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Ask Haviv Anything
Episode 29: After the Druze massacre, can Israel make peace with Joulani? A conversation with Druze activist Rania Fadel Dean
00:55:42
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- [00:05]
Khaviv
Hi, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Ask Khaviv 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 sparks a lot of worry among many, many Israelis, and not just among our Druze brethren, among Jews, among every Jew I know. On July 11, in what looked like a simple crime at the time, a vegetable seller, a Druze vegetable seller on the road from Sueda, outside of Sueda, 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 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 Sua, allegedly, according to the Syrian government of Mr. Julani, 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 11. 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 Fadil, but her married name is Rania Dean, and who belongs to a kind of royal family among the Druze, 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 Jewish community in Israel and her father a political figure involved in high level Israeli politics. I asked Rania because I knew that Rania would know the voices from southern Syria itself, what the Druze 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 to Israel, with the 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 Druze 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 Druids of southern Syria. At this moment, there are roughly before the civil war in Syria, 700,000 Druze and a population of, give or take, 25 million. Now maybe it's down to 21 million. Nobody quite knows. And the Druids 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 Jews 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. What are you talking about? You. 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 Druze. 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. That. That bond is deep and it's real. And you, if you don't understand it, you will be surprised that Israel 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, one from Yisrael Beitanu 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.
- [07:31]
Rania Dean
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, it was a village called Magar Family. As you said, my home was a hub for political leaders. We used to host all political leaders from the Likud 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 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, 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 going from synagogue to church to conferences, speaking about Israel from a point of view of a minority member. And then I also took part of project for PTSD treatments with another organization here in Los Angeles. And then I established my own organization. Now I'm a founder of 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.
- [09:00]
Khaviv
So let's get into it. You spend a lot of time explaining who the Druze are to people outside of Israel who are pretty familiar with the Druze. But actually nobody outside the Druze are really all that familiar with the Druze 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.
- [09:30]
Rania Dean
I myself don't know because we are divided into seculars and knowledgeable or and Juhal. So now I am 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, they are the initiated people or people who know the secrets of the religion. And there, there are also levels. Not every religious Jew knows as much as the other. It all depend 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, 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 star. If you are familiar with the Drew star, 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, you know, fundamentals don't lie, don't speak. 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 the 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. Haviz 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 proving 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 doors 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 beliefs, 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 this, what is happening in Sweden is not the first time, unfortunately. And I hope it's gonna be the last time. But I've been very optimistic, unfortunately.
- [12:40]
Khaviv
Some of the. Some of the fascinating things that I have learned about the Druze religion from being just living with Druze, studying at university with Jews, having drew soldiers and commanders and friends, there's a belief 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 Druze 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 Jewish 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 Jews also call it a covenant. Right 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 Britchaim, a covenant of life. But that whole discussion, nobody ever leaves out the word covenant. It was almost. It was a Druze decision. Where did that come from? Why are the Druze part of Israel so deeply, with so much belief and commitment?
- [14:28]
Rania Dean
So that's right, Khaviv. 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, 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 lived 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 Todella. He's a Spanish rabbi that came and just toured the Middle East. And he documented, and these records are from 1165, 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 world. 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 Antifia. And at one point he even visited Jabal, the Druz mountain in Syria. And he met with Sultan Bash al Atrash, which was the leader of the Druz community there. And Sultan gifted him his sword. Now, if anyone goes to Wikipedia and search this and go to Aba Hoshi page, they would find the photo of this sword still on his Wikipedia page. That means when you gift 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. 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 Druids 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 side. If you go to Google or Wikipedia, you see that the Druze people are part of the Islamic Shiite sect, that they are part of Islam, that they are Arabs and they were established in 121 by Muslim Caliphate called Hakim Bamrillah. In Egypt, that's what you're gonna 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.
- [18:47]
Khaviv
But what is fascinating to me is, you know, there's something that is similar about us. The Druze religion, culture, the language obviously is much closer to Muslim Arab. And yes, you know, if you talk to the historians on these questions, they'll tell you that it's an outgrowth of Ismaili Shiism, but very early on already became its own religion. But the Druze are oppressed, so much so that their religion became deeply secretive. These ideas that exist in Shia Islam, like Taqiyah, which is you are 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 Druze culture and Jews 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 when for no reason at all I was reading out of just fascination was that the intermarriage rate of the Druze is very nearly zero. It's something like 2%. Even when the Druze 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, that's. I feel very. 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 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 with the Drew's 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.
- [20:54]
Rania Dean
Your religion, you know, 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 passed from generation to generation, everyone every knows that we are an ethnic minority, that we were 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 make 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, approve that our DNA is the closest to one specific group in the world, which is the Ashkenazi Jews, by the way, because we also had the same path. We were in, you know, in 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 proven 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, you know, socioeconomical 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 were able to build shrines freely and be proud of who we are and 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 in other countries. But we see now that even Taqiyyah, 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 they are Druze. There are Druze in other places and we see this now, it's stark example what is happening in Swede, unfortunately.
- [23:51]
Khaviv
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 Dru's identity. And it has something to do also with reincarnation beliefs. You are the closest genetic link to Canaanite era Levantine. So 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 Druze might have that. The Druze 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 I want to get into Sueda. 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. 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 Sweda, the basic narrative in the international press is that there's this sectarian violence there. 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 Druze perspective right now in southern Syria. That is not what it feels like. It does not feel like. And this is something you opened my eyes to and helped me sort of actually see what Druze are talking about from southern Syria on social 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?
- [27:17]
Rania Dean
The Jews in Sweden tell us. It started, you know, how it started, because you mentioned it. It started with this, you know, Dawara Fadhawara, when they attacked him, a few Bedouins. And then it escalated when some of the Druze people went to negotiate with the Bedouin people how to solve this problem, because the Druze were aware of that, were aware of this pattern of inciting the region with this small problems in order to allow HTS to come into their area and take, you know, take control of the area.
- [27:50]
Khaviv
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. Which is the Islamist group affiliated with Al Qaeda that Jiulani 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?
- [28:14]
Rania Dean
So, Habib, the problem is that this is a pattern that 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 sources to come and take over and take 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. Hayat Tahrir Sham, which is hts, which is now the official governmental security forces, they always do the same thing. Since the day that Zeleny took control of Syria, they go, they take, you know, they take control of the area. They start annihilating and committing genocide against the minority. Deliberate 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 Syria, in this incident specifically, the DRUs tried to avoid that because they know, they know the plan. So they tried 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, Ayman, 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 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 started firing and shooting against the people in Sweden, within Sweden itself. Now the Druze started to respond, and that gave excuse to Giuliani forces to come. Now we have to look at the pattern. Giuliani always does that. He sends this HTS forces, or they call him, 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 whisper 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 it. For that. So far since December.
- [31:11]
Khaviv
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 Alawites in Latakia in those areas of western Syria. And there were something like at least 1600 dead have been counted by various observers and various investigators. And they were HTML, they were security forces. And then Giuliani declared at the end of it, it took about two weeks, and at the end of it, Giuliani declared he was definitely not something he wanted. And he's establishing a fact finding commission. So the Syrian regime now has a fact finding commission. Over 1600 dead Alawites that the Syrian regime's forces committed. And everybody's about. Everybody's waiting with bated breath to discover what the fact finding commission is going to learn and reveal. Right, Right. So this is something that we have seen repeatedly by Giuliani Habib.
- [32:11]
Rania Dean
If you see this is a very. Planned, orchestrated and planned by Giuliani. Since he took control of Syria in December, count how many massacres have been committed against minorities. There was one in February against the Alawites. 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 reigniting these problems, calling it sectarian clashes. And then suddenly HTS comes, takes control. He claims that these are not the people who are, you know, 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 in 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. This is his problem.
- [33:41]
Khaviv
That it couldn't happen without him doing it, without him knowing about it and pushing it.
- [33:46]
Rania Dean
He took control of Syria in 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 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. We saw the footages not from this massacre only. We saw the footages from the other massacre, the previous one within the Druze community, not in Sweda, around Damascus. We saw the footages from the Alawitz massacre. We saw the fudges 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 that. 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 peace 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, turned to Jabhat al Nusra, turned to hds, now they have a suit pretending they are official presidency, all the same thing. They all belong to this, this Salafi jihadi agenda, this sect of the Islamic religion, that even the real Muslim, the regular Muslim, are their enemies. They allow killing and butchering 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 Druze, 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 Hamas in Gaza, we tried it with Taliban in Afghanistan, we tried it with Hezbollah just to, you know, say, okay, better enemy that we know than someone who we don't know. And it can never happen. We need to treat it before this monster grows more and more controls oil, controls gas, controls airports, ports, and just lives next door. Just live on our bachelor on our northern backyard. This is an imminent threat, not only against the Druze people who are paying with their lives, with their dignity, with their destiny, 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 thank many people like you who are brave enough to step and to talk about this, 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 Druze in the world. Thank you.
- [38:38]
Khaviv
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, I heard some people talking about how their family members are, are massacred or where they're hiding or. I gave Shara benefit of the doubt, Julani, for many months. I said, well, you know, by the way, even when they turn on the Alawites, the Alawites, Assad 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 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.
- [39:47]
Rania Dean
Them.
- [39:48]
Khaviv
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, am totally unsurprised. Anybody who knows the Israelis know they were not going to listen to the Druze 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 Sueda. And so 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.
- [40:54]
Rania Dean
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. We never integrate on a political level. We integrate on a 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 word. 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. If we don't really help them, it's not a joke for them, it's 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 Giuliani himself in 2021, he forced two villages, one Christian, one Druze and Northern Idlib to hurt or be killed. In Kalblozi, this is another village that had been massacred before. Giuliani 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 way to survive when the Jewish people had been mass massacred. 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 to protect the Druze because we have this connection, this one, this covenant, this spirit between us as two ethnic groups in 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 that up with our northern border resided with HTS forces, with the Salafi Jihadi agenda. We will end up with the 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 interests to keep this area as as clean as possible from terror. Now I'm aware of the Abrahamic Accords which adds more another layer to this complex matter. I just want to tell you a story. When October 7 had happened 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 etc. 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 change that in the Middle east right now, it's related somehow to the Abrahamic Accord. They had no choice, I guess, but to believe that Sharia 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 Sharia 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 Solzhenik, that he's playing double standards. From one hand, he's taking whatever he can take from the west out, 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 now, it's 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 7 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. Every member of your audience to understand.
- [46:48]
Khaviv
My very hesitant initial optimism about the possibility that Jelani 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.
- [47:04]
Rania Dean
The Druze people in Syria, not only that, they are being massacred. And 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 Sweden. 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 Druze 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 long as soon as the electricity went off, 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 Sweda 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 gonna 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 gonna 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?
- [49:16]
Khaviv
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 Druze helped build the idf. They were Drew's major generals. And the IDF and the Mossad and every other piece of Israeli strength, maybe that's going to be enough.
- [49:45]
Rania Dean
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 them ethnically, when there are people who had done nothing, these people are peace people. The Druze people never harmed anyone. So when you see that they are been 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 if I can go and help, that this happens. Happens. Happened also on October 7th when even Druze people just rushed to the south and tried to bring food and aid. 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 Giuliani and believe in his lies. I fear the worst, Habib. I don't think that this is gonna really end up here unless. And let me hear be so, you know, let my imagination go wild. Unless the Druze in Syria, this region, all annexed to Israel, I don't see anything is gonna change. They're gonna repeat this happen again all the time. It's a mechanism, it's their ideology.
- [51:28]
Khaviv
I'm not sure I want that to happen. Would you consider a Jews?
- [51:33]
Rania Dean
I don't know.
- [51:37]
Khaviv
It's not quite the Jews religion.
- [51:39]
Rania Dean
They would never ask for state, they just want to live in peace. I would consider group federation if they want to. It's at the end, they're what they want. Not what me and you as Israelis want, but. But as a human being, I don't see the, the situation as livable with these people, with, with hts, with Julian. I don't see any minority could really.
- [52:03]
Khaviv
Live peacefully there anymore under Jihadi sunism.
- [52:07]
Rania Dean
No way.
- [52:09]
Khaviv
Yeah. Rania, thank you so much for joining me. Thank you for helping me.
- [52:17]
Rania Dean
Thank you so much.
- [52:19]
Khaviv
Yeah. Shed light on your people and just giving me the chance to say publicly that my own life has intersected with Druze Israelis again and again and again in ways that have been very, very important and valuable and occasionally life saving. For me personally.
- [52:41]
Rania Dean
I wanted to tell you that even Bibi Netanyahu, at some point, his life was saved by Druze soldier. Now, this Druze person, his name was Salim Shoufi. During the 35 or 33, I don't really recall the year, this Salim Shoufi was helping Israel. And then he escaped Syria and came to Israel and became actually one of the first Sayeret Matkal soldiers. One of the first. I think the first Sayeret Matkal, he helped build it. He was literally in the first Sayeret Matkal, which is a very prestigious and elite unit in the army. Now, at some point during the 60s, that's right, Benjamin Netanyahu with his unit were stuck in the snow in the Hermon Mountain. And this guy was walking days and he didn't give up in 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 and he saved his life. And this is a very well known story. And he's from the Golan Heights, basically.
- [53:56]
Khaviv
Yeah, no, it's a. It's a common occurrence. Netanyahu, yesterday or earlier today we're recording, on July 16, gave a statement in which he said, we're coming to rescue our brothers the Druids. And 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.
- [54:32]
Rania Dean
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 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 say, the same destiny and the same breed that we had written thousands of years ago. And now it's coming into translation. And I I love this about our country so much, so proud.
- [55:17]
Khaviv
Thank you, Hanya. Thank you. Thank you for joining me. And let's hope for let's hope for very good news very soon from Swede. And thank you for joining us in this episode. And I'll see you in the next one.
- [55:30]
Rania Dean
Thank you so much.