Ask Haviv Anything - Episode 29: After the Druze massacre, can Israel make peace with Joulani? A conversation with Druze activist Rania Fadel Dean

Episode Date: July 17, 2025

The clashes in Sweida in southern Syria this week focused world attention on the plight of the Druze and questions about the nature of the new Syrian government. Videos and claims of atrocities drove hundreds of Golan Druze to rush into Syria to the rescue of their brethren. Israeli strikes in Damascus against Syrian forces raised the stakes and led to questions, including in Israel itself, about how Israel can protect the Druze while not sacrificing an expansion of the Abraham Accords.Rania Fadel Dean comes from a prominent Israeli Druze family. Her organization, Covenant, seeks to teach Americans about the Druze community. She joins us to share an Israeli Druze perspective, including what she's hearing from friends and family members in Sweida.This episode was sponsored by Bennett and Robin Greenspan of Houston, Texas, strong supporters of Israel who recognize Israel's centrality and vitality to the Jewish world. They asked to dedicate this episode to lone soldiers serving in the IDF.Please join me on Patreon to support this project: ⁠www.patreon.com/AskHavivAnything⁠.If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at [e-mail]⁠.Musical intro by Adam Ben Amitai.

Hi, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Ask Haviv Anything. This is an emergency episode because of dramatic developments in the Middle East. The Middle East will do that to you quite often. So here's another emergency episode. This one is very close to my heart on a subject that really sparked a lot of worry among many, many Israelis. And not just among our Drew's brethren, but among Jews, among every Jew I know. No. On July 11, in what looked like a simple crime at the time, a vegetable seller, a Drew's vegetable seller on the road from Swayda, outside of Swayda, the city in southern Syria, that is majority, Druze, was kidnapped by Bedouin Sunni militia tribe, depending on which news outlet you talk to. It's a different word. and that sparked the beginning of what Western media has called sectarian violence.

When you don't entirely understand and don't 100% know who we're talking about, and everybody's a little bit brown, it can all be called sectarian violence, and there's no right and there's no wrong, and the details don't really matter. The details matter to me very, very much. And the first person I called, roughly around when the death toll passed 150 in the fighting that is, ensued. And for the umpteenth time, the Druze communities of southern Syria were threatened, dramatically, profoundly, and the Syrian army and the excuse of this violence between the Bedouin

Sunnis and the Druze then began marching south of Damascus to Sweda, allegedly, according to the Syrian government of Mr. Jolani, in order to conduct some law enforcement, in order to quiet the violence and restore order and sovereignty and all kinds of nice words like that. The first thing I did, when the death toll passed, I don't know, 150, and it became clear that something very dramatic is happening in southern Syria since July 11th. And when footage began coming out of these Sunni militiamen shaving the beards and mustaches of religious leaders of the Druze

and then executing them in cold blood, when that kind of ISIS-style violence became clear that that's what was actually taking place. And then the Syrian military is, of course, a military under a man who, up until very recently, was a lifelong fighter for essentially al-Qaeda, various versions of various groups that were affiliated or actually swore allegiance to al-Qaeda. And so when it became clear that that was part of that dynamic, I called a friend of mine who I have known for years as Rania Fadel, but her married name is Rania Dien, and who belongs to a kind of royal family among the Jews, one of the families of the religious leadership.

She won't tell you this, I'm going to do it, of the religious leadership of her grandfather was an important religious figure in the Jews community in Israel, and her father, a political figure involved in high-level Israeli politics. And I asked Rania because I knew that Rania would know the voices from southern Syria itself, what the jurors were saying, not what was necessarily reaching media reports. And that's the conversation I wanted to have, and I wanted to really understand what was happening, what's actually going on in southern Syria. Before we get into it, I want to tell you that this episode,

is sponsored by Bennett and Robin Greenspan of Houston, Texas, who have sponsored a series of our episodes, and we're very grateful to them for doing that, who are strong supporters of Israel, who recognize Israel's centrality and vitality to the Jewish world. They asked

that we say that they're proud to sponsor this episode, because the insights from this podcast makes the understanding of the Middle East a little bit easier, and they asked to dedicate this episode to the lone soldiers of the IDF who come to Israel with a love of Zion in their hearts to serve in the army.

Bennett and Robin, thank you once again. Rania, before we get into it, I want to just say a couple of things about the Jews of Syria, just to sort of lay the table, set up the table, and then I want to get into your story and then get into the story of the Jews of Southern Syria at this moment. There are roughly before the Civil War in Syria, 700,000 Jews in a population of, give or take, 25 million. Now, maybe it's down to 21 million. and nobody quite knows.

And the Jews have faced many, many attacks. They were loyal to Assad, to the Assad regime. The Sunni hate them for it. They are loyal to whoever rules over them. In Lebanon are loyal Lebanese patriots and in Israel are loyal Israeli patriots. That has something to do with the Jews' religion. That has something to do with Drew's history.

I want to get into that. But what we've seen in Syria lately is constant, never-ending harassment and threats against that community. and one of the really fascinating things that I don't think is understood overseas. I tweeted in one of the last clashes, I don't know when it was a couple of months ago, I guess, times gone very strangely in the last 22 months or so. I tweeted that our brothers, the Druze, are in trouble and it is our duty to, something that to me is so obvious and everybody I know agrees with,

and our duty is to come to their aid. And a lot of English speakers out there in the world said to me, What are you talking about? What are you guys? What is this tribal stuff? What are you? Why are you? And I'm like, you guys don't understand.

My commander in the army, my direct lieutenant, I was never more than a sergeant in the infantry. My lieutenant was Drew's. And I owe him, I owe him more than I care to admit. I owe him a great deal in protecting us and in leading us, including in combat. And so that bond is deep and it's real. And if you don't understand it, you will be surprised that Israeli actions in Syria. going forward. And the world is now a little bit surprised that the IDF has now struck the general staff headquarters of the Syrian military and that the IDF has said we are escalating and just today

we heard that Division 210 is going to receive backup troops in the northern border in case it has to step in much more dramatically. And the Syrian government has announced today, I don't believe them, but at least the announcement suggests they understand that there's real danger for them, that they're going to withdraw the forces from southern Syria. And, you know, two members of Knesset, from Israel, Betanu, and one from the Likud Party, have gone into Syria, walking into Syria, to pull back the hundreds of young Druze men who have gone into southern Syria, crossing the border without permission of the Israeli military, to go help the rest of the Jews in Southern Syria. Just to tell them, come back, we know the IDF is going to do what it needs to do

to protect the Jews. There is a bond here, and this is something that Israelis feel deeply, Jewish Israelis and Jerusalem Israelis And so there's something dramatic that I want to unpack But let's do it slowly and systematically So that we can bring with us everybody Everybody's coming with us So first of all, Rania, we have known each other for many, many years And not too many. We're all very young, of course.

And tell me a little bit about your story. So, Habib, as you know, I was born in Israel And I was born in northern Israel in a city. Now it's a city back then. village called Magar and my family as you said my home was a hub for political leaders we used to host all political leaders from the Lakud party back then because my dad was involved in it and I grew up in a very patriotic home very involved in politics and this is how I grew up very active and then there some years a few years ago I moved to Dalatil Carmel got married and then

I came here to Los Angeles and then October 7th happened and when October 7th had happened And everyone who got to know me before, they asked me to start my advocacy efforts again. And this is how I restarted my advocacy efforts. I started, you know, going from synagogue to church, so conferences, speaking about Israel from a point of view of a minority member. And then I also took part of the project for PTSD treatments with another organization here in Los Angeles. And then I established my own organization. Now I'm a founder of the organization called Covenant. And this organization aims to explain to the USA citizens who the Druze are because no one knows.

Very few people know about the Jews and also to explain the connection between the Druze and the Jewish community. So let's get into it. You spend a lot of time explaining who the Druze are to people outside of Israel who are, who are pretty familiar with the Druze, but actually nobody outside the Druze are really all that familiar with the Jews because the Druze have, very famously, a secret religion.

Now, what I would like you to do is tell us everything there is to know about that religion so that we will all finally know. No, that was a joke. I'm sorry, that was an inappropriate dad joke. I myself don't know because we are divided into secular and knowledgeable or a kuhl and shuha. So now I'm part of the secular sector, which is the juhal, and we are not allowed to know anything about the religion.

We have other sector which called al-Qal. They are the initiated people or people who know the secrets of the religion, and there there are also levels. Not every religious Jews knows as much as the other. It all depends on how much he can learn, his mental capacity, because it's a very, complicated philosophical religion that you need to have a specific mental capacity in order to be able to absorb all of these, you know, philosophical aspects of the religion. Now, among us, secure the Juhal people, we know the basics. We know who we are, where we came from our fundamentals. We have the five elements that we believe shape your humanity or your personality, which is shaping our, If you are familiar with a Drew store, it's made of five colors, and each color represents

one value, one human value that we believe in. We know the basic things like any human being, all the fundamentals, don't lie, don't steal, and we try to live our life in a peaceful way to live and let's live. We don't interfere with other people's faith, but don't interfere with ours. And this is how we build our community based on loyalty to the place you live in solidarity with that community, other communities that you live among. We sometimes celebrate other people's holidays as an act of solidarity. We don't interfere with their belief in this is how we grew up, Javiz. Now, there is a reason why our religion is secret.

It didn't come from a desire to make it complicated, of course. And unfortunately, these reasons are proven us again and again that we were right hiding our identity because we used to live in a place in a region that had never accepted the others as different people had never accepted their right to exist. And when we decided hundreds of years ago or thousands of years ago to go undercover, or let's say to go behind those. and the underground to pray. We were executed back then because of our belief,

and we decided that the only way we can survive as a minority is to hide our belief, to hide our identity, to hide our ethnic identity. And this worked for us at some points, but not always. We were massacred, we were executed along the history. What is happening in Swayda is not the first time, unfortunately. and I hope it's going to be the last time, but I've been very optimistic, unfortunately. Some of the fascinating things that I have learned about the Druze religion from being just living

with Jews, studying at university with Jews, having Drew's soldiers and commanders and friends, there's a belief in reincarnation. This is a religious tradition that's a thousand years old. This is not new, this is not recent, this is not. And really, the Jews are often overlooked in conversations about this region. They're a major force in Lebanon. They are an important minority in Syria. And the Israeli Jews have experienced from the Jews something that Israeli Jews are not used to,

which is genuine profound allyship and solidarity to the point where the Jews asked at the beginning of the state, something that the state, the newborn Jewish state, did not ask of other minorities, of Muslim Arabs, etc., which is to take part in the mandatory military draft. And so the Jews do. Now, what is the source of that decision by the Jews' leadership in 1948 and by the Jews community until today? To be part of that Israeli experience and to almost bind their fate in this covenant. You called your organization, Covenant. it's a reference to what Jews also call it a covenant.

Right. Britamim is a covenant of blood because we serve together. But then people don't like the term blood because it sounds like all we can do is die together. They want to say, right, no, we want to actually live together. So then it's a Brit Chaheim, a covenant of life. But that whole discussion, nobody ever leaves out the word covenant. It was almost, it was a Drew's decision. Where did that come from?

Why are the Druze part of Israel so deeply? So with so much belief and commitment. So that's right, Kaviv, this question has two levels to answer it. One is related to the modern history of the Druze community, and one is related to their roots, who they are really for real and where did they come from. So let me first start with the modern history. On the 1930s, when there was no Israeli country yet, it hadn't been established yet, The Druze lived among other minorities in Israel and in Syria and in Lebanon.

And within Syria, the Druze, within the Israeli border, sorry, before that it wasn't called Israel yet, but it was under the British mandate. Druze and Jewish people had left side by side keeping this friendly relationship, and it wasn't new. It didn't start only on the 1930s. There are documents from a rabbi called Benjamin of Todela. He's a Spanish rabbi that came and just toured the Middle East. And he documented, and these records are from 1,165. He documented that he found a small minority.

He called them Drusia, and he said they are very friendly to the Jewish people. So this friendship or this close bond wasn't established only because, as some people say, because the Druze people are always loyal to the country they live in. It was way before. And during the Arab revolt, the Druze people in the beginning were kind of neutral because they are a small minority. After all, they want to protect themselves. But when they were asked in force to take a side,

they decided to take the Jewish side when the Jewish people were still the weak side. They weren't strong yet. The Druze people held the Jewish people and protected them, protected their neighbors. There is another incident. I don't know if many people know about it, but at some point, Abahoshi, Abahoshi was the mayor of Haifa.

He had a very close relations with the Druze community, especially in Asifia. And at one point, he even visited Jabal at the Druze, the Druze Mountain in Syria, and he met with Sultan Bashal Atrash, which was the leader of the Druze community there, and Sultan gifted him his sword. Now, if anyone goes to, we can't.

and search this and go to Abahoshi page, they would find the photo of this sword still on his Wikipedia page. That means when you give someone your sword, that means some sort of trust. Now, this means that the connection, the modern connection between the Jewish people and the Druze people didn't start exactly in 1948 when the Druze people found that Israel is going to win, because this is something that I hear very often, and I have to correct. this. They started even before, they started joining Haganah before IDF was established, before 1948. And in 1948, they joined officially the Israeli army. They fought side by side. We have even fallen soldiers even before 1948. Now, after that in 1956, the Israeli service became

mandatory. The army service became mandatory for the Drule's community, and they became just like any Jewish person, they have to serve in the army. And then, you know, like from there, it's all history. We can just see and read about it. But if you ask me, why? And that's a very legitimate question. Why the Druze, they have, after all, they speak Arabic, their culture is closer to the Arab people.

Why they choose to be with people who came from Europe mostly and be on their sides? If you go to Google or Wikipedia, you see that the Druze people are part of the Islamic Shiates sects, that they are part of Islam, that they are Arabs, and they were established in 121 by Muslim caliphate called Hakeem by Amrilla in Egypt. That's what you're going to read. But in our homes, we are always having and carrying this oral history that we pass from generation to generation telling us, we were established way before Islam was established. But what is fascinating to me is, you know, there's something that is similar about us. The Jews' religion, culture, the language, obviously is much closer to Muslim Arab. But, and yes, you know, if you talk to the historians on these questions,

I'll tell you that it's an outgrowth of Ismaili Shiism and, right, but very early on, already became its own religion. But the Jews are oppressed, so much so that their religion became deeply. secretive, these ideas that exist in Shia Islam like Takia, which is you're allowed to lie, but only to avoid oppression by those who will come hunting for you, mostly Sunni Arabs, but not only, those ideas exist within the Dru's culture and Dru's religion, which is a signal of the level of oppression that they faced, and you don't convert. And so if you're not a massive converting world-conquering religion, but a small group, one of the fascinating statistics I found

on the Druze many years ago and for no reason at all I was reading out of just fascination, was that the intermarriage rate of the Jews is very nearly zero. It's something like 2%. Even when the Jews live deeply integrated with the Jews, for example, or in other places in the world. So it's a tight-knit, strong solidarity, religious-slash-tribal ethnic group that religion defines a kind of tribalism that doesn't convert. it's awfully Jewish. In other words, I feel that I, when I look at the Druze,

I see very much what the heck we are. If people say to me, what the heck is Jews? In America, you're supposed to be a religion. How come you have a country? And I'm like, what are you talking about? Look at the Druze. You know that thing where a religion can define a people? Just whatever the heck they are, I'm that.

Find a name for it. Then it put me on the list, right? There's a connection there that makes it very comfortable, very easy to understand. I never had to stand there with my, you know, in the army, fellow soldiers in my unit and say, but I don't understand what you are. I feel like I understand exactly what you are. Structurally, never mind if I actually don't know your religion.

You know, Chavid, I even don't know most of my religion, but it doesn't matter really because as I said, like this is the history, the modern history that we are, we know, but if we go to our oral history that we pass from generation to generation, everyone, every Drews knows that we are an ethnic minority, that we're here for thousands of years, that we don't, integrate, we don't marry with another, you know, another members of other communities. And that makes us really an ethnic group. Now, we know that we are the followers of Jethro. Jethro was the father-in-law of Moses. And I think this is deep connection. And recent DNA tests, by the way, approved that our DNA is the closest to one specific group in the world, which is

the Ishkenazi Jews, by the way, because we also had the same past. We were in, in Israel. you know, and Ezra, whatever is called now the Middle East, but back then it was the Israelites region. And then we fled due to execution during the Islamic Empire. And before that, we fled that area to other mountains. And we had the same journey like the Ashkenazi Jews. So our DNA was proving to be the closest to the Jewish people. And that also proves our oral history that we are really indeed the descendants of Jethro.

So I see this connection is more than only political, socio-economic consequences. It's more, it's deeper, it's more of an identity matter. And I see the connection for us to Israel. Now, in Israel, for the first time in history, in the history of the Druze people, we were able or allowed to see who we really are. We were allowed to practice our religion freely. We're able to build shrines freely and be proud of who we are in our ethnic minority. In other parts of the world, we still hide behind other identities.

The Syrian Druze still claim they are Muslims. The Lebanese Jews still do the same everywhere, except in Israel. And the problem that we, even in Israel, still keep our religion secret, is to protect our brothers and sisters and other countries. But we see now that even Thakia, which we adopted from Islam, And by the way, not only the Druze had adopted this fundamental from Islam. Back then, due to executions and oppression, many minorities had adopted this pattern to just protect themselves. The Druze kept it because they are a really small minority.

They have no one to protect them. And then we carried this on. The Druze people in Israel don't have to hide their identity because we have freedom to express ourselves. But the problem is that there are droos in other places, and we see. see this now, it's a stark example what is happening in Swede, unfortunately. That's a very good way to pivot because there is this urgent, terrible, awful thing that is the reason we're talking. You feel it, I feel it. That is why we have communicated and wanted to get this done. But I want to just, you know, let's take this moment of awfulness and evil

to teach, to open a window onto a world that people don't know about and that I have a great respect and love for and that I think deserves that spotlight. I want to just add one tiny point, which is there was a 2017 study in the American Journal of Human Genetics that actually argued that the Druze, because of endogamy, because you marry within the community as a fundamental pillar of Drew's identity, and it has something to do also with reincarnation beliefs. you are the closest genetic link to Canaanite era 11thes. There's this big fight between the Jews and the Palestinians over who's the original

and everybody out there has an opinion and God knows Twitter talks about nothing else sometimes if you're in the wrong echo chamber. The Jews might have that. The Jews might win. And the genetics are pre-Arabization. It looks like, and if people want to look up that data, they will not be disappointed. In other words, the oral history of the Druze is backed up more than you would expect based on what oral history generally the way it's treated. So I just want to lay that out there, and now I want to get into Swayda.

In many ways, the Jews have been, the bottom line here, the point, the reason to walk through all that is that the Jews are now being asked to come in. And I say the Jews and not Israel, because the way it's thought of among the Druze and the way it's thought of among many Jews is that there is this, Brotherhood that isn't exactly the literal lines on the map. The border between Israel and Syria doesn't matter if you're Druze right now. And the ask that Israel come in is the ask that the Jews come and do for the Jews, what the Jews have been doing for the Jews all these many years. So the basic narrative that has now taken hold of what's happening in Swayda, the basic narrative in the international press is that there's this sectarian violence.

There's, you know, this one Middle Eastern tribe and this other Middle Eastern tribe, and you know how it is with Middle Eastern tribes. And so there's a bunch of violence. And the Syrian government is coming in to sort it out. And the Israelis are again bombing somebody, right? And that's kind of basically how it all stands. Now, from the Drew's perspective right now in southern Syria, that is not what it feels like.

It is not feel like. And this is something you opened my eyes to and helped me sort of actually see what Drews are talking about from southern Syria on social media. media, awful, awful WhatsApp messages that you've been receiving from friends, from just people who know you from maybe family members even in southern Syria, talking about the brutality of the violence that is beginning to ratchet up and that hopefully this massive Israeli military entry into the situation has now brought back under control, but was definitely on a massive up curve. the Jews don't feel as though they're in some kind of a little tiff with some local Sunni Bedouin tribe and the government of Syria is coming to save them. How do the Jews of Southern Syria see what's happening right now?

The Jews in Sweden's Sway that tell us it started. You know how it started because you mentioned it. It started with this, you know, Dawar, when they attacked him, a few Bedwins. And then it escalated with some of the Druze people went to negotiate with. with the Bedouin people how to solve this problem because the Jews were aware of that. We're aware of this pattern of insight in the region with the small problems in order to allow HTS to come into their area and take control of the areas. I'm sorry, just to catch people up. HTS is Hayat Tahrir al-Sham in my unfortunately Jewish-Israeli accent.

I apologize, which is the Islamist group affiliated with Al-Qaeda that Julian. Lani led up right up to the 10 seconds before he was president of Syria and currently still leads, right, but officially leads a Syrian state with a Syrian military. So HTS is doing what? So, Habib, the problem is that this is a pattern that Al Jolani government is always doing again and again. The pattern is to send some locals to the minorities to inside the region with a local problem and then to have an excuse for HTS forces to come and take a call.

over and they're control as an excuse to replace law and order on site. But the fact is that they are, instead of being a neutral part and really solving the problem, Hay at the Harir Shamm, which is HTS, which is now the official governmental security forces, they always do the same thing since the day that Jolani took control of Syria. They go, they take, you know, they take control of the area. They started annihilating and committing genocide against the minority, deliberate one, butchering, enslaving women, killing babies, killing elderly, humiliating, humiliating the religious symbols, whether it's the physical symbols or the shrines of the other minorities.

This is a deliberate thing. Now, in this incident specifically, the Druze tried to avoid that, they know. They know the plan. So they try to avoid that. They send a group of Druze members to the Bedouin people and try to negotiate just, you know, to let everything cool down. But the Bedouin people held them hostages. Then another two guys from Shti family, Aiman and another one, I forgot his name, they said we know people from the Bedouin community there. We can go and negotiate with them because we know them very briefly. And then they went there. And instead of accepting their negotiation part, they took them hostages as well. Now, we got into

situation that the Druze now has to have to respond. And at the same time, the Druze, before that had hosted some Bedouin groups, families, and gave them homes in Sweden. These people, at the same day, they started firing and shooting against the people in Sweden, within Sweden itself. Now, the Drew's, sorry, to respond, and that gave excuse to Jolani forces to come. Now, we have to look at the pattern. Jolani always does that. He sends this HTS forces, or they call him Kuoaul Amn al-Aim, which is the security forces. They send them, they do all the massacre.

After that, he comes, he speaks to the Western media or the Western leaders, and he whispered this. I can't control them. I have to open a real investigation, and everyone who did that will be punished, and we will pay for that. So far, since December. Can I step in here? Yeah, sorry. Just in the first two weeks of March, I think you were about to say this. I apologize.

I want to clarify for listeners who maybe don't know some of the story and aren't following that closely. In the first two weeks of March, these exact kinds of massacres were visited on the Aloites in Let's Takia in those areas of Western Syria. And there were something like at least 1,600 dead have been counted by various observers and various investigators. And they were HTS forces. They were security forces. And then Jolani declared at the end of it, it took about two weeks. And at the end of it, Jolani declared he was, you know, definitely not something he wanted.

And he's establishing a fact-finding commission. So the Syrian regime now has a fact-finding commission over 1,600 dead al-Aweis that the Syrian regime's forces committed, and everybody's about, you know, everybody's waiting with bated breath to discover what the fact-finding commission is going to learn and reveal, right? So this is something that we have seen repeatedly by Jolani.

Habib, if you see, this is a very planned, orchestrated, and planned by Jolani. Since he took control of Syria in December, count how many massacres have been committed against minorities. There was one on February against the allegations. They had an excuse that they were part of the old regime, but they killed enslaved women, killed babies, butchered them, humiliated their bodies. It was awful. On March, they committed another massacre against the Druze people in Sweden. Another massacre had happened with the Christian people. Always the same pattern, the same way of re-igniting these problems, calling it sectarian clashes, and then suddenly HTS.

comes, takes control. He claims that these are not, the people who are committing these crimes are not part of the official system that he's going to take steps to, take care of this, opens investigations, nothing happened.

I want to ask the international community to look at the pattern, to tell me if there is any president who can really be okay with his people taking control of what is happening, his country and not.

Oh my God, I'm so emotional, honestly. Just a second. I want the international community to understand this is his problem. That it couldn't happen without him doing it, without him knowing about it and pushing it. He took control of Syria and December. Since then, three major massacres had happened, always in the same pattern. Sectarian clashes starts as a small problem, turns into sectarian clashes as a small problem, turns into sectarian clashes, as they call it, bringing another forces to take control.

He says that he can't control them. And these people are well-equipped with tanks, with grad rockets, missiles, with every possible weapon that a country, only a country could provide. They take them, they butcher them, they enslave their women, they kill their babies, they humiliate the bodies, they burn the bodies alive. lives. We saw the footages, not from this massacre only. We saw the footage from the other massacre, the previous one within the Druze community, not in Swayda, around Damascus. We saw the footage from the Al-Awitz massacre. We saw the footage from the Christian people. All that had happened since December, since he took control of Syria. And he's still claiming that he has no hand in this. Now, I know that the West wants to believe that we have, we want peace.

I want peace. I want the Abrahamic Accords to succeed, Habib, but not while the minorities are paying the price. Not while the minorities are being sacrificed. Not like this. Sorry, I'm being really emotional, but I feel that this shaky piece that we are trying to build in the Middle East will not last and not only this. I'm afraid of the worst. I'm afraid that if we end up strengthening this Syrian regime,

who started as Al-Qaeda, turned to ISIS, turn to Jabhat and Nusra, turn to HTS-Hai at Tahrir Shamm, now they have a suit, pretending they are an official presidency, all the same thing. They all belong to this Salasi, jihadi agenda, this sect of the Islamic,

religion that even the real Muslim, the regular Muslim, are their enemies. They allow killing and picturing everyone who doesn't follow their path, and the minorities are first to be sacrificed. I can just ask the international community, do you really believe that we can have a peace with people who follow this ideology and still teaching it on their education system, changing and editing the education materials to match their Salafi jihadi agenda. I want to just look at it from a neutral eye, not as a drools, not as an Israeli who have

more interests. Do we really believe that making agreements with these people can really bring peace? We tried it with Samas in Gaza. We tried it with Taliban in Afghanistan. We tried it with Hezbollah just to, you know, know, say, okay, a better enemy that we know than someone who we don't know, and it can never happens. We need to treat it before this monster grows more and more controls oil, controls gas, controls

airports, and just lives next door, just live on our backyard, on our nursing backyard. This is a imminent threat, not only against the droose people who are paying with their lives, with their dignity, with their destiny, with their identity, with their identity. with their identity. This is a threat to every Western and liberal mind that really wants freedom for all people and wants people to live as equal and the way they want. I'm so emotional and I can't avoid it, Habib. But I have this message that people in Syria can deliver.

They are begging me to deliver it. They're sending me messages every day all the day. Please let our voice be heard. They are next door. They are butchering people. There are some things that I can't even describe because I don't know who's going to listen to us, but awful, awful things that they are telling me what they are doing with the bodies. It reminds me of very dark chapters of the human history, and they are doing it.

And I feel that somehow the mainstream media, everyone that has some theory that peace can happen with these people are just keeping silent. And I thank you, I think many people like you, who are brave enough to step and to talk about this. And I thank mainly Israel and my Jewish brothers and sisters for really helping us. They are the only people now standing with the Jews in the world. Thank you.

I wanted to ask you that question. I mean, when you said you're getting these messages from Syria, I mean, literally. I mean, I heard some of that. people talking about how their family members are massacred or where they're hiding. I gave Chera benefit of the doubt, Jolani. For many months, I said, well, you know, by the way, even when they turn on the Alawites, the Al-Azad was an Alawite dictatorship that butchered and, you know,

600,000 Sunnis were murdered in the Syrian Civil War by the Alawite dictatorship. Now, does ordinary Alawite villager have anything to do? with the Assad family's massacres, of course not, but I feared worse. I feared worse. You used the word genocide in this interview. And we paused and then I asked you off offline, are you sure you want to use the word genocide? It's a very contested word. It's a word used about Gaza by everybody who doesn't like Israel nowadays. Is it an actual genocide? Is it about wiping them out? And your point was, you don't want to turn people off by throwing the word genocide around, but your point was he wants to get rid of them.

That is the point of the massacres. And so you really believe that this is about turning on these minorities and getting rid of them. And so when he turned on the Druze consistently and repeatedly and on the Christians, it was more likely to be al-Qaeda coming through than retribution for the Assad years. If he's turning on the Druze and the Christians of Syria now, it's not moving on. This is the new Syria and this is what we should expect going forward. So for me, absolutely. And you ended that with the Jews being there.

Do you believe that? In other words, I am very pleased. And I, by the way, in totally unsurprised, anybody who knows the Israelis know, they were not going to listen to the Jews asking for help and say no. Israel was not going to sit on the sidelines and let that happen. So both Shah is telling us who he is in this moment in Swayda. And so if he is, if he is that al-Qaeda, he's not the guy we can make that peace with.

And also, we actually owe the Druze this blood debt. We actually owe them this partnership, this covenant. So Israel's come through, in your view? Me as a Druze, as an Israeli Druze, I would never expect or ask Israel to protect any Druze from another country. And this is how we are through our history. Israeli Druze belong to Israel, Lebanese Druze belong to Lebanon, Syrian Druze belong to Syria. Syrian Druze belong to Syria, we never integrate on a political level. We integrate on a, you know, social level.

Maybe we have some relatives there or here, but we never integrate on a political level. But when this imminent threat against the Druze had happened, and our prime minister came on the media loud and clear and promised voluntarily that he will take care of this, that he would never let the Druze be harmed. The Druze are people of world. Even in our religion, the word is a holy matter. So the Druze took this seriously. They started normalizing with Israel.

They even came to Israel to visit Jethro Shrine. They took our promise seriously. And for them, as a death pass, if we don't really help them, it's not a joke. For them, they can be annihilated there. And again, I'm using a heavy word because this is the truth. Habib, this Al-Qaeda-like regime, they are not intending to leave anyone who is not Muslim, have any kind, any type of freedom, especially religious freedom.

And by the way, they did it many years ago. In Idlib, they forced Jolani himself in 2021. He forced two villages, one Christian, one Druze, and Norse in Edelip to convert or be killed. In Kalb-Blozzi, this is another village. that had been massacred before Joleni took, you know, took control of Syria when he was just called ISIS or Al-Qaeda or whatever, you know, brand he keeps rebranding himself. Now, for me, now, when it's an existential threat against our identity, I see no way. But to see this covenant, this breed between us the Jew and the Jewish people as the only, only way to survive when the Jewish people had been mass massacred at unfortunately on

October 7th I came on every platform I protected the Jewish people I didn't say these are not Israelis why should I protect them they are they are Jewish I don't care about them and this is how my brother and sisters of the Jewish community now are doing are pushing our government to protect the Jews because we have this connection this bond this covenant this breed between us as two ethnic groups. In a matter of danger, existential danger, we have no one but each other. Now, I see also on the real politics level, it's also a common interest for Israel to protect

the Druze, because we don't want to end up with our northern border resided with HTS forces, with this Salafi jihadi agenda. we will end up with Afghanistan on our northern border. This be clear. There is no other way. Now, from this point, I see that Israel and the Jews have the same common interest to keep this area as clean as possible from terror. Now, I'm aware of the Abrahamic course,

which adds another layer to this complex matter. I just want to tell you a story when October 7th had happened. And on the third day, a friend of mine had called me, said, you are Druze, come speak in front of people who are attacking Israel. And I went there, and I found that most of them were Jewish, actually, American Jewish. And I started explaining, explaining. And then they were really good listeners, and they wanted really to know because they were fed by the mainstream media, that Israel is committing genocide and, et cetera.

And then I told them something. I told them all what is happening now is related to the Abrahamic Accords, and many of them haven't heard of the Abrahamic Accords before. And I still say it until this moment. If there's changed that in the Middle East right now, it's related somehow to the Abrahamic Accords, they had no choice, I guess, but to believe that Shara would be a good partner in this. Now, in my opinion, and I want to believe in the Abrahamic Accord,

I'm a big supporter of peace. I want to believe that Shara really would change his skin, would really want to thrive, would want his people really to thrive in his country and be part of this agreement. What I'm seeing right now, Habib, and Sorshshanik, that he's playing double standards. From one hand, he's taking whatever he can take from the West, trying to outsmart the leadership of the West by, okay, I'm part of you, I can't control these groups. These groups are out of control. I'm trying to investigate and try to replace law and order here.

On the other hand, he's feeding them. So if you connect the dots, you see that what is happening in Syria is part of a major plan that has nothing to do with peace agreement, nothing. And we need to be aware of that. Because if we had looked at October 7th as a disaster, I don't know what could happen if we let this regime really fulfill his ambitious ideology in our, you know, northern part of Israel. So that's a very important point that I want every member of your audience to understand. My very hesitant initial optimism about the possibility that Jolani might actually want something different now

because he can have more than just being another failed state al-Qaeda situation, I'm no longer optimistic. I'm now more and more pessimistic. The Druze people in Syria, not only that they are being massacred at these moments, and the numbers of the casualties are going higher, and the victims, sorry, are going higher and higher. The problem is that for months already, Habib, the Syrian government, and now tell me these are not people who he can control, or issues that he cannot control, The Syrian government blocking all aid to Swayda, no food, no formula for kids.

They destroyed all electricity towers. They blocked all international aid to them, no passages, no human passages. They don't deliver bread to them for weeks or months. Now, the Droz people now there at these moments without electricity, without Internet. They're trying to get Internet somehow, but most of the towers are already destroyed. And this is a very deliberate act to just, you know, isolate them and let their voice be silenced deliberately. And I know from people there that as soon as the electricity went off on most of Sweda, they started butchering even more violently because now most of the people can't really, you know, record or have evidences of their atrocities. So the situation now is very bad.

The Swayda Hospital is all, you know, not functioning. I sent you a recording of a woman saying to her sister, they just came and took me, and I don't know where they're taking me. This recording was so touching to me because literally these words I would hear in other part of history. They are taking me from home. I don't know if I'm going to come back or not. So this is the situation. Another woman is telling me, they're killing my neighbors now.

Maybe this is the last message I'm going to send you because I don't know. Maybe they know that someone is here. She's whispering. We as an international community can help. I need to really know how can everyone help. Maybe, as you said, we only have each other. That would be very sad. But that's a lot.

That's a lot. and at least when it comes to Israeli power and Israeli capabilities, which the Jews are deeply part of. The Jews help build the IDF. There are Jews major generals and the IDF and the Mossad and every other piece of Israeli strength. Maybe that's going to be enough. I know that some Druze people had crossed the border, and I don't agree with these actions. I don't think these actions are actually going to help in any way. But at the end, we are human beings.

When you see that there are people, even if you don't belong to them ethnically, when there are people who have done nothing, these people are peace people. The Jewish people never harmed anyone. So when you see that they are being massacred and the atrocities that they are sending us, you felt like that you have no choice but to try your best. And the instinct tells you that maybe, maybe if I can go and help, this happened also on October 7th, when even Druze people just rushed to the South

and tried to bring food and AIDS. Even my village were collecting food and trucks with food trying to help. I think that's the instinct that always driving us to do things. We need to do things ourselves. Otherwise, we never know what's going to happen to us. I fear that this is really the case, that now the mainstream media is being silent. The leaders of the world are not really seeing the true face of Jolani and believe in his lies. I fear the worst, Habib, I don't think that this is going to really end up here unless,

and let me here be so, you know, let my imagination go wild. Unless the Druze in Syria, this region all are next to all. Israel. I don't see anything is going to change. They're going to repeat this again and again and again all the time. It's a mechanism. It's their ideology. I'm not sure I want that to happen. Would you consider a Jews state? I don't know. It's not quite the Drew's religion. They would never ask for state. They just want to live in peace. I would consider Bruce Federation if they want to. It's at the end they're what they want, not what me and you as Israelis want. But as a human being, I don't see that

the situation is livable with these people, with HDS, with Jolani. I don't see any minority could really live peacefully there anymore. Under Jihadi Sunism. No way.

Yeah. Rania, thank you so much for joining me. Thank you for helping me. Thank you so much. Yeah. shed light on your people and just giving me the chance to say publicly that my own life has intersected with Drew's Israelis again and again and again in ways that have been very, very important and valuable and occasionally life-saving for me personally. I wanted to tell you that even Bebe Netanyahu at some point his life were saved by Drew's.

soldier. Now this druid person, his name was Salim Shofi. During the 35 or 33, I don't really recall the year, this Salim Shofi was helping Israel, and then he escaped Syria and came to Israel and became actually one of the first Sayyarit Matkal soldiers. I think the first Syriqal, he helped build it. He was literally in the first Syriqatatat, which is a very prestigious and elite unit in the the army. Now, at some point during the 60s, that's right, Bibi Netanyahu with his unit, we're stuck in the snow in the Hirmon Mountain. And this guy was walking days, and he didn't give up within the snow until he found him. And Bibi Netanyahu was very weak, and he told him a sentence that Bibi Netanyahu had repeated later on, that if you sit, you'll never get up again,

and he forced him to get up. Then he walked him there in his. he saved his life. And this is a very well-known story. And he's from the Golan Heights, basically. Yeah, no, it's a common occurrence. Netanyahu yesterday or earlier today, we're recording on July 16th, gave a statement in which he said, we're coming to rescue our brothers, the Jews. And that is, that is policy, that is thought out. There's policy planning and people thinking about this and people coordinating what's happening in the north and it has to do with how Israel understands Syria. And it is also emphatically very personal. Personal for Netanyahu, personal for me, personal for millions of Jews and 150,000 Israeli Jews.

Again, as an Israeli, I realize and I understand and I respect that Israel has its own interests as a country. I'm Israeli. I would want my country first of and foremost to be, you know, to take care of its interests. But I see here sometimes even if when this clashes with the Druze people's interests, I see that the Jewish people are still taking this side in trying to protect the Druze people. And that's an amazing thing because we all share the same, as I said, the same destiny and the same breed that we had written thousands of years ago. And now it's coming into translation. And I love this about our country.

so much. So proud. Thank you, Hanya. Thank you. Thank you for joining me. And let's hope for very good news very soon from Swayda. And thank you for joining us in this episode and I'll see you in the next one. Thank you so much.