing statue of a sword-brandishing Sultan al-Atrash, a late Druze national leader.
Nightmare Over?
The party, which featured a cake in the colors of the Free Syria flag, was about the collapse of the Assad dynasty’s 51-year-long reign in Syria, where Golan Druze have many relatives. But the festivities were only partly over events in Syria: The celebration was also about what the revolution means for the Druze of the Golan, who may now feel freer to integrate into Israeli society.
“We constantly had this nightmare under Assad, that the Golan would be given back. Now this reality has changed,” said Halabi, who works in renewable energy.
Communal Alibi
He was referencing a predicament that has defined the Golan’s 20,000-odd Druze since their communities came under Israel’s control in 1967. Amid periodical discussions about returning the land to Assad’s Syria as part of a potential peace agreement, the Golan’s Druze residents have predominantly declined Israeli citizenship, asserting that they consider themselves Syrian citizens living under occupation.
This narrative was widely understood as a communal alibi in case such a deal materialized and they once again became subjects of the oppressive Assad regime, which had waged several wars against Israel even before it became an Iranian client regime in recent years.
Israelization
In practice, though, the Druze of the Golan integrated enthusiastically into the fabric of society in the predominantly Jewish region, setting up hundreds of businesses in the area, which they market in Hebrew to Jewish patrons.
Especially millennials and younger Golan Druze tend to be fluent in Hebrew and English as well as their native Arabic. Culturally plugged into the Israeli mainstream and its fashions, the appearance of some of them—complete with nose rings, blue-dyed hair and dreadlocks—sharply contrasts with the traditional attire favored by their elders.
The small size of the Golan Druze community has required them to marry spouses from Druze communities elsewhere in the country who have been Israeli citizens for decades. In those communities, many consider themselves part of an unbreakable alliance with the Jewish state.
This has expedited the modernization and Israelization of the Golan Druze, but the main catalyst for this process came in 2011 with the de facto breakup of Syria in its civil war. It had set the scene for the Assad regime’s collapse.
This year, the four Golan Druze communities had more than 1,400 Israeli citizens, compared to only about 200 in 2006. In this year’s local elections, more than 3,000 Golan Druze voted, compared to 277 in 2009.
“People here want to preserve and deepen the Israeli part of their identity and I’m sure it will be easier for many of them to do this now,” Halabi said. “At the same time, it’s now easier to express the Syrian part of our identity because Assad the dictator and his butcher regime are no longer part of that picture,” he added.
Few Comment
Syrian flags—once commonplace in the Golan Druze communities—have all but disappeared there, Yusri Hazran, a lecturer on Druze culture at Shalem College in Jerusalem, told Globes in August. Now, Syrian flags have made a comeback in Majdal Shams—but not those of Assad’s Syria. On Monday, locals flew the Free Syria flags of the rebels who ousted Assad.
Symbolically, one of those flags was affixed to the statue of Sultan al-Atrash, who fought the French colonial rule in the 1920s that paved the way to Syrian statehood in 1946.
Decades of political ambiguity have left their mark on the Golan Druze. Out of a dozen people approached by JNS in Majdal Shams and over the phone for this article, only Halabi agreed to speak. The rest declined to comment, telling this reporter courteously but adamantly that they prefer to “stay out of the politics of it all,” as one hotel owner put it.
Others let pictures do the talking. Several people showed up at the celebration on the main square carrying the portraits of loved ones who had died in the civil war, which they blamed on the Assad regime. Others held up the portraits of some of the 12 children who were murdered here on July 27 by a Hezbollah rocket from Lebanon.
The place where the rocket hit, on the edge of Majdal Shams’ soccer field, has been left largely untouched, an unofficial monument. It is still strewn with the twisted and charred chassis of scooters, framed by the mangled remains of some fencing and a goalpost.
Halabi said he regarded the collapse of the Assad regime—an important component in Iran’s Shi’ite axis and formerly Hezbollah’s rear base and strategic depth—as payback for the murders. “But the score isn’t settled. Syria’s fall means Hezbollah’s eventual dismantling. And the Assad people responsible for this and other crimes—committed in Israel, Syria and Lebanon—will need to account for their actions,” he said.
Dreams for Future
The Assad regime fell three days after a ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel went into effect. It ended a 13-month conflict during which Israel eliminated Hezbollah’s top command and severely diminished its fighting force, arsenal and offensive capacity. In the past, Assad’s regime had relied on Hezbollah’s battle-hardened troops against the rebels. Assad’s other allies, Russia and Iran, did not come to his rescue.
Halabi dreams of “a thriving, affluent, liberal Syria, living side by side with Israel and realizing the huge potential of this partnership.” Within five to 10 years, Halabi said, “there will be peace between Syria and Israel,” adding, “I’m talking about a future where we could have breakfast in Damascus and lunch in Tel Aviv.”
Islamic Rule?
However, the rebel groups that brought down the Assad regime include Sunni Islamists with ties to Al Qaeda. The United States considers the rebels’ leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, aka Abu Mohammed al-Julani, a terrorist. Footage of the rebels purportedly taken after the regime’s collapse shows gunmen vowing to march on Jerusalem.
Halabi believes the rebels will not seek to impose Islamic rule on Syria, citing reports that al-Julani has ordered his men to refrain from imposing an Islamic dress code on women.
Meanwhile, Israel has carried out hundreds of air strikes this week in Syria, reportedly to eliminate strategic weapons it does not want to fall into the hands of the rebels, Hezbollah, or Iran. It has also set up forward posts beyond the border on Syrian soil, in a move Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said was a temporary precaution.
Israeli Opposition leader Yair Lapid and many other Israelis have justified and praised these actions. Halabi, however, called them ”a bad start.” Still, he added, “In the coming months, the dust will settle and the dawn of a new period in the history of Israel and Syria will rise.”
