When region’s minorities are used as buffers

Ongoing conflicts in Middle East region are focussing the attention on religious, ethnic, sectarian and other minorities. Kurds, Druze, Ahvaz, Al Houthis and likes are under the spotlight as they become embroiled in ethnic and sectarian wars spreading in many countries – whether they’re targeted by terrorist groups like Daesh (the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) or being used as proxies to fight these groups or even legitimate authorities in a country, as tools of external actors. Some minorities’ positions actually combine all these factors and more. In imperial days, occupying powers used minorities in an occupied country to control its population. The Ottoman empire used Circassians, Armenians, and others to control Arab countries under Turkish occupation. British empire used Christians in Egypt, just as the French did in Lebanon. Current developments mirror that conventional trend, though in a different way. Yet, those minorities are still ‘being used’.

Israeli occupiers in Palestine use Bedouins and Druze soldiers as border guards to confront Palestinians. Whoever visits Israel/Palestine easily understands why soldiers from minorities are stationed at the crossings – humiliating whoever crosses between Israel and the West Bank or Gaza in a way any other soldier would be ashamed to do. It is as though history is repeating itself — that’s how Ottoman occupation forces in the Levant and North Africa used Circassians as tax collectors from the occupied peoples of these countries. With the conflict in Syria, and Hezbollah’s involvement in it – siding with the Iranian-backed Syrian regime – closer to its border, Israel is now thinking of using the Druze community as a buffer with a Syria-on-fire. Since the start of war in Syria four years ago, Israel was keeping a distance as fighting was not close to south-eastern Syria, where Israel occupies part of the Syrian Golan heights. But with Hezbollah’s involvement and the war coming closer to Israel, Tel Aviv started to build contacts with some Syrian opposition groups on the basis of mutual animosity to both Hezbollah and the Syrian regime. It seems the aim was not to play a role in the Syrian conflict, but rather to keep the Syrian internal fire at bay. The Druze community is concentrated in that region encompassing parts of Syria, Lebanon, Israel and it fell prey to militant Islamist groups fighting the Syrian regime and Hezbollah. Israel tried to exploit that, sending messages through prominent figures of Israeli Druze community that the minority’s interests might lie in ties with Israel. Syrian Druze leaders snubbed the offer, but the idea is still there and reviving it depends on what turns the conflict takes in Syria.

The Druze being used by Israel as a buffer with Syria might not be as significant as the plight of another minority in the region being affected by turmoil in Syria and Iraq, while suffering the brunt of Turkish and Iranian involvement in the conflict. Though Kurds aspire to a historical nation in a historical land, the fact is that they’re a minority in Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran. In their pursuit of an independent Kurdish entity, the Kurds suffered exploitation from all regimes in the region and from international powers involved in the region. Even when Iraqi Kurds were given autonomy by Saddam Hussain’s regime in early 1990s, they were ‘used’ by the Americans and the British as a proxies in their war against Saddam. Invasion and occupation of Iraq was supposed – from Kurdish perspective – to result in Iraqi Kurdistan’s independence but it never materialised and since then, their dream of a Kurdish state has become more distant. Turkey, in its effort to present itself to the West as a modern state, started a peace process with its Kurdish minority conceding some basic rights to them. Then came the war in Syria, and Syrian Kurds paid a heavy price. The rest is in the news and doesn’t need a reminder.

Syrian Kurds are accused by Turkey of being pro-Damascus regime and Iraqi Kurds can’t help their brothers next door. Iraqi Kurds are being used by the alliance to stop Daesh’s advance in Iraq, which in a way helps Iran and its allies ruling in Baghdad – which the Kurds had to swallow bitterly. Meanwhile, Turkey has claimed to fight ‘terrorism’ mainly to weaken Kurdish aspirations thorough military means, targeting Turkish, Syrian and Iraqi Kurds. No wonder that Kurdish minorities will emerge from these conflicts more fragmented, and actually more ‘minoritised’. Again, as in imperial age minorities in the region will keep paying a price of struggles and conflicts they neither sought to be part of nor they benefit from.

— Dr Ahmad Mustafa is an Abu Dhabi-based journalist.