The Druze community in Sweida and the nearby villages in southern Syria is still under an urgent threat of massacre. Since July 13, Bedouins and Arab tribes, along with Syrian and foreign jihadists, reportedly in cooperation with forces loyal to the Sharaa regime, have launched unprovoked but vicious attacks against the Druze community.

These attacks have claimed the lives of many Druze civilians, including children, women, and the disabled, as well as hospitalized patients. Their religious symbols have been desecrated, and their mustaches, of enormous cultural and social significance, have been forcibly shaved. Moreover, civilian sites in Sweida and adjacent villages have been reduced to ruins.

Syrian Druze leader Hikmat al-Hijri and Israeli Druze Sheikh Muwaffaq Tarif have issued urgent pleas to the international community to protect the Druze community in Sweida from looming genocide.

International response to the situation

In response, Israeli airstrikes targeted jihadist positions in an effort to protect the Druze population and prevent a massacre reminiscent of the Alawite tragedy on Syria's west coast. This intervention significantly pushed back Sunni jihadist forces from Sweida and helped save many Druze lives.

International actors, such as the United States, mediated negotiations between the Druze resistance forces and jihadist regime elements, leading to three agreements on ceasefires and curfews. However, different factions within the Sunni jihadist coalition have repeatedly violated these agreements.

Amid this chaos, the Turkish government is reportedly transporting large numbers of jihadist militants from northern Syria to the south, toward Sweida, further escalating the conflict. Ankara has also threatened the Kurds in Rojava not to make any moves contributing to the safety of the Druze community and intensified its hostile rhetoric toward Israel.

This tragedy affecting the Druze community is not an isolated event. Since the Sunni jihadist takeover under the self-appointed interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa (Abu Mohammad al-Julani) on January 29, 2025, Syria's minority communities -- including Alawites, Druze, Kurds, and Christians -- have faced severe persecution. Between March 6 and 17, jihadist groups affiliated with Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham, al-Qaeda, ISIS, and others massacred over 1,400 Alawite civilians.

The jihadist regime in Damascus, in coordination with US Ambassador to Turkey and Special Envoy for Syria Thomas J. Barrack, as well as the representatives of the Erdogan regime, has repeatedly pressured the Kurds to disband the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and integrate into a still-nonexistent Syrian army.

Meanwhile, the Christian community has suffered devastating terrorist attacks, including those on June 22 at a church in Damascus that killed 25 civilians and injured over 70 others. What lies at the root of these genocidal actions by the jihadist regime in Damascus?

Critical issues to be addressed

Several critical issues need to be addressed to better grasp the root of the atrocities and the dilemma that ethnically and religiously minority communities in Syria are experiencing at the hands of the jihadist groups. These include, but are not limited to, Islamist intolerance toward cultural and religious difference, the subversive policy of neighboring Turkey, and the deliberate failure of the Western powers to acknowledge these factors due to short-sighted geopolitical interests.

Minority communities pay a high price when these issues are ignored: their lives, the erasure of their identities, and the destruction of their communities.

Sharaa's biography embodies the trajectory of jihadist groups in Iraq and Syria. He was ideologically and militarily trained by and fought alongside Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in the 2000s, the head of al-Qaeda in Iraq. During this time, he reportedly participated in multiple terrorist attacks against Kurdish-Yazidi communities and American forces.

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi dispatched him to Syria in the 2010s to establish the Al-Nusra Front, which later rejected a merger with ISIS.

However, despite their differing interpretations of strict Islamic teachings, al-Qaeda, ISIS, and Al-Nusra share several key similarities: They all reject secular values, are intolerant of non-Sunni Muslims and non-Arab groups, and seek to enforce a strict interpretation of Sharia law. Within this context, gender equality, peace, and cultural, ethnic, and religious pluralism are anathema.

These jihadist groups instead promote a homogenized Islamic culture that represents the Arab worldview. This jihadist vision is fundamentally incompatible with the multi-ethnic, multi-religious composition of Syrian society, sharing diverse cultures, lifestyles, and worldviews. The solution these jihadists deliver to address these differences is the extermination of minority communities framed as infidels due to their religious, cultural, and social nonconformity.

We know these jihadist methods from the genocidal atrocities of ISIS against the Kurdish-Yazidi community in Iraq and Syria in 2014, the Turkey-sponsored ethnic cleansing of Kurds from Afrin in 2018, the atrocities committed by Hamas against innocent Israelis in 2023, and recent jihadist massacres against the Alawite community. Moreover, jihadists under various banners have extended their deadly attacks to Europe, targeting the innocent people in Berlin, Paris, Brussels, Stockholm, London, and other cities.

Despite a wide range of harrowing and traumatizing experiences with the jihadists, the representatives of the Western states, including Barrack, continue not only to collaborate but also to empower and legitimize them in coordination with "allies" such as Turkey and Qatar, helping them to proceed toward the establishment of an ethnically and religiously homogenized, anti-Western, and antisemitic state governed by Sharia law.

Integration into the international community

Western governments pursue the integration of these jihadists into the international community, even at the cost of eradicating cultural diversity in Syria. It is tragic that Western governments, whose societies suffered immensely from the terrorist attacks of these jihadists, allow these very same groups to once again grow in influence across Syria, with Qatari funding and Turkish training, logistics, weapons delivery, and diplomatic support.

The Turkish regime has a track record of subversive policies, having overtly and covertly supported al-Qaeda, ISIS, and other jihadist groups with weapons, intelligence, transportation, and freedom of mobility in Turkey, enabling many to cross the Turkish-Greek borders toward Europe. The relationship between the Turkish regime and the Muslim Brotherhood, its expansionism, and its efforts to secure Muslim leadership in the Middle East and beyond have been widely reported on.

By entrusting the Turkish government with the task of designing a new Syrian state, Western policies contribute to the looming threat of genocide against diverse communities in Syria, undermining regional stability and pluralism. The same is true of efforts to legitimize Sharaa. In the many voice recordings of him circulating on social media, he openly expresses the end goal of occupying Jerusalem to free al-Aqsa.

In simple words, the Western actors fail to comprehend that their policies regarding the empowerment and consolidation of jihadists under Sharaa's leadership contribute to the formation of radical Islamist hubs that threaten diverse indigenous communities and their vision of a stable, pluralistic, and democratic Syria at peace with the West and with Israel.

It is imperative for Western powers to abandon short-term policies and instead adopt a sustainable approach that promotes stability and peaceful coexistence in a united Syria. This must include recognition of the importance of cooperation with local forces that share their values and genuinely seek a stable Syria with a sustainable future.

The long-term experiences of diverse populations in northern and eastern Syria exemplify the viability of their secular and pluralistic model embracing all diverse ethnic and religious communities, including the Sunni Arabs, Yazidi Kurds, Christians, and Assyrians. These communities have actively implemented this inclusive model, working to create a society founded on ethnic and religious pluralism, gender equality, and peace.

To achieve this goal, these communities have fought fiercely against ISIS, which is the predecessor of today's jihadists under Sharaa's leadership. Once again, the Western powers might reflect on this model, which has been capable of protecting Alawite, Druze, Christian, and Kurdish lives and has united these communities, allowing them to manage their own cultural and social affairs. Such a coalition among indigenous communities would also guarantee the security and political interests of Israel.

The writer is a research fellow at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.