New Lines Magazine just published an in-deph report from Suwaida by Madeline Edwards providing much background on the complex current situation and the relationship between Syria's Druze and the transitional government. Some brief quotes by yours truly are included as well. “Historically, the relationship with Sweida and the central state is very rocky,” says Tobias Lang, a political scientist who has published research on the Druze of the Levant. “The Druze always claim some autonomy.” Even after Syria gained independence from France in 1946, Sweida remained somewhat a solitary thorn in the side of the state, isolated down its long road from Damascus. That is why, says Lang, “it was with huge brutality that the Druze were integrated into the modern state.” Adib al-Shishakli, who served briefly as Syrian president in the 1950s, bombed parts of Sweida in 1954 to quash Druze dissent. (...) By 2014, when the Men of Dignity emerged, Balaous was filling a “power vacuum made ove...
Interview in German with Swiss public radio (SRF) providing some background on the situation of the Druze in the occupied Golan Heights against the backdrop of the tragic rocket attack on Majdal Shams. Last month I was also cited in a piece on Middle East Eye by Madeline Edwards about Walid Junblat's rhetoric towards Israel's Druze community: ...And though images of Sultan al-Atrash are common among Druze Israelis, Lang said, “I think what triggered Jumblatt was the usage of the pictures of his father. This is quite unusual. Memory is always selective - Kamal Jumblatt can be seen as a symbol of the Lebanese and pro-Palestinian left, and as a Druze leader, too." But for Druze citizens of Israel, according to Lang, Kamal Jumblatt’s image is “not widely used.” ...