Damasheq News Platform, quoting Al-Anbaa
In recent days, some have presented us with a series of historical and religious misconceptions that are incompatible with the facts of history and geography, as well as with the origins of the Unitarian faith in terms of its emergence and doctrine.
The narrative that some have sought to promote regarding an alleged sharing of religious beliefs between the Druze Unitarians and Jews, and the claim that they have historically been an integral part of the State of Israel, merely reflects a personal inclination and a clear subjective tendency to forge ties with the occupying entity. This narrative has no support or solid foundation, neither in the essence of the Unitarian faith nor in the glorious history of the Ma‘rufi community, passed down from generation to generation.
Perhaps the most dangerous aspect of this approach is the reduction of an entire community—rich in intellectual elites and prominent cultural figures—to a single individual who monopolizes the right to speak on behalf of its members, decides for them the name of their imagined state, “Bashan,” and fabricates for them a hybrid history that neither resembles them nor reflects the faith upon which they were raised, or the principles and intellectual foundations they have embraced in both their national and pan-Arab dimensions.
The people of Jabal al-Arab have not authorized anyone to speak on their behalf or determine their destiny in matters concerning their present and future. Nor are they ignorant of the facts of history and geography, particularly the legacy written by great leaders such as Sultan Pasha al-Atrash, who rejected the temptations of a mini-state and insisted on the national and pan-Arab dimensions of the struggle of the people of the Mountain.
Al-Suwayda, whose elderly and young alike took to the streets in 1959 to welcome the great Arab nationalist leader Gamal Abdel Nasser onto its sacred soil, will never accept any manipulation of its national and pan-Arab identity, nor its association with an entity pursuing a settler-colonial project—one that knows how to conceal the poison of its expansionist ambitions within the honey of a hybrid mini-state that appeals to the dreams of those obsessed with power; any power, even at the expense of the facts of history and geography.
