Washington Report On Middle East Affairs – October 2018

turn the legislation. The court is not ex-

pected to hear the cases until early next

year.

Adalah, a legal rights group for the Pales-

tinian minority, has described the law as

having “apartheid characteristics” and noted

that there is “no [other] constitution in the

world that does not include the right to

equality for all its citizens and residents.”

The Druze protests appear to have blind-

sided Netanyahu and his cabinet, even

though the law was under consideration for

nearly a decade. Nonetheless, he has stood

his ground. According to analysts, the law is

the centerpiece of his efforts to win elec-

tions, expected in the coming months, as he

tries to face down intensifying corruption in-

vestigations.

In a sign of his hard-line approach, Ne-

tanyahu walked out of a meeting held

shortly before the rally when Druze lead-

ers—including Asad, Tarif and several may-

ors—refused to accept a compromise that

would have offered special benefits to the

Druze while keeping the law unchanged.

Wahib Habish, mayor of the Druze town

of Yarka in the Galilee, who attended the

meeting, told the Israeli media afterward:

“We can’t be bought off with benefits and

rhetoric on closing gaps.” Amal Jamal, a pol-

itics professor at Tel Aviv University and a

Druze resident of Habish’s town, said Ne-

tanyahu’s strategy was to stoke “internal di-

visions” in Druze society.

“He has no intention of backing down,” he

said. “He hopes to dismiss the protests by

saying: ‘If the Druze can’t agree among

themselves, how is it possible for us to find

a solution?’”

The Druze are a secretive religious sect

that broke away from Islam some 1,

years ago. For protection, they chose to live

in a mountainous region of the Middle East

that is today split among Israel, Syria,

Lebanon and Jordan.

Scholars have noted that, as a survival

strategy, the Druze traditionally preferred to

ally themselves with whoever was in power.

Some Druze communities in the Galilee

supported Zionist forces during the 1948

war that founded Israel on the ruins of the

Palestinians’ homeland. A few years later

the Druze leadership in Israel signed a pact

with the state, agreeing that the commu-

nity’s men would be conscripted for three

years into the army.

In return, Israel recognized the Druze as

a “national” group, rather than a religion,

separating them from the rest of the Pales-

tinian minority.

Complicating the picture, a much smaller

Druze population fell under Israeli rule in

1967, when Israel occupied Syria’s Golan

Heights. The 25,000 Druze in the Golan have

mostly stayed loyal to Syria and refused Is-

raeli citizenship. They are not drafted.

Jamal said sections of Israeli Druze soci-

ety were increasingly wondering whether

they had paid a “double price” for their

agreement to conscription. “Not only were

the Druze discriminated against like other

Arab citizens, but they sacrificed their lives

on the battlefield too,” he noted. “Looked at

this way, the Druze are not just second-

class citizens, they are second-class Arabs.”

As part of the agreement, Israel intro-

duced a separate school system for the

Druze in the 1970s, which has encouraged

them to view their military service as a

“covenant of blood” with the Jewish people.

Dalia Halabi, herself Druze and the exec-

utive director of Dirasat, a policy research

center in Nazareth, said the Druze education

system was among the worst in Israel for

matriculation rates. Instead, Israel had used

the schools to “brainwash” Druze children.

“The Druze are taught to fear other Arabs,

not only their neighbors in the Galilee but in

the wider region,” she said. “They are en-

couraged to believe that they would be vul-

nerable and alone without the protection of

the Israeli army.”

Israel has long trumpeted the Druze’s mil-

itary service as proof that it is possible for

non-Jewish minorities to integrate.

Druze analysts, however, noted that for

many years there had been an intensifying

split within the Druze community on the

issue of military service that the new Basic

Law had brought to a head.

A refusal movement among young Druze

men has become more prominent over the

past decade, as have complaints that suc-

cessive Israeli governments failed to make

good on promises to give the Druze equal

rights.

Druze communities are generally as over-

crowded and poorly resourced as other

Palestinian communities in Israel, noted Dalia

Halabi. “Some 70 percent of Druze lands

were confiscated by the state, despite our

communities’ ‘loyalty.’ They did not get a bet-

ter deal than other Palestinian communities.”

Rabah Halabi, who teaches at Hebrew

University in Jerusalem, pointed out that the

loss of their farmland left many Druze men

dependent on Israel’s extensive security

economy. More than a quarter are recruited

after army service as security guards, prison

wardens or border policemen, the latter a

paramilitary force operating inside Israel and

OCTOBER 2018 WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS 13

Demonstrators with Druze and Israeli flags during a protest against the “Jewish nation-state

law” in Rabin Square on Aug. 4, 2018.

PHOTO CREDIT AMIR LEVY/GETTY IMAGES

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