Barrack blames a Druze sheikh, not Israel, for the deadlock in Suwayda
The US envoy’s remarks on the southern governorate put daylight between Washington and Israel — and landed on the one figure whose authority grows every time his community feels besieged.
In an interview with podcaster Mario Nawfal on 23 October, reported by the Jerusalem Post two days later, US special envoy Tom Barrack said: “It’s not Israel that worries me. It’s a particular Druze sheikh who utilizes the perception of Israeli backing of some alignment with America to persecute other Druze.” Barrack did not name him; Arab media have widely read the remark as referring to Sheikh Hikmat al-Hijri, who has called for Israeli support and independence from Syria. Barrack separately alleged that Druze in the area between Suwayda and Daraa were living off the manufacture and sale of illicit drugs — an accusation Israeli Druze figures and regional experts condemned as liable to fuel sectarian violence. Al Jazeera, assessing the remarks on 26 October, described Suwayda as “one of the last places in the country where the Syrian government does not have full control”. Navvar Saban of the Arab Center for Contemporary Syrian Studies told the network: “[Barrack’s] message was totally clear.”
Assessment: Barrack has been consistent in one respect: at the Doha Global Security Forum on 20-21 October he said of Israeli strikes inside Syria, “It’s time to stop it,” while doubting whether Washington should be the party to force it. That is the shape of the divergence — rhetorical distance from Israel, no instrument behind it. The al-Hijri intervention cuts against its own aim. Al Jazeera’s analytical line is the one to hold onto: the sheikh’s authority rises with his community’s sense of threat and is most contestable when that threat recedes. A public accusation from the American envoy, paired with a narcotics allegation aimed at his constituency, supplies the siege. Expect Suwayda to stay frozen.