Uploaded August 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Suwayda has become one of Syria’s most volatile flashpoints. Long seen as a Druze stronghold that remained on the margins of the civil war, the governorate has recently seen fierce clashes involving competing Druze militias, security forces of the new government in Damascus, and Bedouin tribesmen. The turmoil has also drawn in Israel, which, while pursuing its own interests, has cast itself as a defender of the Druze and bombed Syria’s defense ministry in Damascus in mid-July.
How does the new Syrian leadership and its armed cadres view the country’s minorities? What do the clashes in Suwayda reveal about the relationship between Bedouin tribes and Damascus? How significant is Israel’s role? And what might Suwayda’s unrest, along with earlier violence along the Alawite coast, portend for a potential deal between the Kurdish northeast and the central government, or for the larger struggle between centralization and federalism?
The Quincy Institute held a panel with Los Angeles Times journalist Nabih Bulos, who reported from Suwayda at the height of the violence, and QI senior research fellow Steven Simon, who served on the National Security Council in the Clinton and Obama administrations, to explore the roots of the unrest, the politics of Syria’s minorities, and what these events reveal about the country’s uncertain future. Adam Weinstein, deputy director of QI's Middle East program, moderated.
* Download the full webinar transcript here*:
quincyinst.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/09161606/Flashpoint-Suwayda_-What-the-Druze-Uprising-Reveals-About-Syrias-Future.docx.pdf
Suwayda has become one of Syria’s most volatile flashpoints. Long seen as a Druze stronghold that remained on the margins of the civil war, the governorate has recently seen fierce clashes involving competing Druze militias, security forces of the new government in Damascus, and Bedouin tribesmen. The turmoil has also drawn in Israel, which, while pursuing its own interests, has cast itself as a defender of the Druze and bombed Syria’s defense ministry in Damascus in mid-July.
How does the new Syrian leadership and its armed cadres view the country’s minorities? What do the clashes in Suwayda reveal about the relationship between Bedouin tribes and Damascus? How significant is Israel’s role? And what might Suwayda’s unrest, along with earlier violence along the Alawite coast, portend for a potential deal between the Kurdish northeast and the central government, or for the larger struggle between centralization and federalism?
The Quincy Institute held a panel with Los Angeles Times journalist Nabih Bulos, who reported from Suwayda at the height of the violence, and QI senior research fellow Steven Simon, who served on the National Security Council in the Clinton and Obama administrations, to explore the roots of the unrest, the politics of Syria’s minorities, and what these events reveal about the country’s uncertain future. Adam Weinstein, deputy director of QI's Middle East program, moderated.
* Download the full webinar transcript here*:
quincyinst.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/09161606/Flashpoint-Suwayda_-What-the-Druze-Uprising-Reveals-About-Syrias-Future.docx.pdf
