Picture, if you will, the Druze – a small, noble community perched on the rugged hills of the Levant. They are neither Muslim nor Christian, neither Arab nor Jew in the strictest sense. They have survived for centuries by wit, steel, and the sheer obstinacy of refusing to conform to anyone’s neat little religious category. And for this very refusal, they have been treated – as all minorities in the Middle East inevitably are – as inconvenient facts that must either be erased, co-opted, or burnt to the ground.
Today, the Druze are under siege once again. From the mountains of southern Syria to the shadow of Hezbollah’s tyranny in Lebanon, they are being encircled by that familiar fever of the Middle East – Islamic radicalism – a plague that devours difference and spits out conformity. It is the same disease that gave the world ISIS, that lit the skies of Gaza on October 7 with the screams of slaughter, and that continues to stalk the Yazidis, Christians, Kurds, and anyone else unfortunate enough to be neither theocrat nor fanatic.
Islamic radicalism is not merely another “political grievance,” as the West’s moral relativists like to drone. It is a totalitarian creed, as vile in its single-mindedness as Nazism or Stalinism. It thrives on a delusional narrative of purity – and purity, as history teaches us, is always hungry. It cannot coexist with pluralism, or freedom, or even laughter. It cannot abide the sight of a woman’s uncovered hair or the whisper of a dissenting voice.
The West's response to Islamic radicalism
And what of the West, that noble chorus of “universal human rights”? Once upon a time, the West might have raised a finger or two in outrage when minorities were crucified in town squares. Now it has retreated. From the capitals of Europe to the salons of academia, the great and the good busy themselves with denouncing Israel – the one country in the region where the Druze are not just tolerated but empowered – while ignoring the clerics and militias who make minority life a daily roulette of terror.
The Druze of Israel serve in its military, hold positions of power, and enjoy freedoms that, elsewhere in the region, would be laughed out of existence or shot on sight. It is Israel that stands, quite literally, between the Druze and the abyss.
And yet we expect Israel to carry this burden alone. We expect it to defend not just itself but the entire principle of pluralism, while the rest of the world sits back, shrugs, and occasionally files a UN resolution condemning it for daring to survive.
Israel's role as the region's defender of minorities
It is an absurdity worthy of satire: the West, with its monuments to tolerance and memory of “Never Again,” now turning a blind eye to the minorities being hounded to extinction – all because acknowledging Israel’s role as the region’s sole defender of those minorities would offend the sensibilities of the bien-pensants.
If the West has chosen cowardice, then the peoples of the Middle East must choose courage. The Druze, the Christians, the Kurds, the Baha’is – all of them must recognize what should be blindingly obvious: Israel is not their enemy. Israel is their insurance policy.
The survival of Israel means the survival of a Middle East where difference is possible. Without it, the future is simply the tyranny of clerics, the stoning of women, the silencing of anyone who dares to think, laugh, or pray differently.
It is time for these communities to rise – not just with weapons but with the audacity to unite against the fascistic masquerade of “holy war.” The Druze know what this means; they have seen the fire up close. They have stood shoulder to shoulder with Israelis in the IDF, not because they love war but because they understand that the alternative is far worse: the slow, inexorable march of theocratic death.
The writer is executive director of We Believe In Israel.