Hezbollah’s missile attack on Majdal Shams, in the Israeli-ruled Golan Heights, killed 12 Druze Arab boys and girls and wounded 16 more at a soccer field July 27. The barbaric attack by the Tehran-backed group has increased the threat of a wider war.
That danger was exacerbated after the death of central Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in a strike attributed to Israel at a guesthouse in Tehran July 31.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken had pressed Israel not to carry out any major retaliation, worried it will upset the stability that Washington seeks to advance its own interests in the region, including securing markets and resources for the U.S. rulers.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Majdal Shams July 29, telling Druze leaders, “These children are our children,” and vowing retaliation. A day later the Israeli military killed a top Hezbollah commander, Fuad Shukr, in an airstrike on a suburb of Beirut.
Hezbollah, a key part of the Iranian rulers’ “axis of resistance,” has launched over 6,000 missiles, drones and other projectiles at northern Israel from Lebanon since Oct. 8, the day after Hamas’ murderous pogrom. Its goal is to force Israel to accept a cease-fire in Gaza, allowing Hamas to recover and prepare more anti-Jewish pogroms. And to accept a permanent presence of Hezbollah near the border, a dagger aimed at the existence of the Jewish people in Israel.
The pro-Tehran Resistance News Network immediately posted videos of the attack on Majdal Shams claiming there were “11 wounded settlers” and bragging that “over 100 rockets have been fired from southern Lebanon in the last hour.” But when it realized that those killed and wounded were Druze Arabs and not Jews, it changed its tune and blamed Israel.
There are some 300,000 Druze in Lebanon and 700,000 in Syria, in addition to 140,000 in Israel. Hezbollah and Tehran fear the reaction of the Druze in Lebanon and Syria. While not supporters of Tehran, the Druze in Lebanon and Syria had not risen up to oppose Tehran’s Jew-hating course in recent years.
Some U.S. news outlets joined the cover-up of the Hezbollah attack. The Washington Post’s banner front-page headline July 29 proclaimed, “Israel hits targets in Lebanon: Strikes against Hezbollah installations muted amid international calls for restraint.”
Adding to this twisted view, directly above the headline the paper ran a photo of grieving family members in Majdal Shams. The caption reported that “the Iranian-backed militant group denies connection to the attack.” Two days later the Post finally admitted that all evidence points to Hezbollah.
The anti-Israel bias is no surprise. Since the Oct. 7 pogrom, the Post has focused its coverage not on the murderous, Nazi-like actions of Hamas, but on false accusations that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
Netanyahu addresses U.S. Congress
The attack on Majdal Shams came a few days after Netanyahu addressed the U.S. Congress July 24.
As the central leader of Israel’s capitalist government, Netanyahu appealed to the imperialist parties in the U.S. to stand with Israel to fight Jew-hatred and prevent Tehran from advancing its reactionary influence in the region. With or without Washington’s support, he said, “Israel will always defend itself.”
“Three thousand Hamas terrorists stormed into Israel” Oct. 7, he recalled, appealing for broader popular support in the U.S. and around the world. “They butchered 1,200 people from 41 countries.”
“These monsters, they raped women, they beheaded men, they burnt babies alive, they killed parents in front of their children and children in front of their parents. They dragged 255 people, both living and dead, into the dark dungeons of Gaza.”
Netanyahu pointed out four Israel Defense Forces soldiers in the audience who demonstrated great courage in battle against Hamas, including an Ethiopian immigrant and a Bedouin Arab.
“The men and women of the IDF come from every corner of Israeli society, every ethnicity, every color, every creed, left and right, religious and secular,” he said.
In his pitch for backing from the U.S. rulers he urged them to view Israel as a bulwark that defends Washington’s interests against Tehran and its Hamas, Hezbollah, and Houthis proxies, which seek to eradicate Israel and the Jewish people.
But the U.S. imperialist rulers are focused on advancing their own economic and political interests, not in fighting against Jew-hatred or defending Israel as a refuge for Jews.
Democratic Party candidate Kamala Harris demonstratively boycotted Netanyahu’s talk, as did some 50% of her fellow Democratic congressmen and senators.
The next day Harris met with Netanyahu at the White House. In a break with diplomatic protocol, she held her own press conference afterward, without informing Netanyahu.
“I will always ensure that Israel is able to defend itself,” she said, before getting to her main point, which was to demand that Israel carry out a cease-fire before Hamas is defeated. “I will not be silent” in the face of the “human suffering in Gaza,” she said, not once mentioning that the suffering is a result of Hamas’ continued use of civilians as human shields, placing its command posts inside schools, mosques and U.N. buildings and its refusal to free the remaining hostages.
Druze in Lebanon, Syria and Israel
The Druze are an Arabic-speaking people with their own religion. They’ve been part of Israel since its formation in 1948, when thousands of Jews who survived the Holocaust were refused entry by Washington and other imperialist powers and emigrated to what became Israel. Alongside forces led by Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and collaborator of Adolf Hitler in the Second World War, bourgeois Arab leaderships and Islamist groups attacked the new Jewish state. The Druze opted to stand with Israel and became Israeli citizens. Most Druze men proudly serve in the Israel Defense Forces.
But the history of the Druze in Golan Heights is different. Until 1967, when Israeli forces headed off an invasion by the Egyptian army and other Arab regimes, the Golan Heights was part of Syria. The Israelis defeated those armies in six days, wresting control of the Golan Heights, the West Bank and all of Jerusalem.
For decades the Druze in Golan Heights viewed themselves as Syrian citizens living under Israeli occupation. But over time many have become more integrated into Israeli society, especially the youth. Today some 20% are Israeli citizens.
Some Druze, angry at discriminatory treatment by the government and what they view as insufficient action to end months of Hezbollah attacks in the north, heckled Netanyahu when he came to pay his respects. Others agreed that Hezbollah “should be obliterated.”
Jewish citizens of Israel reached out in solidarity with the Druze victims of Hezbollah. Ynetnews reports that “countless citizens have made pilgrimages to the local playground, laying down bouquets of flowers or tying black ribbons to the charred fence” where the rocket struck.
“We are all brothers and one people,” Shmuel Hazan told the paper, while visiting the site. “We must only strengthen and support each other.”