[LegalInsurrection] Video: Druze Demand to be Annexed by Israel as Jihadi Groups Consolidate Power in Syria. Druze leader: We want “to live with freedom and dignity like our people are living” in Israel.
As the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) moves to secure a buffer zone on the Syrian border, the local Druze community in the area is demanding to be annexed by Israel.
In a video posted on X, a Druze leader is seen addressing a community gathering, urging Israel to exert its sovereignty over the territory.
“We asked to be annexed to the Golan to preserve our dignity,” the Druze speaker said. He feared that resurgent Islamist fighters “might take our women, might take our daughters, they might take our houses.”
“We ask in the name of all the surrounding area to join our people in the Golan, and to live with freedom and dignity like our people are living (in Israel),” he urged.
The video highlights that the Druze, who follow an Abrahamic religion separate from Islam, would prefer to live under Israeli law instead of under the rule of jihadi groups vying for power in Syria after the collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
The Times of Israel reported Friday:
An unverified video circulating on social media purports to show a member of the Druze community in the southern Syrian village of Hader calling for the community to be annexed to the Israeli side of the Golan Heights.
Although the speech is in Arabic, a version of the video was posted on X with English captions.
Speaking to a large crowd, the man tells them to consider what they want their future to look like following the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime earlier this week.
“If we have to choose, we will choose the lesser evil,” he says. “And even if it’s considered evil to ask to be annexed to the [Israeli] Golan, it’s a much lesser evil than the evil coming our way.”
He appears to be referring to Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the largest of Syria’s rebel groups, which has its roots in al-Qaeda (…).
“That evil might take our women, might take our daughters, they might take our houses,” he says, according to the captions.
“Bashar al-Assad left,” he continues. “What do we have left? Nothing.”
“We asked to be annexed to the Golan to preserve our dignity,” he says, adding that he speaks for the Druze community across the surrounding area of the Quneitra Governorate.
“We ask in the name of all the surrounding area to join our people in the Golan, and to live with freedom and dignity like our people are living [in Israel].
He calls for the Syrian Druze to be freed from the “injustice and oppression” that was first imposed on them by the Assad regime, and which they fear will soon be imposed on them again by the Islamist rebel groups.
The Druze population, largely Arabic-speaking, is concentrated around the Golan Heights region — divided between Syria and Israel. Israel is home to around 140,000 Druze, many of them living in the Golan region.
Members of this small minority, which make up less than two percent of the Israeli population, have distinguished themselves in the Jewish State’s military, social, and cultural life.
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