The problem in Suwayda isn’t simply that “governance is absent” and that “gangs filled the void”. The Syrian government tried to impose its authority by force last July, and that intervention ended in a massacre that killed 1,342 members of the Druze community. The UN Commission of Inquiry report leaves very little room for repackaging what happened as some kind of local security breakdown. The first wave of violence started when Internal Security forces and the Syrian army entered the villages and then Suwayda city, alongside tribal fighters affiliated with them. The Commission documented killings, attacks on civilians, arbitrary arrests and abductions, torture, looting, sexual and gender-based violence including rape, sectarian humiliation, and attacks on religious sites. So no, the government wasn’t absent. Its presence was a disaster. Using what happened afterward as proof that the original problem was the absence of the government simply turns the whole chain of cause and effect upside down. And the Amman roadmap Ambassador Barrack is now invoking wasn’t just about “reintegrating” Suwayda. It called for the return of displaced people, restoring security, accountability, reconstruction, and rebuilding trust. The Commission documented 35 predominantly Druze villages where homes were almost completely looted and burned, and their residents still haven’t returned since July. So how exactly is Suwayda supposed to be pushed toward “reintegration” when one of the clearest commitments in that roadmap- getting people back to their villages- still hasn’t been carried out? The way Barrack uses Atef Hunaidi’s case to recast the whole crisis as “intracommunal violence” is especially opportunistic. Inside Suwayda, the criticism of Hunaidi wasn’t simply about him having a “different political opinion”. Hunaidi isn’t a political or religious leader. He’s basically an ordinary man from a family whose distant ancestor was known as a pasha. A big part of the anger toward him was that he never took a clear position on the massacre, and many accused him of hiding in Daraa while it was happening, which means the same area from which armed groups came into Druze villages, looted homes and then burned them. So presenting the whole thing as someone being persecuted simply for holding a “different political opinion” strips away the context that made Hunaidi’s position so provocative to many inside Suwayda. And with Hunaidi himself still giving no public account of what happened, the only direct version we have is the National Guard’s. It says it escorted him to the nearest point controlled by Damascus forces. If the goal really was to silence Hunaidi and make him disappear, taking him to the front line and effectively sending him into Damascus controlled territory would be a pretty stupid way to do it. That’s exactly where every media outlet that chose to ignore or whitewash the fact that hardline jihadist groups stormed Suwayda and committed horrific abuses would be ready to put him on air. None of that puts the way he was treated beyond criticism. But it does make Barrack’s attempt to turn the episode into proof that “gangs are turning on their own” look like a convenient political simplification of a far more complicated incident and a useful way to redefine the crisis. Barrack talks about the Druze and their “noble and ancient history” but maybe the authorities he wants back in Suwayda were more honest about how they actually see that history. In July, fighters from the new authorities stood with their boots on a portrait of Sultan al-Atrash at the entrance to Suwayda — the leader of the Great Syrian Revolt against the French Mandate and one of the defining figures of modern Syrian nationalism. Sometimes, the way an authority treats a community’s symbols tells you far more about the place it has in mind for that community than all the talk about citizenship, tolerance and “reintegration”.