On June 23, Druze residents attacked two injured Syrian rebels who were transferred by an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) ambulance from the border to an Israeli hospital. This lynching in the Druze Majdal Shams village in the Golan Heights is a warning bell not just for Israel, but for all the players in the region. The Druze problem has brought to the surface, at least implicitly, the network of inter-ethnic hostilities and tensions on Israel’s border. If the regime in Damascus collapses or abandons this border region to the goodwill of Sunni factions, we can safely assume that the relative stability and quiet there will end as well. The pent-up tension in the border region would explode.
What Israel should learn from these events is that it must strive for the survival and bolstering of the current regime at any price. Anyone who wonders why is invited to look at neighboring Iraq or distant Libya. What’s happening there is likely to happen in Syria after President Bashar al-Assad.
The Baath regime was cruel to its citizens and robbed them of basic rights, and its leaders should pay the fullest price so that justice is served. But in choosing between one bad thing and another, the balance tips toward the regime. The Israeli security establishment should gradually abandon its emerging alliance with the Syrian rebels and elegantly work with its friends in the West to stabilize Damascus as much as possible. It must not fortify the regime’s enemies, develop friendly relations with them nor weaken its rule. The bitter consequences of this tactic could hit Jerusalem like a boomerang.
The survival of the Damascus regime guarantees stability on Israel’s northern border, and it’s a keystone to its national security. The Syrian regime is secular, tacitly recognizes Israel’s right to exist and does not crave death. It does not have messianic religious beliefs and does not aim to establish an Islamic caliphate in the area it controls. Since Syria is a sovereign nation, there is an array of means of putting pressure on it in case of conflict or crisis. It’s possible to transmit diplomatic messages, to work against it in international arenas or to damage its regional interests. If there’s a need for military action against it, there’s no need to desperately look for it amid a civilian population and risk killing innocent civilians.
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