Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel spoke with Arutz Sheva-Israel National News amid attacks by the Syrian government on the Druze residents of southern Syria.

"This is a very difficult time for us," remarks Haskel. "The Druze community here in Israel is our brothers and sisters. We will do everything needed to protect their family members, and we do so."

She stresses that she understands the Israeli Druze community's concern and actions, recalling how she had similar feelings when her grandmother was violently attacked in the street in Paris. "If my family, like their family, had been butchered in London or Toronto, or anywhere else in the world, I would be outraged. I would probably try to get there to defend my family, so I would completely identify and understand them."

This being said, the Deputy Foreign Minister warns against crossing the border into Syria, as many Druze Israelis did to assist their relatives on the other side. "It doesn't just endanger our troops, it endangers them. Syria is an enemy state. It's very difficult and very dangerous, especially now when we see a massacre happening."

She reiterated that "we will do everything in our ability to protect those communities. It's been on our agenda from the start. Not just to make sure that our civilians are being protected, but we said that our concern for the Druze community is immense, and we will continue to act to protect their families."

Haskel also calls out the global community on its silence in the face of the atrocities committed by the Syrian government. "You see the protests in Paris, London, and New York, it's not about the love for the Arabs or the Palestinians, it's about the hatred towards the Jews, it's always been. Whether it's Israel or the war, there has always been a different excuse for that racism and hatred toward Jews. Obviously, they (the anti-Israel protesters) lack moral clarity and have double standards. They don't have a compass to defend humanity, to protect minorities, because that's what's going on in Syria.

According to Haskel, if those protesters were genuine, "They would have marched today for the Druze, the Alawites, the Christians, for the Kurdish people. These people really need the support of Western democracies. These are minorities that have been oppressed for so long, persecuted, murdered, and butchered. We understand what they're facing."

Regarding how the West treats Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa's regime, Haskel insists it should depend on the way he treats the country's minorities. "The way he treats them, that's the way Western democracies should treat him."

Haskal proposes two causes for the attacks on the Druze and other minorities in Syria, neither of which sheds a positive light on al-Sharaa: "One is that he's a very weak leader who is not in control of his forces, and in that case, he can not be trusted, because he can not control his own country." The other option, according to Haskal, is even worse: that the Syrian leader himself ordered the attacks. The Deputy Minister affirms that such a situation is "absolutely unacceptable. We can not accept a terrorist regime that's butchering and massacring Israel's minorities right on Israel's border, and we've made that clear from the start."