[GUEST ACCESS MODE: Data is scrambled or limited to provide examples. Make requests using your API key to unlock full data. Check https://lunarcrush.ai/auth for authentication information.]  Niels Groeneveld [@nigroeneveld](/creator/twitter/nigroeneveld) on x 12.8K followers Created: 2025-07-20 19:08:56 UTC The Broken Olive Tree: Is There a Shared Future in Southern Syria? In the shadow of basalt hills and ancient fig groves, the olive tree has long stood as a symbol of endurance in southern Syria. Its gnarled trunk, twisted through centuries of drought and war, mirrored the lives of those who lived among its roots—the Druze farmers on the stony ridges of Sweida, and the Bedouin tribes who moved through the plains in seasonal arcs. Both groups, tied by land but divided by history, once lived in a balance shaped by necessity. Today, that olive tree stands broken—its branches scorched by conflict, its fruit spoiled by mistrust. The question that looms is no longer about ancient rivalries, but whether a shared future remains possible in a land so deeply fractured. At its heart, the Druze–Bedouin divide in southern Syria is not a product of doctrinal animosity or ethnic bigotry. It is a historical consequence of clashing ways of life. The Druze, secretive and sedentary, fortified their villages against centuries of external incursion, cultivating vineyards and groves, practicing a religion closed even to their own uninitiated. The Bedouin, mobile and oral, carried ancestral pride across open spaces, tethered more to kinship and pasture than to fixed borders. Their conflicts, when they arose, were more often about grazing rights, water access, and honor codes than about faith or identity. Yet the myth of tribal equilibrium began to crack in the twentieth century, when modern states attempted to impose fixed borders and fixed loyalties. The introduction of land registries, national service, and centralized law broke down the fluid customs that had once governed intercommunal relations. In times of political upheaval—under Ottoman decline, during the French Mandate, and most vividly during the rise of the Ba’ath regime—each group was at times courted, used, or betrayed by Damascus. The Bedouin were alternately armed and abandoned; the Druze were celebrated for their resistance and punished for their independence. Each emerged with a different narrative of marginalization. The eruption of Syria’s civil war a decade ago only intensified these fractures. While Sweida’s Druze communities largely maintained a posture of guarded neutrality, forming self-defense militias to keep both regime and jihadist forces at bay, many Bedouin areas experienced the full collapse of state authority. Armed criminal networks filled the void, smuggling routes turned into power corridors, and honor killings returned with impunity. For some Druze, the Bedouin became synonymous with lawlessness. For some Bedouin, the Druze embodied elitism, hypocrisy, and hoarded privilege. Resentment curdled into violence. The events of 2025, when a dispute between a Bedouin gunman and a Druze merchant escalated into days of armed clashes, exposed just how brittle coexistence had become. Entire villages mobilized on both sides. Kidnappings, blockades, and assassinations followed. Local elders, who once would have mediated such disputes through tribal councils, found themselves bypassed by younger men with rifles and smartphones. Militias replaced mediators. A conflict that had always been more social than sectarian now threatened to become a war of identities. And yet, the land itself resists such finality. Despite the blood and bitterness, the economic interdependence between these communities persists. Bedouin herders sell livestock in Druze markets. Druze craftsmen still rely on Bedouin traders to move goods across tribal zones. Marriages, though rarer now, have historically stitched together family lines across these divides. And memory itself—so potent in both oral and spiritual tradition—still holds stories of protection, hospitality, and shared revolt. For every tale of betrayal, there is another of alliance. For every feud reignited, a pact once honored. The question of whether a shared future is possible in southern Syria is not just geopolitical; it is cultural, generational, and spiritual. The olive tree, broken though it may be, has not yet died. Its roots run deep in a soil that remembers. The younger generation—those raised not under the honor codes of their grandfathers but amid the digital ruins of a collapsing state—may choose a different path. They are already speaking a new language: of decentralized justice, civil resistance, and community-led governance. They are not asking for utopia. They are asking for dignity, and for peace without submission. If southern Syria is to heal, it will not be through state decrees or foreign interventions. It will come from within—through a slow return to local mediation, acknowledgment of historical wrongs, and the rebuilding of mutual dependency. It may begin in small, symbolic acts: a road reopened, a market day restored, an apology made in public. The Druze must reckon with their own fears of assimilation and power loss; the Bedouin with the legacy of opportunism and state-sponsored violence. The olive tree cannot regrow until the ground around it is cleared of mines—both literal and metaphorical. And yet, regrowth is possible. It always has been. It is not naive to imagine a shared future. It is only naive to think it will come without cost, humility, or courage. But in the hills of Sweida and the plains of Shahba, even broken things can take root again.  XXX engagements  **Related Topics** [druze](/topic/druze) [trunk](/topic/trunk) [hills](/topic/hills) [syria](/topic/syria) [Post Link](https://x.com/nigroeneveld/status/1947010856476164492)
[GUEST ACCESS MODE: Data is scrambled or limited to provide examples. Make requests using your API key to unlock full data. Check https://lunarcrush.ai/auth for authentication information.]
Niels Groeneveld @nigroeneveld on x 12.8K followers
Created: 2025-07-20 19:08:56 UTC
The Broken Olive Tree: Is There a Shared Future in Southern Syria?
In the shadow of basalt hills and ancient fig groves, the olive tree has long stood as a symbol of endurance in southern Syria. Its gnarled trunk, twisted through centuries of drought and war, mirrored the lives of those who lived among its roots—the Druze farmers on the stony ridges of Sweida, and the Bedouin tribes who moved through the plains in seasonal arcs. Both groups, tied by land but divided by history, once lived in a balance shaped by necessity. Today, that olive tree stands broken—its branches scorched by conflict, its fruit spoiled by mistrust. The question that looms is no longer about ancient rivalries, but whether a shared future remains possible in a land so deeply fractured.
At its heart, the Druze–Bedouin divide in southern Syria is not a product of doctrinal animosity or ethnic bigotry. It is a historical consequence of clashing ways of life. The Druze, secretive and sedentary, fortified their villages against centuries of external incursion, cultivating vineyards and groves, practicing a religion closed even to their own uninitiated. The Bedouin, mobile and oral, carried ancestral pride across open spaces, tethered more to kinship and pasture than to fixed borders. Their conflicts, when they arose, were more often about grazing rights, water access, and honor codes than about faith or identity.
Yet the myth of tribal equilibrium began to crack in the twentieth century, when modern states attempted to impose fixed borders and fixed loyalties. The introduction of land registries, national service, and centralized law broke down the fluid customs that had once governed intercommunal relations. In times of political upheaval—under Ottoman decline, during the French Mandate, and most vividly during the rise of the Ba’ath regime—each group was at times courted, used, or betrayed by Damascus. The Bedouin were alternately armed and abandoned; the Druze were celebrated for their resistance and punished for their independence. Each emerged with a different narrative of marginalization.
The eruption of Syria’s civil war a decade ago only intensified these fractures. While Sweida’s Druze communities largely maintained a posture of guarded neutrality, forming self-defense militias to keep both regime and jihadist forces at bay, many Bedouin areas experienced the full collapse of state authority. Armed criminal networks filled the void, smuggling routes turned into power corridors, and honor killings returned with impunity. For some Druze, the Bedouin became synonymous with lawlessness. For some Bedouin, the Druze embodied elitism, hypocrisy, and hoarded privilege. Resentment curdled into violence.
The events of 2025, when a dispute between a Bedouin gunman and a Druze merchant escalated into days of armed clashes, exposed just how brittle coexistence had become. Entire villages mobilized on both sides. Kidnappings, blockades, and assassinations followed. Local elders, who once would have mediated such disputes through tribal councils, found themselves bypassed by younger men with rifles and smartphones. Militias replaced mediators. A conflict that had always been more social than sectarian now threatened to become a war of identities.
And yet, the land itself resists such finality. Despite the blood and bitterness, the economic interdependence between these communities persists. Bedouin herders sell livestock in Druze markets. Druze craftsmen still rely on Bedouin traders to move goods across tribal zones. Marriages, though rarer now, have historically stitched together family lines across these divides. And memory itself—so potent in both oral and spiritual tradition—still holds stories of protection, hospitality, and shared revolt. For every tale of betrayal, there is another of alliance. For every feud reignited, a pact once honored.
The question of whether a shared future is possible in southern Syria is not just geopolitical; it is cultural, generational, and spiritual. The olive tree, broken though it may be, has not yet died. Its roots run deep in a soil that remembers. The younger generation—those raised not under the honor codes of their grandfathers but amid the digital ruins of a collapsing state—may choose a different path. They are already speaking a new language: of decentralized justice, civil resistance, and community-led governance. They are not asking for utopia. They are asking for dignity, and for peace without submission.
If southern Syria is to heal, it will not be through state decrees or foreign interventions. It will come from within—through a slow return to local mediation, acknowledgment of historical wrongs, and the rebuilding of mutual dependency. It may begin in small, symbolic acts: a road reopened, a market day restored, an apology made in public. The Druze must reckon with their own fears of assimilation and power loss; the Bedouin with the legacy of opportunism and state-sponsored violence. The olive tree cannot regrow until the ground around it is cleared of mines—both literal and metaphorical.
And yet, regrowth is possible. It always has been. It is not naive to imagine a shared future. It is only naive to think it will come without cost, humility, or courage. But in the hills of Sweida and the plains of Shahba, even broken things can take root again.
XXX engagements
