The Realities of Genocide in The Middle East
There are serious war crimes being committed. Innocent civilians are being murdered—shot in the street, executed in fields—simply because of their religion. Entire families are being displaced. Towns emptied. Bodies desecrated. Children targeted. The kind of violence that fills protest signs and Senate speeches.
But not this time.
There’s a scream that no one hears. It echoes not through the streets of Brooklyn or Berkeley, not from the lips of influencers or activists painting murals or chanting slogans. It echoes from the mountains of southern Syria, from Suwayda province, where the Druze—an Arabic-speaking, ethnoreligious minority with deep roots in the Levant—are being hunted.
Half a million Druze call Syria home. In Suwayda, they are the local majority—a peaceful, ethnoreligious minority with deep roots and a distinct faith tradition. Their beliefs have made them targets in a region that has long struggled to tolerate difference. Now they are being slaughtered.
Hundreds have been killed. Thousands displaced. What began with kidnappings and revenge attacks spiraled into full-blown sectarian warfare. By mid-July 2025, fighting between Druze militias and Bedouin Sunni tribes had engulfed entire towns. Reports confirmed field executions, burned bodies, mutilation, civilians shot en route to hospitals, and neighborhoods shelled into rubble. UN officials cited credible evidence of forced disappearances, arbitrary killings, and atrocities carried out by both militias and government-affiliated troops.
There were no marches. No vigils. No statements of solidarity from progressive members of Congress. No trending hashtags. The same activists who filled streets with cries of “genocide” in Gaza fell silent. This wasn’t about justice. It never was.
In Aleppo, Druze university students received death threats. Demonstrators demanded their expulsion. Across the country, tribal militias mobilized. Anti-Druze slogans were chanted during executions. In one incident, over 40 Druze fighters were ambushed and executed after surrendering. Government troops withdrew from several regions, leaving civilians exposed. The international community said little.
Yet Gaza remains the rallying cry. Israel remains the target. Hamas is still holding hostages—civilians kidnapped on October 7—and much of the world has stopped mentioning them. No mass protests demanding their release. No calls for Hamas to surrender or even acknowledge the lives they continue to hold captive.
Instead, elected officials like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders stay silent on the killings in Suwayda while offering meetings and public platforms to Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian figure who refuses to condemn Hamas or the abduction of innocent Israelis. When they do speak, it is to criticize Israel—not to defend victims of Islamic militias or demand accountability from those actually committing the violence.
If your voice only rises when Israel can be blamed, it is not a cry for peace. It is a targeted indictment masquerading as principle.
And no, the presence of Jewish voices among the critics does not sanctify the cause. There have always been those willing to legitimize the hatred of their own in pursuit of political favor or ideological purity. That does not make it righteous. It makes it more insidious.
In Suwayda, the only military intervention protecting civilians came from Israel.
Starting July 14, Israeli airstrikes hit Syrian military and Bedouin positions threatening Druze towns. Prime Minister Netanyahu issued warnings to Damascus: if Druze civilians continued to be harmed, Israel would escalate. Forces were deployed along the Golan Heights. The Israeli Chief of Staff oversaw operations directly. The message was clear—ethnic cleansing on the border would not go unanswered.
This wasn’t about conquest. It was about protection. The Druze of Israel are citizens, soldiers, family. This was a democratic state acting in defense of a vulnerable minority—while the rest of the region watched or quietly approved.
Israel acted alone. There were no UN convoys. No Arab League resolutions. No Western think pieces urging intervention. Only the usual condemnations, accusing Israel of inflaming sectarianism for strategic gain, even as it tried to prevent further massacres.
Meanwhile, the world remained fixated on Gaza.
The social media posts, podcast rants, and newsroom panels continue the script. The loop plays on: Israel is the villain, Gaza is the moral cause. Not Sudan. Not Yemen. Not Iran. And certainly not Syria—unless the narrative can be twisted, the roles reassigned, the blame neatly pinned on the West or on the one democracy standing in the region.
People in the Middle East being murdered do not warrant mention unless their deaths serve the spin. The oppression narrative has become a product line—manufactured, packaged, and distributed by enemies who build tunnels, hide behind hospitals, and rely on civilians as shields. They cannot face Western democracy in daylight, so they fight with shadow campaigns and moral confusion.
They push their message through political proxies, through soft-voiced propagandists like Mahmoud Khalil, or New York Mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, who speak not in defense of truth but in slogans crafted for applause. Their rhetoric masquerades as progress but belongs to East Berlin, not West.
The very people who claim to speak truth to power remain indifferent when the power in question is not Israeli.
That silence is not accidental. It is deliberate.
If you stay silent when minorities are executed for their faith, you are not a defender of human rights. If you look away when Islamic militias commit ethnic violence, you are not anti-war. If your outrage is reserved only for Israel, your cause is not justice—it is hostility disguised as virtue.
When Israel acts—when it sends airstrikes to halt massacres in Suwayda, deploys troops to the Golan to shield a vulnerable minority, and publicly warns a sovereign nation to stop killing civilians—those same voices who cry “war crimes” in Gaza fall silent.
The same military accused of genocide is risking its soldiers' lives to save non-Jewish civilians across a hostile border. The same country vilified in global forums is the only one acting on behalf of humanity when no one else will.
Perhaps the world also forgot that these are the same men and women still fighting to bring home Israeli hostages—stolen from their homes, taken while dancing at a music festival, abducted from their kibbutzim. They still search. They still serve. They still stand in the light while the darkness of evil moves like a shadow of death across the region.
Israel is not perfect. No nation is.
But it remains the only country in the region that sends troops to defend minorities beyond its borders. The only democracy willing to take political heat for saving lives others won’t even acknowledge.
History won’t remember the slogans. It will remember the silence. It will remember who stayed quiet while civilians were hunted for their faith. Who looked away when mass graves were filled because the story didn’t fit the script.
It will remember the lawmakers who met with cowards. The activists who changed nothing. The newsrooms that chose narrative over truth. The influencers who knew better and posted anyway.
It will remember who watched. And who didn’t. Who, despite the noise, showed up anyway. Not because it was easy. Not because it was popular. But because it was right.
In Gaza, the fighting ends when Hamas releases the hostages. In Syria, the killing begins if Israel doesn’t defend the Druze.
Genocide is not a slogan. It is a reality. Let’s make sure we know the difference.