When Israel’s military spokesman Daniel Haggari appeared just after a rocket hit the sports-ground in Majdal Shams on the 27th of July, his outrage over the killing of innocent children was hard to take. As many observers commented, he had shown no such outrage or even regret over Israel’s killing of 21,000 children in Gaza. But for the residents of Majdal Shams, a Syrian Arab Druze town in the occupied Golan Heights, who had just seen a dozen of their kids blown apart and dozens more seriously injured, Haggari’s statement was incendiary. Even though no-one knew whose missile had just hit them – out of the blue on a school holiday Saturday, few imagined it to be ‘friendly fire’ from Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia. Hezbollah has fired thousands of rockets and missiles over the border into Northern Israel and into the occupied Golan Heights, and has targeted and hit numerous military sites and installations, including Patriot missile launchers, surveillance centres and arms warehouses. They have also launched volleys of rockets to overwhelm the Iron Dome defence system, much as Iran did following Israel’s attack on the Iranian embassy in Damascus, and allowing more lethal guided missiles to reach their targets. Hezbollah has also avoided escalating the cross-border war, despite Israel’s constant air strikes and missile attacks on individual commanders and officials in South Lebanon. As the towns close to the border in Northern Israel have been evacuated, and their 60,000 odd residents accommodated in hotels, Hezbollah’s rockets rarely kill civilians. So putting this together, the only question for residents of Majdal Shams was whether the rocket that killed their children was a ‘misfired’ Israeli defence missile or a targeted ‘false-flag’ attack. Immediately following the atrocity, and in the generous spirit and morality that belongs to this community, spokesmen for both Hezbollah and for the Druze – Lebanon’s Walid Jumblatt – attributed the strike to another misfired Iron Dome rocket, while vehemently denying any responsibility for it. Statements from allies including from the Kremlin also took this conservative path, perhaps pending further information. That information has rapidly mounted however, indicating that such a misfire was unlikely, as no Hezbollah rockets had been seen in the area beforehand. And when Netanyahu dared to visit the town following the children’s funerals, he was greeted with anger and cries of ‘child-murderer’. As if the Israeli leader’s appearance and feting by the US congress weren’t enough, and with extraordinary chutzpah, Netanyahu said “we are embracing the families who are going through this indescribable suffering”, and that “these are the children of us all”, while vowing a ‘severe response’. Were it not for his bodyguard of soldiers and police, and barriers to keep the parents and relatives away, the man would surely have been lynched. The residents of Majdal Shams have been forced to live as Israeli citizens since the Golan Heights was seized by Israel in 1967, but have never abandoned their allegiance to Syria. In common with other Druze-dominated communities around Sweida to the East, they have also remained supporters of the Syrian government in Damascus, and sheltered many refugees fleeing the foreign-backed terrorist groups in Northern Syria. If we are to understand and so react appropriately to this dangerous situation, it may be necessary to re-evaluate what we believe – have been led to believe – about the Syrian government and its main allies on the Syrian battlefield – Hezbollah and Russia. Until the events following October 7th changed the calculus, Hamas was not an ally of Syria, being politically and religiously linked to Qatar and Turkey. As members of the Sunni Islam Muslim Brotherhood, these partners supported the insurgency against the secular Syrian government and its Shia Islam allies Hezbollah and Iran. Despite Syria’s longtime support for Palestine and Palestinian refugees, Hamas had supported jihadist groups fighting the Syrian government, before 2018 and their expulsion to the Idlib enclave. The most complex situation at that time, but with the greatest relevance to this current crisis, was in the evacuation of wounded Islamic State fighters for treatment in Israeli field hospitals in the occupied Golan Heights. Israel has made no special secret of this, while having difficulty explaining why it has been helping jihadists who profess opposition to the Jewish state. As this article from the Times of Israel illustrates, the Syrian Druze community drew the obvious conclusion, attacking ambulances carrying these “Syrian rebels”. And it is members of this community of ancient origin who provide the greatest insight into current conflict, and its all-important historical context. Several years ago a journalist with SBS Arabic, Heba Kassoua, returned to her birthplace in Sweida for her sister’s wedding, and discovered how the Druze community there related to and supported the Syrian government and Syrian Arab Army. She made a short documentary diary of her trip, as well as recording it in this illustrated article. A similar viewpoint can be found in many places on the net, with few better informed than “Syrian Girl” whose Twitter/X account has recently gained much attention, including on this specific issue, as here. I personally have learnt much, and had my intuitions confirmed, in conversation with a Syrian Australian woman who also came from the Druze community in Sweida. She maintains many good connections there and in neighbouring Jordan with its large Palestinian refugee population. She sees the Israeli action in Majdal Shams as a crude attempt to manipulate the population with the implicit message – “Look, Hezbollah is killing your children. Fight with us!” Israel needs more conscripts for the occupation army, and the Druze have mostly refused to fight – if they have a choice. But my friend also has little doubt that the missile strike on Majdal Shams was an intentional targeted attack, and timed to follow Netanyahu’s visit to the US, where he sought and received support for war on Iran and its so-called ‘proxies’. As Israel’s leaders shed crocodile tears over the deaths of non-Jewish ‘Israelis’, they continue to kill and maim many more every day in Gaza. At the very same time as people in the occupied Golan Heights were mourning their lost children, Israeli air strikes killed 30, mostly women and children, in a girl’s school in Deir Al Balah being used to shelter 4000 ‘displaced’ Palestinians. The airstrikes were sequential, with ambulances unable to retrieve wounded from the rubble of the first bombing when the second and third missiles hit them. It is past time for the tables to be turned on Israel, including by our leaders; Israel must prove that it was NOT responsible for the missile strike on Majdal Shams, and allow a forensic investigation of the site by foreign parties, while any action the IOF may take as a so-called ‘response’ against Hezbollah must be immediately condemned. I would also call on Foreign Minister Penny Wong to retract her belligerent accusations against Iran and Hezbollah, and acknowledge that she ‘unequivocally condemns’ whoever was responsible for the targeting of innocent civilians in the Israeli-occupied Syrian town of Majdal Shams.
When I wrote this article above, intending publication, it was before Israel's strike on South Beirut. Hours later I was able to add this postscript however: Already Israel has ‘responded’ to its own strike in the Golan with an attempted assassination of Hezbollah’s senior military commander in South Beirut, claiming he ‘ordered the strike on Majdal Shams’. (it wasn't clear whether Fouad Shukr had been killed until days later) For those who understand what this means – which sadly does not seem to include the ABC – this is confirmation that Israel was directly responsible for the atrocity in Majdal Shams on 27th July and specifically targeted a group of expendable Arab Druze children as a false casus belli. Up to this point Israel could have claimed a misfired Iron Dome rocket hit the town. But predictably it has now done the opposite, stating that the ‘exchange’ of lethal attacks marks an end to this affair, and any response by Hezbollah will be considered as a new unprovoked attack. But only shortly afterwards came the shattering news that Hamas' most moderate and respected leader Ismail Haniyeh had been murdered, while visiting Tehran for the inauguration of Iran's new President. This news not only changes the whole game and implies a harsh response to the Zionist entity, but makes the question of Israel's initiation of the coming war an urgent and vital one. For excellent commentary and analysis on this whole situation, a current interview with Alastair Crooke is highly recommended, and endorses what I have written about Israel's scheme to bring the region to war. A second part is to follow.
DM August 1st 2024