MENA Minorities

In case you didn't know, Lebanese Hizballah has branched out in Syria. Now the Syrian branch has received a kinda official status by the regime-another sign for the rising influence of Iran on the regime. Ancient diplomat Ignace Levierr provides an analyses for Le Monde , where he operates the blog Un oeil sur la Syrie (which you should read on a regular basis if your French is better than mine). Le Hizbollah syrien prend un caractère officiel by Ignace Leverrier, Le Mond Blog / Un oeil sur la Syrie

An article from  The Syrian Observer about the Idlib Druze   was sent to  me by different sides l ast week . Information on this tiny community is rare these days - in fact I have not read a piece about them since the piece I published on MENA Minorities with Rami About Diab a year ago. Since  then I have refrained from writing an update - the information is too vague. So I was looking forward to read about it in the Observer, even though the title made me raise an eyebrow. The Druze of Idleb: An Example of Positive Coexistence by Yahya Alous, The Syrian Observer Idleb's Druze decided to stay and adapt to the newly emerging situation and go on with their day-to-day life like before Life in the Druze villages in Idleb goes on nearly as normal. This reality has put an end to fears about the impossibility of coexistence under the new conditions arising in the area since the regime lost control of it. The Druze are traveling between opp...

The Assad Regime Under Stress: Conscription and Protest among Alawite and Minority Populations in Syria by Christopher Kozak, Institute for the Study of War

Syria Comment has an interesting piece about the Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP) by Joel Veldkamp . The auther provides much information I have  been totally unaware of myself and portrays the party much as a Christian militia nowadays (even though the party is secular and one of its two main branches is led by Alawite state minister ʿA li Haidar). I really hope for a part 2 since many questions about the SSNP in contemporary Syria remain. Resurgence of the SSNP in Syria: An Ideological Opponent of the Regime Gets a Boost from the Conflict by Joel Veldkamp, Syria Comment

Recently the Israeli Druze have gained the attention of national and international media. This has mainly two reasons: The tragic death of two members of the community in the recent terror attacks in Jerusalem and  Muslim-Druze violence in the Galilee village of Abu Snan .  Jadan As'ad (who is related to former Knesset-member As'ad As'ad), a border policeman from the village of Bait Jann, was killed when a Palestinian driver slammed into a light rail station on November 5. The other, Zidan Saif a policofficer from the village of Yanuh, was killed while he tried to rescue the inmates of the synagogue in Har Hof during the terror attack on November 18. His funeral was that of a national hero with hundrets of Haredim and President Reuven Rivlin in attendence. Additionally, in the mixed village of Abu Snan (one of the few with a Muslim majority and a Druze minority) clashes between Muslim and Druze youth occured, which led to wounding 41 people. The Druze side was using l...

The first is a mere brief article in Foreign Affairs , which aims to present the Alawite community as a non-monolithic. The author argues, that even though discontent is growing "Assad still has the support he needs from Alawite families". I want to add that reports about sporadic tensions are circulating are not so new, they have been circulating at least for over two years. Not Alright With Syria's Alawites by Oula Abdulhamid Alrifai, Foreign Affairs The second is a recent academic article, which pretty much summarizes the existing scholarly work and discusses the  change of Alawite identity from the Ottomans over the French to the current state. There is not much in depth  research on the Alawites, which makes this piece even more valuable (found on Twitter via  @aron_ld ). Sectarianism in Alawi Syria: Exploring theParadoxes of Politics and Religion by Aslam Farouk-Alli, Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, Vol. 34, 3 2014.

Below are the videos (it's both English and German) of the recent conference " Where is the Middle East heading?  Ethno-religious minorities between persecution and self-determination" which was jointly organized by the Moses Mendelssohn Center at the University of Posdam, the Orient Institut Beirut and the Lepsiushaus Potsdam. The conference was hold at the European Academy Berlin: My presentation in German about the current situation of the Druze in Syria starts at 2:35:00 Keynote : Nationalism, nation-states, minority rights, and historical identities in the post-Ottoman space Panel I : Frühes 20. Jahrhundert, Erster Weltkrieg und Neugliederung des Nahen Ostens/Early 20th century, World War 1 and new order in the Middle East Panel II Part1 & Part: 2 Minderheiten, Verfolgung und politische Interaktion/Minorities, persecution and political interaction Panel III : Minderheiten, Konflikte und neue Einflüsse/Minorities, conflicts and ne...

An interesting series of first hand reports about the developments in Suwaida between 2011 and 2013 can be found at Al-Jumhuriya . It‘s a rare source and strongly recommended for everyone who has an interest in Syria's minorities. The articles are a preview of a forthcoming reader on minorities in Syria since 2011 by the German Friedrich Ebert Stiftung , which will present accounts from members of various communities. Sweida: The Static Revolution by Mazen Ezzi part 2 part 3

Today starts the very promising conference "Where is the Middle East heading? Ethno-religious minorities between persecution and self-determination" at the European Academy in Berlin. The very promising program features many household names as speakers including Shlomo Aveneri (political science professor and once director-general of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs) and scholars whose work was already mentioned on this blog like Thomas Scheffler, Birgit Schäbler and Friederike Stolleis. I will present a paper myself about the current situation of the Druze on Tuesday. The whole conference can also be viewed via livestream .

Ebenfalls zum Thema Minderheiten in der Türkei gibt es eine interessante Reportage des zenith -Chefredakteurs Christian Meier. Zusammen mit dem Fotografen Andy Spyra hat er den Tur Abdin, eines der wichtigsten Zentren des frühen Christentums, besucht. Wie die Christen hatten auch die Jesiden diese Gegend an der Grenze zu Syrien und dem Irak fast vollständig verlassen, jetzt gibt es wieder Jesiden im Tur Abdin - sie sind vor dem IS aus dem Irak geflohen. Flucht ins Land der frühen Christen von Christian Meier, Welt-Sichten

Ein Artikel über die aktuelle Situation des orientalischen Christtentums im Allgemeinen und der Situation in der Türkei im Speziellen kommt vom Standard -Kolumnisten Hans Rauscher, der schon öfters sein Interesse an der Materie angedeutet hat. Auch wenn sich ab und an ein paar kleine Unschärfen eingeschlichen haben auf jeden Fall lesenswert, besonders weil schlüssig veranschaulicht wird warum Erdogan von den Christen vorsichtig positiv bewertet wird: Christentum im Nahen Osten: "Ganze Zivilisation wird entwurzelt" von Hans Rauscher, Der Standard

An in deph report about the current dynamics in Lebanon's Bekaa-valley (covering the Situation in both Shia and Christian villages) can be found at the NYT: Sectarian Wedge Pushes From Syria Into Lebanon by Anne Bernard, The New York Times  

Interview with Basil Ghatas at Al Monitor , who represents the Arab-nationalist Balad-party and is one of two (the other being Hanna Swaid/Hadash) Christian MK's. Btw, I had no idea that he is related to Amzi Bishara, the controversal founder of Balad, who now lives in Qatar after he was investigated for spying on behalf of Hizballah .

A German Tv-team embedded with the chief the the Syriac Military Council (SMC) in Syria's Hasaka province, where the militia fights alongside the Kurdish YPG (in fact the SMC is part of the PYD) against the self proclaimed Islamic State. The militia-chief is a Swiss national of Assyrian heritage (from the Tessin, where many Assyrians live) by the name of Jacob Kosar. He is the former Swiss soldier in charge of the SMC's military training, who was mentioned before on this blog. Kosar estimates the manpower of the militia at 500 and you can also get an idea while watching of how antique the weapons of the SMC are. Edit: Here you can find the article in the German weekly Die Zeit which was produced during the same journey. 

Suwayda residents speak out against military service   by Syria Direct  ENOUGH IS ENOUGH : Pro-regime activists took to the streets of the Druze-majority city of Suwayda to distribute pamphlets condemning the mounting death toll among Suwayda's young men performing mandatory service in the regime army, reported pro-opposition Orient News Wednesday. Here, a pamphlet reads “Enough is enough...the sons of Suwayda are being murdered in A-Raqqa and elsewhere...for whose sake...until when...the chair [of power] is for you [Bashar al-Assad]...and the tomb is for our sons,” while women in the picture to the left mourn over their deceased relatives. The discontent with mandatory military service articulated in these pamphlets has surfaced in other pro-regime areas. Alawite activists—co-religionists of president Bashar al-Assad— distributed pamphlets in the Alawite-majority city of Tartus in August, reading “the chair for you [Assad], the coffins for our childre...

The prestigious Foreign Affairs has a rare report about Lebanon's Jewry and takes a look at the renovation of Beirut's oldest synagoge. The article features a lot of fascinating details and I strongly recommend reading. Lebanon's Jewish Revival by Adam Rasmi, Foreign Affairs

I found this very surprising table by Philip Connor and Conrad Hackett from the Pew Reasearch Center a few days ago on Twitter via Daniel Neep . According to their work, the Christian population in the Middle East (Iran and Turkey are not included) is in fact growing in numbers but much slower than the Muslim majority. Of course the post-2011 events are not included here but I expected a different trend still. Btw who would have assumed that the share of Protestants among Middle Eastern Christians is as high as 7%? Read the full piece here . 

After a period of relative calm in the overwhelming Druze province of Suwaida ʾ  the situation dramatically changed in the middle of last August. The villages of Dama (and Dair Dama) were attacked by a group of local Bedouin. Größere Kartenansicht Al Monitor reported that the attack came after local NDF members had responded with targeting Bedouin gatherings to the beheading of a Druze man . The Bedouin were allegedly joined by rebel elements, according to some reports from al-Qa ʿ ida affiliated Jabhat an-Nusra. The number of the casualties on the Druze side differs from 12 to 24 and reportedly includes a high number of religious sheikhs (according to opposition outlet Zaman alWasl even seven). Harming religious people ( ʿuqqal ) is generally a red line for the Druze. This was illustrated in April 2014, when the arrest of a sheikh led to rare public protests in Suwaida ʾ  and temporary a precarious situation for the regime. However, as Aymenn al-Tami...

An interesting feature about discrimination against Druze in Israel comes from Israeli international news channel i24news . It features two Druze personalities who had a successful career in the Israeli public: former diplomat and Shinui -MK Zaidan 'Atashi and former TV-journalist Rafiq Halabi, the current mayor of Daliat al-Karmal. Both are remarkably explicit in their criticism.   

The frontline in the suburbs of Damascus is coming closer to Jaramana, which is inhabited by a large number of Druze and Christians. The city had in 2009 around 190.000 inhabitants but the actual number must be way higher since many refugees live there. The city was also home to a sizeable number of mainly Christian refugees from Iraq but I don't know if they are still there. According to opposition site All4Syria many Druze have fled from Jaramana to still relatively safe Suwaida.  A translated version of the All4Syria article can be found at The Syrian Observer : The events of the night of Saturday, 6 September in Dweilaa, Kashkool and Jaramana, in Damascus, when opposition fighters entered the Dukhania neighborhood, were traumatic for all who witnessed them.   Thousands of people fled their houses minutes after the attack begun, running through the streets of Kashkool, carrying all that they could to Dweilaa or Jaramana.   Upon arriv...

Christians mobilize against Mideast menace by Associated Press

Jabhat al-Nusra is capturing more hostages in Quinatira west of #Syria , this time Druze according to activists from the region. — Zaid Benjamin (@zaidbenjamin) 2. September 2014 Israel 'cooperating with Assad' in Golan Heights   by Kate Shuttleworth, DW The recent seizure of the Quneitra border crossing by Islamist extremists fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces marked a major escalation in the impact Syria's civil war has had on Israel. Fighters from the Nusra Front, al Qaeda's branch in Syria, expelled Assad's forces from the area and abducted 43 United Nations peacekeepers in the process. That brought the Islamist extremists within yards of Israeli positions, forcing Israel to close their side of Quneitra crossing and order farmers off agricultural land on the border. (...) Israel prepares to accept Syrian refugees Until now Israel has largely refused to accept any Syrians displaced by the civil war, and neighboring countries...

I have touched the phenomenon of Aramean nationalism among Israel's Christians population  - which is kinda connected with the attempts of recruiting Christians into the IDF - here and here already. Now Haaretz features an article about it but disappoints for mainly two reasons: No mention that Aramean nationalism in Israel is foremost found among the tiny Maronite community (not all Christians) and no discussion of the active part the state is playing in these regards. Israeli Christian community, neither Arab nor Palestinian, are fighting to save identity by Judy Maltz, Haaretz

Readers of this blog might remember, that the case of Swiss nationals fighting in Syria for the YPG-affiliated Syriac Military Council had been a topic here already. Now German magazine Focus published a report about this approximately 10 fighters and the support they are receiving from the neutral country. „Kampf ist christliche Pflicht“ Kreuzzug gegen den Terror: Schweizer Christen ziehen gegen IS in den Krieg by Focus Online A very great article by Rania Abouzei for National Geographic deals with the current political situation of the Christians in northern Iraq, including it's leadership, plans for autonomy and the recent phenomena of Christian militias, even though their establishment is (so far) rather symbolic. The latter is a huge difference to the passivity of the Christians during the civil war after the fall of Saddam Hussain, when the Christians reacted with passivity to persecution. This shift is also reflected by the contacts of the Assyrian Democratic Movem...

Besides of Mahmud Darwish, Samih al-Qasim was the most prominent Palestinian "poet of the resistance" but far more radical and unforgiving than the former. He was born 1939 in az-Zarqa (then Transjordan) into a Druze family from Rama, a mixed village in the Galilee, where his family returned to prior of 1948. Some would argue his radicalism compared to Darwish is due to his heritage - which may kinda forced forced him to prove his nationalism even more because of the perception of the Druze as collaborators with Israel - but honestly I am not convinced. Although al-Qasim was very secular and a long time member of the Communist Party, he had never hidden his Druze background. In 1960 he was one of the first Druze who were imprisoned for refusing conscription into the IDF and later he was very active to mobilize support for the Communist Party and the anti-conscription movement among his fellow Druze in Israel. He died last week in Safad at the age of 75. Samih al-Qasim wa...

Analyzing and even just following the events concerning religious minorities in the MENA is not all fun these days-it's often depressing, but one man lately put a little badly needed humor in it: Walid Junblat. Lebanon's by far most influential Druze leader is not only the head of a socialist party, a former militia leader and a feudal lord - apart from these he has somehow the reputation of a playboy. Honestly, I am not really interested in such gossip especially since it dates back decades. However, in the light of all the domestic problems and the threat by IS, Junblat seriously took time to welcome the competitors of the Lebanese edition of reality TV series Topmodel to his castle of Mukhtara in the Shuf mountains. Since Junblat had been referred to as Hugh Hefner on Twitter, it reminded me of one of his most interesting interviews, which was published 198 4 in the Playboy Magazine . Junblat, it seems, loves to play with his playboy-image. Edit: Junblat wrote a self...

In contrast to the case of the Christians, which is more an expulsion, what is happening now to the Yazidis clearly has genocidal features. Other minorities like the Shabak might be next. One of the best overviews comes from Matthew Barber (also read his piece on the expulsion of Mosul's Christians) for Syria Comment: IS Routs Peshmerga, Takes Control of Sinjar Mountains, Jeopardizes Yazidi Homeland by Matthew Barber, Syria Comme nt Some round-up: Iraq’s Religious Minorities are Being Slaughtered and ISIS Just Captured the Last Town Giving Them Shelter by Andrew Slater, The Daily Beast In a major defeat for Kurdish forces the Iraqi town of Sinjar was captured Sunday by the group known as ISIS, now calling itself the Islamic State. This is the Kurds first major loss to ISIS and a catastrophe for the religious minorities who had taken refuge in the area and are now at imminent risk of being slaughtered. Reports from the region describe an unfolding tragedy with...

At Syria Comment Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi provides a solid overview about current militia-related minority dynamics in Syria briefly touching Alawites (including muqawama as-Suriya ), Druze and Christians (in a SSNP- and an Assyrian context). Minority Dynamics in Syria by Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi, Syria Comment

Watchmen guard Ras Baalbek against attacks   by Hikmat Samhan, The Daily Star  “I haven’t gone up for three years,” he said. “There are no guarantees. Our east is occupied by Daesh.” Samhan, a senior resident of Ras Baalbek, was using the Arabic acronym of the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS), the Al-Qaeda splinter group that has declared a “caliphate” last month in parts of Iraq and Syria. Now the village, a few kilometers north of Arsal, has set up watch posts to track and guard against Syrian rebels hiding in the nearby hills on the border with Syria. If they attack, the village’s defenders can fight them off for a spell, Samhan said. “Then the village will have woken and the Army would have woken, and maybe help would come from Hezbollah, because wherever they show up Hezbollah shows up,” he said. Ras Baalbek is only a few kilometers from Syria, bordered by a lawless mountain range. Its 10,000 residents are overwhelmingly Christian...