One of the most disturbing things I’ve read in a long time was Haaretz’s report last Friday that the government has ruled out military aid to Syrian Druse, who are under serious threat from extremist Sunni groups like Islamic State and the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front. Maybe this is merely a smokescreen, meant to allow Israel to provide aid while retaining plausible deniability. But if the report is true, it’s a horrendous error, both morally and strategically.
Ordinarily, I don’t think Israel has any obligation to prevent potential Mideast massacres. Not only does it have no moral duty to rescue people who for the most part would happily kill us if they could, but even if it did, it lacks the capacity. Israel may be the Mideast’s strongest military power, but it has nowhere near the power necessary to be the region’s policeman.
Nor do I entertain fantasies about creating a friendly Druse statelet to our north, though that idea has some proponents. In an essay in Mosaic Magazine last year, for instance, Ofir Haivry argued that Israel should support “the Christians and Druse of both Lebanon and Syria, and above all the Kurds,” in an effort to forge a bloc of Mideast minorities that could counterbalance both Shi’ites and Sunnis.
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