Another Dark Turn

Hezbollah kills 12 young people on a soccer field in a Druze town in Northern Israel

Not many are familiar with the Druze community. They speak Arab but are neither Muslim, nor Christian, yet they are a monotheistic religion with their own history, traditions and even a flag. Most of them reside in Syria and Lebanon, but also in Israel where they constitute some 1.5% of the population. And in Israel, while not integrated culturally, they are full and loyal citizens with some 5% of all IDF soldiers Druze. In fact the Druze community is one of the stronger pillars of Israeli society where the group has prospered over the years. Most reside in the north with a portion of them living on the Golan Heights, an area that until 1967 was Syrian territory, but is now Israel proper although not everyone quite agrees on that status. In this particular area we find the community of Majdal Shams which has some 10,000 inhabitants. On Saturday a Hezbollah missile struck a soccer field in the town and killed twelve Druze children.

While all evidence pointed to Hezbollah for launching the Iranian-made Falaq-1 rocket, the question becomes, why? Was it an attack aimed at Israel where the missile had gone astray, or was it a deliberate move with Syrian and Iranian involvement to provoke Israel? Or, more plausible, was the goal to drive a wedge right into the heart of Israel’s multicultural and multiethnic society by attacking one of the groups that has been happily working and living alongside its Jewish majority? If that’s the case then Israel has, in addition to three fronts in Gaza, the north and Yemen, now a challenging domestic situation on its hands. This is one of the reasons Israel’s top commander, IDF chief Herzi Halevi, visited the area right away to meet with senior Druze leaders (see photo).

Whatever Hezbollah’s motivation, Israel responded with a few routine counter attacks over the weekend while awaiting Nethanyahu’s return from US. Last night a security cabinet meeting with the prime minister present authorized him to take any and all necessary action to deliver a military response for this ghastly attack on the Druze community. There may be little room to maneuver here as the calls for revenge from both Druze and Israeli side go deep and it may be used to now deliver a serious blow to Hezbollah and at the same time address the endless terror that has made Israel’s north uninhabitable for the past nine months.

But the risks however are significant as this could easily escalate into a major war in Lebanon with Iran and Syria in the mix which is why US and European diplomats were doing overtime this weekend to try and mitigate the fallout. Hezbollah itself as a ruling faction in Lebanon now has reason to worry too about domestic turmoil as the Lebanese Druze community may step up and decide to get involved. And all of this, be aware, is playing itself out as negotiations for a ceasefire and hostage release in Gaza with Hamas are ongoing in Rome.

We discussed here before that is will be hard for Israel to muster the resources to launch an all-out war against Hezbollah and the Americans do not have the appetite for such an adventure. Not only is it election season, a full war with Iran in the mix will relegate the Biden/Obama Iran policy to the dustbin of history and force a far more active US military involvement. But it may be time to change the dynamics here as the hostilities in the north can no longer continue. Every week another red line is crossed, casualties increase and the Majdal Shams massacre begs the often repeated question: what is next?

A cessation of the war in Gaza with a concurrent hostage release plan may force Hezbollah to dial things back. But it will not have changed the situation on the ground where the anger and anxiety over Iran’s belligerent moves is now boiling over into different segments of the Arab world and the Druze are another exhibit in an ever widening war. The world may be able to put a lid on it, but at some point the engineers of terror in Tehran will have to be held to account. Otherwise there can be no peace in the Middle East.

The eleven young victims of the attack on Majdal Shams, a twelfth casualty was identified later: