SIDON: Lebanon: Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblatt’s weekend tour of the West Bekaa area is aimed at pre-empting any possible threats posed to the Druze community in Lebanon, according to political sources. Those familiar with the Druze leader and his way of tackling regional developments said that whenever Jumblatt sensed his people were in danger, he would take the initiative and leave behind his Mukhtara castle to tour around the Druze towns and villages in the Chouf, Aley, Rashaya and Hasbaya.
On this tour, he met with residents and gave them perspective on the threats facing the religious group, articulating his recommendations and asking them to prepare for the future.
“The Druze are in danger, we are the minority and minorities are threatened,” Jumblatt repeated during his visit, pointing to the persecution of minorities such the Christians and Yazidis in Syria and Iraq.
And it doesn’t take much for locals to take him at his word, the sources said, because at the end of the day they owe him absolute fealty.
Nevertheless, political sources explained that Jumblatt believed it was his duty to continue to raise awareness among his community. Other tools of persuasion include the leader recalling the days he spent with late comrade Anwar Fatayri, who was his military official during the brutal Mountain War between Christians and Druze. Fatayri was assassinated in the Chouf in 1989.
The black leather jacket Jumblatt donned for the tour also carries connotations, as it is the one he wears during times of conflict and wars. The Druze, sources said, are convinced that Jumblatt’s fears are spot on.
His tour began Saturday in Hasbaya and Shebaa in the south and continued Sunday in the eastern towns of Ain Ata and Rashaya.
According to sources following-up on his visits, the Druze leader is concerned about the situation of the Druze. He is particularly afraid for those living in areas near the border with Syria and those on the other side of the Shebaa and Ain Ata mountains, including the Syrian Druze village of Arnah in Rif Damascus.
Most of the Sunni, Christian and Druze towns in that part of Syria have been controlled by rebel groups, either the radical Nusra Front or the more moderate Free Syrian Army.
Jumblatt is also concerned about the Druze areas on the Lebanese side of Mount Hermon. These towns, which extend from Rashaya to West Bekaa, are in the heart of a Sunni-dominated region.
The sources said Jumblatt’s visit to such religiously mixed places was to help maintain stability. Although Jumblatt received reassurances from Shebaa’s Sunnis that the dangers affected both communities equally, the sources expressed fear about a possible spillover of the Syrian crisis into the outskirts of the town.
They explained that around two months ago tensions soared between the residents of Shebaa and PSP members after a number of wounded Syrians were taken across the border into the town before being transported to a hospital in Jub Jennin. The disagreement escalated to such an extent that there was a shoot-out in Shebaa.
Prior to Jumblatt’s visit to the town, according to security sources, the Druze leader tasked Health Minister Wael Abu Faour with communicating with Future MP Bahia Hariri to make sure the tour there would be calm.
Hariri was invited to join Jumblatt on his trip to Shebaa, but she declined, instead praising his visit in a meeting with a delegation from the village of Arqoub in her Majdalyoun residence over the weekend.
“Walid [Jumblatt] is visiting the area and there’s no need to tell you that meeting with leaders is a must and reducing any strife is our duty,” Hariri said.
She explained that during this sensitive time it was important to maintain unity among the citizens of the area and that protecting the historical Druze-Sunni relationship was vital.
“This [tour] is the starting point,” she said. “We will continue meeting with our brothers in the PSP until we reach a plan to prevent any descent into Druze-Sunni strife.”
The Nusra Front is now present near the southern strip of rugged mountains that separate Lebanon from Syria and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
Nusra now controls the Qunaitra crossing, a key Syrian crossing into the Golan Heights that used to be controlled by U.N. peacekeepers. The sources said the estimated distance between Nusra troops and Lebanon is just 25 kilometers.
This growing geographical expansion of extremists, according to the sources, has intensified Jumblatt’s fears that Druze areas are at threat of being wiped out.
For example, in Iqlim al-Kharroub, a previously Jumblatt-friendly Sunni area in the southern part of the Chouf, a growth in the strength of more hostile Islamists made the Druze leader forgo his visit there.
According to those living in bordering Lebanese villages, putting an end to religious and sectarian strife is crucial, particularly in Hasbaya and the Western Bekaa.
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