On February 23, 2025, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared: "We demand the complete demilitarization of southern Syria from the forces of the new regime. Likewise, we will not tolerate any threat to the Druze community in southern Syria". In this regard, on March 1, 2025, there were minor sectarian clashes between Sunni and Druze locals in the Syrian Druze town of Jarmana, located about eight kilometers south of Damascus, and Netanyahu and his Defense Minister, Yisrael Katz, issued a public threat to the new Syrian, Al-Sharaa regime that Israel would be prepared to intervene in Syrian internal affairs in the event of an attack against Druze in the town of Jarmana. This article analyzes the motives behind Netanyahu's statement and its repercussions on the fate of the Druze minority, and whether Israel's involvement in Syrian internal affairs has a direct effect on the deadly massacres against members of the Druze minority in late April and mid-July in Syria.

After the fall of the Assad regime in early December 2024, notwithstanding, the new regime led by Ahmed al-Sharaa expressed its willingness to engage in a reconciliation process between all Syrian ethnic groups in order to form a united Syria. The willingness to become part of this new national reconciliation project was driven by the general fervor that culminated in a broad national sentiment and euphoria of building a new and democratic Syria, free from dictatorship. This fervor did not escape the Druze community, in the hope of opening a new page in the country's history after the departure of the Assad regime. Indeed, several Druze delegations from Lebanon and Swaida (the capital of the Druze province) visited and congratulated the new Syrian president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, while the integration of minorities, including the Druze minority, was, at least formally, on the agenda of the new regime.

Furthermore, Druze fighters from Swaida even launched an attack against the forces of the Assad regime on December 8, thereby participated in overthrowing the former regime and were seen as part of the forces that took part in building the new Syria. Similarly, the replacement of the old regime raised hopes among the Druze, as well as among the majority of the Syrian population, that the events of December 8, 2024, would herald a new and glorious era that would bring security and prosperity, given that the Syrian population under the Assad regime was not only lacking in security, but also basic subsistence needs, such as electricity, fuel, and food.

Indeed, at the end of December 2024, the al-Sharaa regime sent troops to Swaida to expand his rule over the district, but the Druze militia "Rejal al-Karama" or "Men of Honor" prevented them from entering the province, not because the province did not recognize the legitimacy of the new regime, but because the militia leaders wanted an agreement that would legalize the integration of their militia into the formal forces of the new regime, and that the security forces in the Swaida district would be composed of people from the province in addition to a small percentage of the new regime's forces. Consequently, the forces Al-Sharaa returned to Damascus on their heels and without any clashes.

Hence, Netanyahu's statement from February is controversial, especially since there was no public appeal from any senior figure in the Syrian Druze community at this time to Israel to provide any assistance for the community against the Sharaa regime and the Druze even hoped to integrate into the ranks of new regime. Finally, how did Israel intend to protect the Druze in Syria if it had no intention of deploying forces in undefendable Druze localities, such as the Jarmana area, which included surrounding Druze villages such as Sahnaiya and Ashrafiyat-Sahnaiya? Furthermore, for several months before the fall of the Assad regime, the Druze province of Swaida organized daily demonstrations against the Assad regime, in which the demonstrators called for democratization and political reforms, in light of the chronic economic and security situation in the province, while Israel did not issue any warning to the Assad regime to refrain from suppressing the demonstrations at the time.

Netanyahu and Katz's statements raise a number of significant questions: What was the purpose or intention behind their statement? Why was the message about Israel's willingness to protect the Druze not secretly conveyed to the regime? Was this statement about intervening in Syrian internal affairs in order to protect the Druze in fact a camouflage and an instrumental device for Israel's desire to realize its strategic interests in Syria, which included: demilitarizing the entire area south of Damascus, and keeping Syria internally divided along sectarian lines and externally weak militarily.

It is important to note that one of the strategies of the Druze and religious minorities in the region is the principle of "Takiyya", that is, dissimulation or maintaining a low profile and even creating external visibility that the minority is not actually different from the surrounding Sunni majority amidst which it lives, in order to prevent a situation in which the minority would be perceived as non-Muslim and hence as a group that is perceived as heretic by Islamists (Dana, 2009). In short, based on the Takiyya, the Druze community sought to remain under the radar of Middle East politics (Halabi, 2020), while Netanyahu's statement put the community in the spotlight.

Here it is worth mentioning that Israel occupied the Syrian Mount Hermon immediately after the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024. Israel wanted to occupy Syrian lands adjacent to its border in order to prevent any future attack........

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