Jumblat Urges Syria's Druze 'against Falling for Regime's Sectarian Schemes'

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat remarked on Monday the sectarian identity of Syria's Druze population will not protect it from strife, but its Arab and popular identity will.

He said in his weekly editorial in the PSP-affiliated al-Anbaa website: “The Druze should not fall for the Syrian regime's sectarian trap.”

He cited the recent clashes in the predominantly Druze Sweida region, “which demonstrate the regime's practices in fueling sectarian tensions among the people that will create strife among the population.”

“Strife will help the regime in once again imposing its security and political power over different Syrian regions,” he added.

Jumblat said that the Druze in Sweida “have the option to choose petty sectarian policies adopted by the regime or choose the popular Arab fold.”

“The sectarian identity does not protect the Druze minority in Lebanon, Syria, and the Palestinian territories, but the binding Arab one will bolster this sect given its political and geographic surroundings,” he explained.

He therefore called on Druze clerics and officials to exercise the “highest degree of diligence to build understanding and achieve reconciliation.”

“Such policies are better than begging for weapons from the regime that is seeking to exploit the Druze and other minorities in its futile war, which has led to killing of at least 200,000 Syrians,” continued the PSP chief.

Twenty-three people were killed on Saturday in battles between Syrian opposition fighters and bedouin gunmen and between fighters loyal to the regime in the village of Dama in Sweida, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.