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your support. So over the weekend, I became an expert
on the Drews, not the Jews, the Drews, although the
Jews did help the Drews. Yeah, so I actually did
not become an expert. I had heard of the Drews before,
but didn't really know anything about them. They are a
small Middle Eastern religious sect characterized by an eclectic system
of doctrines and by a cohesion and loyalty among its
members that have enabled them to maintain for centuries their
close knit identity and distinctive faith. This is according to
the Encyclopedia Britannica. The Drus numbered more than one million
in the early twenty first century. They lived mostly in Lebanon, Syria,
and Israel, with smaller communities in other countries. I thought
this was interesting also that they call themselves Moahid muahadun
done anyway, it translates apparently as unitarians. So I don't
know if that will help with the pr that they're
going to need from American liberals because they found themselves
on the receiving end of just the latest installment of
the Religion of Peace. Yeah, they they have been targeted
for actual ethnic cleansing by Syrians, by jihadists. So the
again back to the Britannica. The Dru's Faith and that
spelled Druze Drews. The Dru's Faith originated in Egypt as
an offshoot of Isma i Shiism. I don't know if
that is like Shia or what. I'm not going to
go to in depth on their religious beliefs, but this
was around like nine ninety six to ten twenty one
time frame, Okay, so like over the course of like
thirty years, right as the nine hundreds were rolling into
the thousands, that's when this offshoot began. And then twenty
years after that, in the year ten forty three, they
basically ended all of their proselytizing and so ever since then,
so since ten forty three AD, they have not recognized
conversions to their faith and they don't permit conversion away
from the faith. I don't know what the penalty on
that is, but like that's it. Like the one million
that there were in the early twenty first century, it's
like you got to keep marying and reproducing among the
million Drews in order to expand your ranks because they
don't allow conversions in or out. Okay, the largest concentration
of Drews in the present day is in Lebanon. Oh.
By the way, the Drews are Arabs people. They are
Arabs m h. And it seems like this is a
very similar kind of a religion to Islam, I think,
but I don't know, but they're different and that cannot
be tolerated in Muslim majority countries in the Middle East.
So there is the largest concentration of Druze rather in
the present day, that's in Lebanon. They've got like three
hundred thousand. And while they got the largest concentration of
Drus in Lebanon, the most the largest population by number
is actually in Syria, where there's seven hundred thousand Drews
there now I thought this little tidbit was interesting in
this would have been in nineteen twenty five, the leader
of the Druze, Sultan al Atrash, led a revolt against
French rule. After local success, Syrian nationalists outside the Druz
community joined the revolt, and the rebellions spread throughout the
region and into Damascus before it was suppressed in nineteen
twenty seven. Among Syrians, this revolt is remembered as the
nation's first nationalist uprising. So the Drews were the first.
Dare I call them anti colonialists? Right? They tried to
They tried to kick the French out of their area
back in nineteen twenty five. Dozens of local Dru's militias
have formed amid the turmoil of the Syrian Civil War
after Ahmed al Sharrah, a Sunni Islamist leader, took control
of the country in late twenty twenty four. Believe this
is the the Isis guy, the former Isis guy, right,
or a former al Qaeda guy or whatever he is,
and he started pushing for the local militias to disarm.
But the Drews were a little suspicious of this, so
they were very hesitant to disarm. Themselves Drew's militias in
two different areas is One is called Sweda Orsuada Sweida Sweda,
and there's another another area called Jeremanah near Damascus. So
these various militias coalesced into four coalitions, and they were
very hesitant to disarm themselves fearing what exactly has now
been occurring, which is the targeting of Drus by these
Islamists in Syria. Israel also has a sizeable community of Drus,
about one hundred and forty thousand of them. Actually, back
in nineteen forty two, after the Sunni leadership in Jerusalem
threatened to take control of the Tomb of Jethro, the
Drus sided with the Jewish forces in the nineteen forty
eight war. Druze soldiers have ever since fought for Israel
in every Arab Israeli war. So now you can see
the problem that the Islamists have with the Drews. Right,
they are the only Arab group conscripted into the Israeli
defense forces, and they participate in Israel's border security and
diplomatic corps as well. So they're too close to the Jews,
which really I mean Drews. Jews like you can see
how that would be like a natural alliance there. So
John Spencer, the executive director of the Urban Warfare Institute
co author of Understanding Urban Warfare, wrote a lengthy piece.
He posted it as an article on Twitter and The
Jerusalem Post republished it, talking about what has been occurring
over the last excuse me, like a week and a
half in Syria along the border with Israel. The Drews
have been attacked, they have been targeted, and the Islamists
who are engaging in the ethnic cleansing have been Stop
me if you've heard this tactic before, videotaping their atrocities
and broadcasting them out to the world because they are
proud of the work they are doing for their profit.
All right, if you're listening to this show, you know
I try to keep up with all sorts of current events,
and I know you do too, And you've probably heard
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because it's how you detect media bias, which is why
I've been so impressed with ground News. It's an app
and it's a website, and it combines news from around
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ground News as they make the media landscape more transparent.
John Spencer, the executive director of the Urban Warfare Institute.
Over at the Jerusalem Post, Spencer writes this past week,
a brutal campaign of violence has unfolded in southern Syria.
Hundreds of Druze civilians, members of a minority community indigenous
to the area to the levant, have been murdered, kidnapped,
or forced to flee their homes. Villages have been burned.
Women and children were reportedly slaughtered in sacred sites where
they had sought refuge. The perpetrators include radical Islamist militants,
Bedouine gangs, Sunni Muslims, and regime backed elements, all empowered
by years of state collapse and lawlessness. The carnage has
been captured on video and is now spreading across social media.
These are not vague reports or unverifiable claims. There is
footage of Dru's civilians being hunted down and executed. Elders
are dragged into the streets. They are mustaches shaved in
acts of humiliation see for the Drews. It's not just
an insult, it's a desecration. In Druze culture, facial hair,
especially the mustache, is a powerful symbol of dignity, piety,
and manhood. Women are stripped and assaulted. Men are beaten, tortured,
and forced to leap from rooftops as militants cheer. More
than one video shows Drew's men being driven to the
edge of their balconies. They are forced to climb over
the railings and as they leap, they are shot multiple
times as they are leaping to their own deaths. This
is a special kind of evil, deliberate, performative, proud. All
of it is filmed. All of it is shared online
for the enjoyment of the killers. These images are not
just horrifying, they are a visceral reminder of the savagery
unleashed by Hamas on October seventh. It's the same evil,
the same joy in human suffering, the same defilement of
dignity for propaganda and sadistic pleasure. The worst of these
atrocities have occurred in and around Sweda, that's the area
in Syria. The violence is not collateral damage from some
larger conflict. It is direct, targeted and deliberate. It is
ethnic and religious cleansing in broad daylight, which is why
you've heard so many of the pro Palestinian people that
have been chanted from the river to the sea and
globalized the Intofada. That's why you've seen so many of
them rising up, you know, to condemn this slaughter of
the Drus who are Arabs. I'm just kidding. They haven't
done any of that. There's been nothing, no commentary, not
a peep, just like we didn't hear from all of
these you know, Christian defenders on the right that are
constantly just asking questions about Israel and the Palestinians and
stuff after Christians got massacred in Nigeria last month by jihattists.
Didn't hear anything about that from them. No, it's just
there's just one particular kind of conflict that really gets
the juices flowing for so many people now on the
right and the left. The violence began escalating around July eleventh.
There was a Dru's merchant who was attacked on the
road between Sweda and Damas. In retaliation, Druze fighters from
local defense forces captured these suspected attackers that quickly spiraled
into retaliatory attacks by regime linked bedoing gangs, with fighters
storming villages and igniting brutal clashes. Between July thirteenth and sixteenth,
entire neighborhoods in and around Sweda Province were overrun, homes burned,
bodies mutilated. Armed groups stormed hospitals, killing all of the
wounded fighters, and by the end of the week, hundreds
were dead, tens of thousands had been displaced. No commentary
about the targeting of a hospital. Now, see it's different.
See this is totally different. On July eighteenth, the ceasefire
was announced after international and regional pressure, the Syrian regime, Jordan, Turkey, sorry, Turka,
I think it is how they pronounce it now, and
the United States all reportedly pushed to prevent a broader
sectarian war. Despite that announcement, the violence has continued. Militants
have ignored the truce. They are still roaming doing revenge killings.
The underlying threats have not been resolved, because what is
the underlying threat? What is the you know, what is
the problem that the Drews pose is that they're not converting.
They are a different religious group, and so therefore they
have to be eradicated. That's the extent here the of
the conflict. As the carnage spread, the spiritual leader of
the Druze community in Israel sent a personal message to
Benjamin Nintonyahoo, the Prime Minister of Israel, invoking the memory
of the Holocaust. His response. Bibbi's response was immediate. He
shared the message publicly and issued a clear reply saying
we have taken action and we will continue to take
action as necessary. What was that action, Well, we still
don't know the full extent of the response from Israel,
but it has already included air strikes against Syrian regime
military positions South of Damascus and even within the capital
Damascus itself. The strike's reportedly targeted forces involved in the
attacks on Dru's civilians. It may also involve intelligence support
and other covert actions to deter further massacres. But John
Spencer writes that what matters more than the tactics is
the principle. When a close knit, historically loyal minority community
within Israel cries out to the Jewish State for help
as its kin are massacred across the border, Israel does
not turn away. This is not just about shared history
or mutual loyalty, though that does run deep. It is
about moral clarity. It is about responding to evil when
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memories that'll last a lifetime. Final thoughts here from John
Spencer again. This was published over at the Jerusalem Post.
John Spencer is the executive director of the Urban Warfare Institute.
He writes, what matters most is not just what is done,
but who does it? While the international community hesitates, while
human rights organizations say very little, while Western capitals issue
muted statements or none at all. Israel has stepped forward
when others calculate political risks, Israel sees human lives. When
others look away, Israel acts. The silence is deafening. The
same institutions and voices that claim to champion human rights
have gone quiet. There have been no emergency UN sessions,
no international protests, no hashtags, no outcry. It is a
silence that reveals the selective morality of those who only
speak when it fits their politics. It is a silence
that enables genocide. It is a silence that history will remember.
This moment reveals a deeper truth. It shows what solidarity
looks like when it actually costs something. It shows what
it means to remember your own history and refuse to
let others suffer alone. It shows that the vow of
never again is not only about one people, but about
the kind of world we are willing to build. He concludes,
Let history record who acted, let it record who stayed silent,
and let it record that when the DRUS cried out,
Israel listened. This is what has been since October seventh
when Hamas invaded Israel and slaughtered all of those innocent people,
took a bunch of them hostage, committed atrocities against innocent people.
And I said at the time, you know, I said, like,
I have a moral clarity on this, and you can disagree.
You may arrive at some different morality. And that's not
to defend every single thing that every single IDF soldier
has done and everything Israel is done in every single instance.
It's not to say that, and it's not to say
that war is good. War is not. War is terrible.
It is the breakdown of all order. It's the breakdown
of law, it's the breakdown of society. It is violence.
It is awful. But over the last what now almost
going on two years now, right, there has been this
rising argument that gets more and more tracks that somehow
or another, Israel is behaving in a disproportionate way to
the threat. The threat is existential. This is what I
don't understand. And nobody is ever, no one that I
have seen, and I have watched over the last almost
two years, I have watched a lot of debates between
people advocating either side of this issue. You know, pro Israel,
anti Israel whatever. I've seen scores of debates, and there
is this failure, a refusal to grapple with the the
Hamas strategy. The defenders, well, I shouldn't say defenders of
amask because a lot of times they will say, I'm
not saying Hamas should have done it, but right so
they'll say I'm not pro Hamas, I'm just you know,
I just want the killing to stop. That's comic Dave Smith,
who somehow was a stand up comedian and now has
become some expert in the Israeli Palestinian conflict. But the
few times where I've seen people, most recently Josh Hammer,
conservative writer, he was on stage at Turning Point USA
with comic Dave Smith, and he he asked Smith this question.
I've seen Smith dodge it. He dodged it again. What
to do with the Hamas strategy? How do you combat
a strategy? And Dave Smith's response was figure it out,
bro Like literally that's what he said. That was literally
his response. He did not know how you would go
about fighting a g hottest terrorist organization that has spent
billions of dollars building tunnels right embedding itself in the
civilian population using their own people as human shields. How
else do you fight them? How do you go get them?
How do you get your hostages back? How do you
do this? Right? Because they criticize every action that Israel takes,
but they offer no other alternative. And here's the thing.
If you allow Hamas to survive, then this strategy becomes
widely adopted because it would have worked. And if you
want to live in a world where civilian populations are
used as shields, then keep demanding that Hamas be allowed
to stay in power. Right, that Hamas be rewarded for
their tactics. By the way, all of these humanitarian groups
that somehow have lost their tongues on the Druze attacks
in Syria, they are very very upset at the Gaza
Humanity Foundation. And I've talked about this organization before when
they first launched. They're still doing it. They're still delivering
meals for free to people in Gaza, and Hamas keeps
shooting at them, at the people and the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
They Hamas murdered a bunch of these aid workers and
why would they do that? Why would Hamas murder people
that are coming to feed the Gazans. Does that make
sense if Hamas cared about the blockade about you know,
people starving, If they cared about that, why would they
Why would they murder the people that are bringing new food.
It's because Hamas wants to control that distribution system. You know.
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dot Com. The UN Food Agency is accusing Israel of
using tanks, snipers, and other weapons to fire on a
crowd of Palestinians seeking food aid in what the territory's
health ministry said was one of the deadliest days for
aid seekers in over twenty one months of war. Israel
that is helping to feed people, they're part of the
Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. We are to believe that they are
just handing out all of the millions and millions of
meals in order to try to randomly shoot it some
Palestinians to perform genocide. That's what we're supposed to believe,
at least if you believe the World Food Program, which
is getting its information from that's right, Hummas, the Health Ministry,
the health ministry in Gaza, which is controlled by Hummas,
which as a strategy, wants the world to believe that
Israel is murdering Palestinians left and right all over the place,
doing so as part of an ethnic cleansing camp, which
is in fact what Hamas is interested in doing right.
They want to from the river to the sea, cleanse
the area of all the Jews. This goes back to
the Nakba, right. And if you listen to the pro
Palestinian folks, they will say, oh, that was when that
was the catastrophe, when we lost all of the homes,
all of our land was taken. This was the catastrophe, right.
The catastrophe was that you lost to Jews because Jews
were second class citizens. They were looked down upon. There
was a superiority complex that the Arabs in the region
had against the Jews. And then to be defeated in
combat by these people, that's the catastrophe. And by the way,
when you go to war with people over territory and
then you lose that war, you lose the territory. That's
the historical norm. Okay, the historical norm. So I've mentioned
this organization before. It's called the Network Contagion Research Institute
or the NCRI. It's based up in Jersey. I don't
hold that against them though. I think they're out of
Rutgers and they did a study on the type of
coverage regarding this issue. And you may want to sit
down for this, but The study found that the US
and European mainstream media have been complicit in spreading biased
and false narratives to malign Israel and discredit the US
backed humanitarian operation currently underway in Gaza. The US led
Gaza Humanitarian Foundation quote was targeted and discredited via an
ecosystem of unverified claims, narrative laundering, and institutional amplification. According
to the study, we believe Hamas made yeah, so this
is the GHF's executive chairman, Reverend Johnny Moore says, we
believe Hamas made over one billion dollars last year just
from manipulating the system of aid managed by the UN
and others. They take the free food, they then sell
it to their people, They hoard some for their fighters.
They use the food to recruit to their ranks. This
is why, and I said this when the GHF started.
This is why Hamas views the GOHF as an existential
threat because if people can get fed and Hamas isn't
in control of the distribution of the food, they lose
money and they lose power. That's why they've been attacking
the GOHF sites. They've been shooting at their own Palestinian
people right. They are totally fine murdering as many Palestinians
as they have to in order to win the propaganda
war against Israel. That's what we are witnessing right now.
And the NCRI, kudos to them for looking into this
and for coming to these conclusions which anybody who's been
following it already knew. All right, that'll do it for
this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could
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