Syrian exiles have mixed feelings about Israel

On Ahmad’s first day at the German language school in Berlin, the teacher asked students to introduce themselves. “It was then that I realised that the guy sitting next to me was an Israeli,” he recalls. “Honestly, I was taken aback. I did not know what to do. When he tried to initiate a conversation, my gut reaction was to cut him dead.”

Ahmad was a journalist covering the ongoing war in his hometown of Deraa in southern Syria, where the uprising against Bashar Al-Assad began in 2011. He arrived in Berlin recently, coming from Doha to receive treatment after he lost an arm in a Russian air strike while covering battles between the Syrian government and opposition forces. Russia is a staunch ally of Syria’s Assad and has been fighting his troops. Its military involvement in the Syrian war since 2015 has tipped the scales in Assad’s favour.

Ever since that initial encounter, Ahmad has avoided any form of communication with his Israeli classmate, although he admitted the guy was friendly and amicable. “We have been raised to believe that Israel is the ultimate evil. It is not easy to let go of something that had been hammered into your mind for years.” He explained that his Baathist indoctrination continues to affect him even eight years after the start of the revolution.

Israel occupied the Golan Heights, a plateau in south-west Syria, during the 1967 Six-Day War, and annexed the territory unilaterally in 1981. That move was never recognised internationally until the Trump Administration did so in March this year.

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Since it came to power in 1963, the Baath Party has invoked the state of being at war with Israel as grounds for suppressing dissent. Ahmad finds it difficult to explain his deep-seated animosity towards Israel and Israelis, not least because he lost his arm in a Russian air strike. He is at a loss as he attempts an explanation: “Deep down, I know that my problem lies with Russia and Iran. But Israel also occupies part of Syria. I don’t know, this war has mixed everything up.” Asked if his reaction would be the same if his classmate was Russian, he isn’t sure.

Somar’s reaction was even more radical. A Syrian-Palestinian in Germany, he recounts how when students were asked to introduce themselves at a language course in Leipzig three years ago, two of his classmates said they come from Israel. “When it was my turn to introduce myself, I said I am a Palestinian, and that there is no such thing called Israel. One week later, they stopped coming to the course. I do not know if it had to do with what I said.”

According to Azad (not his real name), he has no problem with Israelis. “When I meet them, I treat them like I do any other. As schoolchildren, we were taught that we are enemies. But as a Kurdish Syrian of Yazidi origin, I do not have any problem with them. It is the Arab Muslims who do.”

Syria’s ruling Baath Party has repressed the Syrian Kurds since it came to power in 1963, denying them identity and basic rights. Hundreds of thousands of Kurds have been stripped of their citizenship; the Kurdish-majority areas along the Turkish border have witnessed mass population transfers; and restrictions have been imposed on the use of the Kurdish language.

“Why should I treat them differently?” asks Haval (not his real name). “Only because we were taught that they are enemies?” When asked if Baathist ideology had influenced his views on Israel, he said: “I was brought up by a father who has been politically active since 1960 and was a member of scores of Kurdish political parties. I think someone in my situation could not have been influenced by Baathist ideology.”

Another Syrian Kurdish refugee in Germany, Lawand, believes that Israel is a false, racist state which confiscated the rights of the Palestinian people and has committed atrocities against them. ‘’But at the same time, I cannot blame an Israeli from the third or fourth generation who was born in Israel for what his ancestors did, unless that person is a religious extremist or an ultranationalist.” He recounts the details of a five year long friendship that bound him to an Israeli at university. “We talked politics all the time. He would tell me how upset he was because of the political situation in his country and the ongoing conflict with the Arabs, and that he yearned for peace with Syria and countries in the region. He would say it was not his fault that he was born in this part of the world.”

Souhayb differentiates between Israelis and Zionists. “Here in Europe, I do not have any problem with Israelis. If I meet someone who is educated, not ultra-religious or ultranationalist or extremist, then they are welcome.” Nevertheless, his position on Israel remains unchanged. “I am pro-Palestine. I support a Palestinian state, not even a two-state solution, and I do have a real problem with Zionists. I know Syrians who are now defending Israel under multiple pretexts; like they say they support Israel because the Jews were victims of massacres in Europe. I know a Syrian friend who keeps an Israeli flag in his house. I think this has gone too far. I have another friend in Sweden who joined a Zionist lobbying group and is now expressing opinions that are racist against Arabs.” He believes that this transformation was triggered by a desire to renounce Baathist indoctrination and tenets.

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As far as Ahed is concerned, his attitude towards Israelis depends on whether or not they endorse the policies of their own government. “If I meet an Israeli who supports the displacement of Palestinians and justifies Israeli massacres against them, then to me they are no different from any Syrian Shabih [a member of a pro-Assad militia] and I will definitely boycott them. The regime is bad, but this does not negate the fact that Israel is at heart an occupation state.”

Over the course of the Syrian war, Israel has repeatedly hit Syrian army targets and Iranian military bases in Syria in an attempt to curtail Tehran’s influence and incapacitate its forces there. Following every Israeli strike, “celebratory” posts flood into Hisham’s newsfeed; his friends are for the most part from the anti-Assad camp. Asked why he believes this is the case, he ascribes it to Assad’s brutality against his opponents that he believes has dwarfed any other. “For some Syrians, these Israeli air strikes are a cause for celebration. I can understand this. Almost all my friends have lost a dear one in an air strike by the Syrian military or Russia, not in an Israeli one.” He claims that many Syrians now refer to the Israelis as “cousins” even though this is a “deadly sin” in Assad’s Syria. “The regime claims that Israel is its enemy, but not a single bullet has been shot at Israel for decades. And yet when we wanted freedom, there was no type of weapon that Assad was not prepared to use against us.”

The Syrian regime has been citing the fact that some opposition fighters have been treated in Israeli hospitals as proof of the revolution’s connections to hostile plots against Damascus. In June 2016, the Israel Defence Forces’ 210th Division of the Northern Command launched “Operation Good Neighbour” to provide medical aid to Syrian civilians and opposition fighters crossing to the Israeli part of the Golan Heights. According to the Jerusalem Post, 4,000 went to Israel for free care between 2013 and 2018.

Essam flashes a V-for victory sign in front of an Israeli flag on the Berlin Wall as he beams at a smartphone camera. “Assad bombed our homes and made us refugees, and the world could do nothing about it,” he explains. “It is only Israel who is humiliating Assad and Iran.”

Berlin-based Syrian activist Ayham says that he understands how the Israeli strikes prompt many Syrians to celebrate, and mocks the regime’s charges against them of being “collaborators” with the enemy. “Personally, though, it makes me sad. I am not happy that my county has become a backyard battlefield for the infighting of thugs from all over the world: Israelis, Iranians, Americans, Russians, Turks and the scum of Sunni and Shia militias,” he wrote on Facebook. “I am haunted by a single thought, which is the departure of the greatest of all occupiers: the Assad regime. Only then can Syria know peace.”

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.