Syria and Religious Fear Continues (Alawites, Christians, and the Druze)
Murad Makhmudov, Noriko Watanabe, and Lee Jay Walker
Modern Tokyo Times
The Islamist power brokers in Damascus are increasingly being accommodated by Gulf and Western powers through diplomatic engagement, economic incentives, and political normalization. Yet beneath this emerging architecture of international acceptance lies a deeply troubling reality: Syria’s religious mosaic remains profoundly vulnerable. For the Alawites and Druze in particular, the question is no longer merely whether Damascus will speak the language of inclusion, but whether minorities can actually live without fear of religious persecution, political marginalization, or renewed bloodshed. The continuing willingness of external powers to engage Damascus despite massacres and pogroms against Alawites and Druze — and atrocities also suffered by Christians — raises profound questions about whether geopolitical expediency is once again being placed above the security of Syria’s minorities.
The danger is especially acute for the Alawites, who remain burdened by the legacy of Syria’s civil war and by the sectarian hostility directed against them by Sunni Islamist forces. The removal of President Bashar al-Assad did not magically erase the ideological currents that had shaped the conflict. Syrian Sunni Islamists and international jihadists who embraced extreme interpretations of Islam were present throughout the war, and elements of this ideological landscape remain embedded in post-Assad Syria. Despite attempts by Ahmed al-Sharaa to project an image of political inclusiveness, his willingness to incorporate radical foreign Islamists into Syria’s military structures has intensified concerns among minorities who understandably question whether the new order represents genuine pluralism or simply a more sophisticated political accommodation with Islamist forces.
The warning from Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Saar in 2025 was therefore stark. Saar stated that it was “very dangerous” to belong to a religious minority in Syria, adding, “This has been proven time and again over the past six months.”
He further argued that “The international community must ensure the security and rights of the minorities in Syria.” These words carry particular weight when viewed through the experiences of the Alawites and Druze, whose communities have repeatedly found themselves exposed to the brutality of sectarian violence.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), the violence that erupted on March 6, 2025, resulted in security forces and allied groups killing more than 1,700 civilians, “the vast majority of them Alawites.” Some Christians were also caught in the violence. Yet the scale and sectarian character of the attacks against Alawite civilians demonstrated something that cannot simply be buried beneath diplomatic language: the fall of Assad did not bring an end to sectarian politics or collective punishment.
For the Alawites of Latakia, Tartus, Hama, Homs, and surrounding areas, this history has created a profound sense of vulnerability. They were targeted by Sunni Islamist forces before the massacres of 2025, and the subsequent bloodshed reinforced the fear that political transformation in Damascus could become a vehicle for sectarian domination. The central issue, therefore, is not whether the new Syrian leadership can issue carefully crafted statements about national unity. It is whether Alawite civilians can trust the institutions, armed formations, and political structures that now claim authority over their lives.
The Druze face a different historical and geographical reality, but the underlying concern is equally profound. Their survival has long depended upon maintaining a delicate balance between communal self-protection, political pragmatism, and coexistence with the wider Syrian state. Any attempt by Islamist power brokers in Damascus to impose a centralized ideological order upon a community possessing its own distinct religious identity and strong traditions of local autonomy risks igniting another dangerous confrontation. Consequently, the Druze question cannot be reduced to a peripheral issue in Syria’s evolving political settlement. It is part of the fundamental test of whether the post-Assad order will genuinely respect pluralism.
This explains why the Druze community in Israel is expected to remain deeply engaged with developments across the Syrian border. The emotional, religious, and familial connections between Druze communities transcend contemporary political frontiers. Consequently, pressure upon Syrian Druze communities is unlikely to be viewed in Israel as an abstract Syrian domestic matter. For many Israeli Druze, Damascus’s treatment of the Druze is intimately connected to the security of their own wider community. Hence, continued Islamist consolidation in Syria could generate sustained pressure upon the Israeli government to ensure that Damascus is held militarily and politically accountable when minority communities are threatened.
Yet Washington, London, Brussels, Ankara, and several Gulf capitals appear increasingly determined to work with the new realities in Damascus. The strategic calculation is understandable: regional stability, migration, counterterrorism, economic reconstruction, and the containment of rival powers all encourage engagement. But the danger is that minorities become the price paid for geopolitical accommodation. Once international actors decide that a powerful Islamist authority is preferable to political uncertainty, the suffering of smaller communities can become an inconvenient obstacle to normalization rather than the central test of legitimacy.
The experience of Iraq should serve as a warning. The upheavals that transformed the country forced enormous numbers of religious minorities from their ancestral homes. Iraq’s Christian population declined dramatically, while Yazidis endured one of the most horrific episodes of religious persecution in the modern Middle East, including enslavement and mass killings at the hands of ISIS. Syria now faces the danger of repeating elements of this tragedy under a different political configuration.
The Kurdish question further exposes the ruthless nature of regional geopolitics. Kurdish aspirations have repeatedly been subordinated to the strategic calculations of larger powers, particularly where American policy has intersected with Turkey’s determination to contain Kurdish political and military influence. The result is a painful lesson for Syria’s minorities: great powers may speak eloquently about democracy, human rights, and pluralism, yet abandon these principles when they collide with strategic interests.
Thus, the central question confronting Syria is far greater than the fate of one president or one political faction. It concerns whether a country possessing an extraordinary mosaic of Alawites, Druze, Christians, Kurds, Yazidis, Sunni Muslims, Shiites, and secular communities can survive without one identity becoming politically dominant over the others. If Damascus evolves toward an Islamist-centered political order while Western and Gulf powers prioritize strategic accommodation, the fear among minorities will not disappear merely because the rhetoric becomes more moderate.
For the Alawites, the memory of the massacres remains painfully immediate. For the Druze, the danger lies in whether their autonomy and communal security can survive an increasingly centralized Islamist political order (the pogrom against the Druze remains etched into the collective memory of this embattled community). For Christians and other minorities, the wider regional experience offers little comfort. And for secular Syrians, the prospect of Islamist power becoming entrenched within the institutions of the state raises an equally fundamental question about the future character of Syrian society.
Ultimately, Syria’s future cannot be measured simply by whether Damascus receives diplomatic recognition, economic assistance, or political legitimacy from Washington, London, Brussels, Ankara, or the Gulf. The real measure of the new Syria will be far more demanding: Can an Alawite child sleep without fear? Can a Druze community protect its identity without being forced into confrontation? Can Christians remain in their ancestral homes? Can Kurds and other minorities retain meaningful cultural and political rights? And can secular Syrians live without an imposed ideological order?
The tragedy of Syria should not, however, be reduced to a simplistic confrontation between Sunni Muslims and religious minorities. Millions of Sunni Syrians have no desire to see their country transformed into an ideological state dominated by Islamist power brokers. Many Sunni Muslims, alongside Alawites, Druze, Christians, Kurds, Yazidis, secularists, and others, have an interest in preserving Syria as a pluralistic mosaic rather than witnessing one political-religious current monopolize the future. Consequently, the fundamental divide is not simply sectarian; it is also political and ideological. Those who believe Syria belongs to all its citizens face the danger of being marginalized by forces that seek to define national legitimacy through a narrower conception of power, identity, and religion.
If the answer to these questions remains uncertain, then international normalization risks becoming not a pathway toward peace, but a mechanism through which the fears of Syria’s minorities are simply pushed into the shadows. The tragedy would be profound: after years of war, the world could once again congratulate itself on a new political settlement while the people most vulnerable to sectarianism quietly ask whether the nightmare has truly ended — or merely changed its face.
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