The Druze stood with Israel, now we must champion a state for them - opinion

For decades, the Druze have stood by Israel with unwavering loyalty. They have fought alongside us, guarded our borders, buried their fallen next to ours, and shared our fate as partners, not bystanders. They are a proud, indigenous people with a distinct identity, much like our own, and, like the Jewish people, they have suffered brutally whenever the world turned away. With over a million Druze across Syria and Lebanon, their survival as a people is now a test of regional conscience.

Today, their situation in Syria is catastrophic. In Sweida and other Druze regions, entire villages have been besieged and cut off from essential supplies. Families have been dragged from their homes. Elders have been tortured for spurning jihadist ultimatums.

For years, Abu Mohammed al-Julani and the networks he has commanded have been implicated in suicide bombings, sectarian massacres, forced conversions, and the targeting of Christians, Alawites, Shi’ites, and Druze. Extremists thrive in the power vacuums carved by war, and minorities like the Druze pay the price.

Israel must present another vision: one where Druze leaders, not rebranded extremists, stand in the Oval Office as partners, protected with the same moral clarity that guided the administration in defending Israeli hostages. No other nation in the region has earned the Druze community’s trust the way Israel has; no other nation can champion their sovereignty with both credibility and strength.

The Sykes-Picot states were never organic. The Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916, the San Remo Conference of 1920, and the French Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon (1923) carved the Middle East into artificial states drawn by colonial cartographers in London and Paris who neither knew nor cared about the identities of the peoples whose lives they were redrawing. The Druze were scattered across borders designed for the convenience of empires and left without sovereignty or protection.

A century later, those lines are collapsing. Lebanon is imploding – demographically, fiscally, and governmentally. Syria is fragmented into militias, proxies, and warlords. The region’s map is being rewritten by reality, not diplomacy.

A Druze homeland would form a moderate, stabilizing buffer north of Israel. It would significantly disrupt the land bridge Iran exploits to move militias, weapons, and cash from Iraq to Lebanon.

It would offer the United States and its allies a rare chance for a genuine humanitarian achievement in a region scarred by decades of failed interventions. It would also extend the logic of the Abraham Accords, which proved that new, constructive regional partnerships are possible when moderates unite against extremism.

For Israel, championing a Druze state would deepen our emerging role as a stabilizing regional superpower, not through coercion, but through principle. Our strength today comes not only from military might or technological superiority but from moral clarity. As Isaiah proclaimed:

“I will make you a light unto the nations, that My salvation may reach the ends of the earth.” (Isaiah 49:6)

To be a light is to act when others hesitate. To protect the vulnerable. To stand for justice even when it is inconvenient.

An independent Druze state would:

Shield an endangered, loyal minority from mass persecution; erect a moderate buffer astride Israel, Syria, and Lebanon; disrupt Iran’s Golan corridor; fortify the moderate axis born of the Abraham Accords; deliver the West a genuine humanitarian triumph; crown Israel the moral architect of a safer Levant.

Druze soldiers have stood on our front lines with courage and honor. Gratitude is not enough; we owe them sovereignty.

A century ago, colonial pens fractured the Levant. Today, let Israel’s pen restore one nation. The Druze stood with us when it mattered. Now we must stand for them and place this initiative firmly on Israel’s diplomatic agenda today.