Seeing chance for peace with Syria, Druze communities in Israel celebrate Assad’s fall

Residents of Majdal Shams, in northern Israel’s Golan Heights, take to the streets to celebrate the dramatic fall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

With speakers blasting patriotic Syrian songs, residents of the Druze Arab town welcome the political change across the border, saying it would bring peace to the region, including with Israel.

“We are part of the Syrian people, and we are very happy today,” Mais Ibrahim, 33, tells AFP. “We want to see a free Syria and a range of different people and voices there.”

Ibrahim says the Syrian people “paid a high price under Assad’s regime” and that she hopes the change will “end the wars and bring peace.”

There are around 150,000 Druze living in Israel, with most holding Israeli citizenship and serving in the army. However, those living in the Golan Heights — captured from Syria in the 1967 Six Day War and later annexed — differ, with most still seeing themselves as Syrian nationals.

For more than a decade, the Druze community watched the unrest in Syria, fearing for the fate of close relatives and friends.

Alaa Safadi, 52, a doctor whose brother-in-law was imprisoned and killed in a Syrian jail under Assad’s rule, says the Druze people are “one body,” whether they live in Israel, Syria, Lebanon, or Jordan.

Safadi, who, under a special arrangement between Israel and Syria, spent seven years studying in Damascus, says he was happy to see Assad fall.

He says it brought him hope that it would break the physical borders and cultural barriers that exist in this war-torn region.

“In the end, I believe that within two years, we will be able to go freely from here and drink coffee in the cafes of Damascus,” he says.