The video below has been taking the internet by storm as it shows the Druze community in Hader in southern Syria asking Israel to annex them in order to provide protection from Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS).
Hader is situated right over the old DMZ and reports are now coming in that the IDF is indeed in Hader and many other Druze communities that lie at the foot of the Hermon mountain ridge. Hader’s residents is not only ethnically connected to the Druze in Israel’s Golan, they also share close family ties.
What is considered today to be Israel’s Golan Heights was captured from Syria in 1967. The areas Israel is now entering were already captured by Israel in the Yom Kippur War of 1973, called the Bashan Salient. If Kissinger had not forced Israel to leave these communities as part of the 1974 disengagement agreement with Syria, these Druze would have already been part of Israel.
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What’s even more surprising is that videos like the one below are beginning to circulate from Druze as far as As Suwayda, where the Druze are the dominant force. While it is hard to see how these Druze can be taken into Israel, the idea is catching on.
Support from Druze communities next to the Golan to join Israel makes sense. After all, the artificial boundary imposed by the ceasefire agreement of 1974 cuts through their historical areas. Now that Assad has fallen, fusing this strategic high ground to Israel while reuniting this Druze dominated area makes sense both from a national defense necessity as well as on moral grounds.
Druze in Israel are considered very patriotic and have given their lives time and again for the State of Israel especially in the current war against Hamas and Hezbollah. With the possibility of the strategic high ground and the Druze that reside within it in need of protection from the coming Islamist horde, the outpouring of support for annexation or at least some sort of permanent IDF protected autonomy is gaining momentum inside Israel. Israel has already started conversations with local Druze leaders nearer the border of Israel. With Trump taking over as the 47th president on January 20th, a case can be made that it is very likely that some sort of formal recognition of Israel’s right over this important area should and will be made.
After all, as mentioned above, Israel was already in control of this area after winning it in a defensive war in 1973. Only due to the pro-Arabist policies of the American administration at the time did Israel hand it back. It is now time to correct this historic mistake and create a true secure northern boundary for Israel.