The Druze leader Walid Joumblatt and his son Taymour during the press conference held on Sunday, March 2, 2025, in Beirut. (Screenshot of footage from the event)
BEIRUT — Druze leader Walid Joumblatt announced on Sunday that he would visit Syria a second time since the Assad regime's ousting, having requested an appointment with interim president Ahmad al-Sharaa. Joumblatt was the first high-ranking Lebanese political figure to visit Syria after the fall of Bashar al-Assad.
During a press conference held in Beirut alongside his son Taymour, who has succeeded him as leader of the Progressive Socialist Party, Joumblatt accused Israel of trying to exploit various communities, notably the Druze, in his mission to sow chaos and "fragment the region."
“The free Syrians must be cautious of the plots of Israel,” Jumblatt said. “In Syria there is a plot for sabotage. There is a plot for sabotage in the region and for the Arabs’ national security.”
His comments came in response to statements made on Saturday evening by Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz, threatening military intervention in Syria against the new Damascus forces "if the regime harmed the Druze," particularly the Druze community of Jaramana, near the Syrian capital. "We will not allow the terrorist regime of radical Islam in Syria to harm the Druze," Katz said in a statement released by his ministry.
Syria's Druze communities, especially in the southern province of Sweida, have been caught between new Syrian forces and invading Israeli troops. The province as a rich history of protesting Damascan authorities and actively opposed the Assad government. Now, Druze communities are protesting against Israel’s airstrikes and military push into the country, while in Jaramana, on the outskirts of Damascus, Syrian Druze gunmen are clashing with the new government security forces.
Joumblatt advised the "free people of Jabal al-Arab [Druze] to beware of Israeli machinations in Syria" and noted that "those who unified Syria during the time of Sultan Pasha al-Atrash [leader of the Syrian revolution from 1925 to 1927] will not respond to Benjamin Netanyahu's calls." He warned that "Israel's biblical project has no borders and aspires to expand ... to the entire region to create Greater Israel."
Commemoration of March 16
Joumblatt also commented on the ongoing Israeli occupation of five sites in southern Lebanon after the deadline of their withdrawal, calling it a "failure" in the implementation of the cease-fire terms between Israel and Hezbollah. Israel was initially given 60 days to withdraw, then requested and was granted an extension for another 23 days, after which its troops had still not left Lebanese territory, claiming that the United States has given it the green light to remain indefinitely. Israeli soldiers have also occupied land in Syria, taking advantage of Assad's departure from power.
Joumblatt assured that he was and remains "opposed to reconciliation with Israel until the creation of an independent Palestinian state," even as Washington pushes for reconciliation, or even normalization of relations between Tel Aviv and Beirut. It was, incidentally, a PSP deputy, Wael Bou Faour, who first made this latest information public.
The Druze leader finally declared that he wished for the annual commemoration of the death of his father, Kamal Joumblatt, assassinated on March 16, 1977, in an ambush set a few hundred meters from a Syrian checkpoint, to be "a great popular demonstration."
"There will be no official invitations," he said, adding that he demands there be no other flag carried aloft at the event other than that of Lebanon.
Israel continues attacks on southern Lebanon, demolishes buildings in Bint Jbeil