Using Culture as Political Leverage?

This article argues that Israel should leverage the fears of the minority Alawite community in Syria into a peace agreement.

This is the time to explain that the Alawite minority, which makes up some 12 percent of the overall Syrian population, is a pagan religious sect that worships the sun and moon. The sect is shunned by the other Muslim denominations, which advocate its death.

According to Islam, Alawites are worse than Christians and Jews. Because of the ongoing threat hovering above them, the Alawites' main goal is the preservation of their rule, and this is the prism through which their various acts towards Israel should also viewed.

Of course, couldn't Syria just use the conflict to rally the masses and build solidarity for its regime?

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