Israel's interventions among the druze

Middle East Report

Volumn , Issue 200, 1996, Pages 2-6

  Hajjar, Lisa ^a  

^a SWARTHMORE COLLEGE   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 0042854983     PISSN: 08992851     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/3013259     Document Type: Article

References (26)

1. For an excellent analysis of the discourses of integrationism and race consciousness in the US, see Gary Peller, "Race Consciousness," in Kimberlé Crenshaw, et al., eds., Critical Race Theory (NY: The New Press, 1995).
2. See Jonathan Oppenheimer, "The Druze in Israel as Arabs and Non-Arabs: Manipulation of Categories of Identity in a Non-Civil State," in Alex Weingrod, ed., Studies in Israeli Ethnicity: After the Ingathering (New York: Gordon and Breach Science Publishers, 1985).
3. See Gabriel Ben-Dor, The Druzes in Israel: A Political Study (Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, 1979); idem., "The Military in the Politics of Integration and Innovation: The Case of the Druze Minority in Israel," Asian and African Studies 9/3 (1973); Walter Schwarz, The Arabs in Israel (London: Faber and Faber, 1959); Nissim Dana, ed., The Druse: A Religious Community in Transition (Jerusalem: Israel Economist, 1980).
4. See Gabriel Ben-Dor, The Druzes in Israel: A Political Study (Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, 1979); idem., "The Military in the Politics of Integration and Innovation: The Case of the Druze Minority in Israel," Asian and African Studies 9/3 (1973); Walter Schwarz, The Arabs in Israel (London: Faber and Faber, 1959); Nissim Dana, ed., The Druse: A Religious Community in Transition (Jerusalem: Israel Economist, 1980).
5. See Gabriel Ben-Dor, The Druzes in Israel: A Political Study (Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, 1979); idem., "The Military in the Politics of Integration and Innovation: The Case of the Druze Minority in Israel," Asian and African Studies 9/3 (1973); Walter Schwarz, The Arabs in Israel (London: Faber and Faber, 1959); Nissim Dana, ed., The Druse: A Religious Community in Transition (Jerusalem: Israel Economist, 1980).
6. See Gabriel Ben-Dor, The Druzes in Israel: A Political Study (Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, 1979); idem., "The Military in the Politics of Integration and Innovation: The Case of the Druze Minority in Israel," Asian and African Studies 9/3 (1973); Walter Schwarz, The Arabs in Israel (London: Faber and Faber, 1959); Nissim Dana, ed., The Druse: A Religious Community in Transition (Jerusalem: Israel Economist, 1980).
7. See Usama Halaby, The Druze in Israel: From Sect to Nation [Arabic] (Majdal Shams, Golan Heights: Golan Academic Association, 1989).
8. The conjugal relationship between ethnicity studies and political strategies has been elemental to the formulation of state policies. According to Jonathan Oppenheimer, "Both the scholarly analysis and the official view are products of an ideologically distorted understanding of Druze history, by which it is transformed into a charter for the administration and political separation of the Druze from the rest of the Arab population." "The Druze in Israel as Arabs and Non-Arabs," op. cit., p. 264.
9. Within Israel the Druze, like the Jews, are classified as a "national/religious" group.
10. Separating the Druze of Israel from other Arabs was seen as a possible first step in eventually dividing the Druze in the region from other affiliations. The hope was that the Druze might become a trans-state pro-Israel community. The height of this rationale was the short-lived idea to establish a Druze state, paralleling ideas about a pro-Israel Maronite state in part of Lebanon.
11. For a more detailed discussion of the politics of Druze conscription, including the organized opposition by the Druze Initiative Committee, see Lisa Hajjar, "Authority, Resistance and the Law: A Study of the Israeli Military Court System in the Occupied Territories," PhD dissertation, Department of Sociology, The American University, 1995, pp. 439-55.
12. Druze individuals commonly point to military service as a basis for demanding equality with Jews and for protesting the state's comparable treatment of their community and Arabs. According to Zeidan Atash, "I want all those who served in the army, including Druze, to be equals in the state of Israel, and not those who served and those who did not serve in the same classification." "Testimony of a Druze Member of the Knesset," in Alouph Haraven, ed., Every Sixth Israeli: Relations between the Jewish Majority and the Arab Minority in Israel (Jerusalem: Van Leer Jerusalem Foundation, 1983), pp. 65-66.
13. More than 30 percent of all employed Druze individuals at any given time work in various branches of the security services. According to Israel Shahak, "In some Druze villages the proportion of males in the 21-45 age cohort who earn their livelihood from the Israeli Security System [sic] can reach 90 percent." "The Druze in the Israeli Army," Shahak Report 153 (March 21, 1995). In a recent study by Hassan Zarka of Haifa University, 38.9 percent of Druze youngsters (i.e., males) want to remain in the army after their compulsory service, as compared to 7.4 percent among Jewish youngsters. Steve Rodan and Jacob Dallal, "Secret of Success," Jerusalem Post Magazine, August 11, 1995.
14. More than 30 percent of all employed Druze individuals at any given time work in various branches of the security services. According to Israel Shahak, "In some Druze villages the proportion of males in the 21-45 age cohort who earn their livelihood from the Israeli Security System [sic] can reach 90 percent." "The Druze in the Israeli Army," Shahak Report 153 (March 21, 1995). In a recent study by Hassan Zarka of Haifa University, 38.9 percent of Druze youngsters (i.e., males) want to remain in the army after their compulsory service, as compared to 7.4 percent among Jewish youngsters. Steve Rodan and Jacob Dallal, "Secret of Success," Jerusalem Post Magazine, August 11, 1995.
15. In July 1995 the government pledged to invest one billion shekels in the Druze sector over the next five years. This five-year plan is a promise that has been made repeatedly since the mid-1980s, but has yet to be fulfilled.
16. This is not to say that female dependency within the community was new in some absolute sense, but rather that the nature of this dependency changed as a direct consequence of socioeconomic transformations after 1948.
17. During the course of research in Israel and the occupied territories, I interviewed a number of people in the Druze community, including 14 soldiers.
18. This issue illustrates a contrast between Druze and Jewish experiences in the military. According to one study of Jewish male soldiers, "None of the participants saw the army as a good opportunity to meet women, in spite of the fact that women do serve on bases with men and Israelis believe that the army is the country's greatest matchmaker. On the contrary, several men described their service away from home as causing an interruption in their former heterosexual relationships." Amia Lieblich and Meir Perlow, "The Transition to Adulthood during Military Service," Jerusalem Quarterly 47 (Summer 1988), p. 50.
19. Even in the villages of Dailyat al-Carmel and 'Isfiya, which are a few kilometers from Haifa, only a handful of women attend the university, despite that they could live at home and commute. For women from villages that are farther from cities with universities, they would have to take up residence away from home, making it even less of an acceptable option.
20. See Lisa Hajjar, ed., Twenty-five Years of Israeli Occupation of the Syrian Golan Heights (Jerusalem: Arab Association for Development, 1993), pp. 16-19.
21. Actually, residents of the occupied village of Ghajar are 'Alawi, but their presence within the occupied part of the Golan was not realized by the Israeli military until after the expulsion campaign had ended. Ghajar is geographically isolated from the four Druze villages in the Golan, and Israeli policies toward its population have been notably different. At present, there is no useful source that deals with Israeli policies toward Ghajar.
22. For a discussion of education policies for the Druze sector, see Bashar Tarabieh, "Education, Control and Resistance in the Golan Heights," Middle East Report 194/95 (May-June/July-August 1995).
23. See Hassan Abu Libdeh et al., A Survey of the Syrian Population in the Occupied Golan Heights: Demography and Health (Majdal Shams, Golan Heights: Arab Association for Development, 1994), pp. 51-53.
24. The exodus of virtually the entire Palestinian leadership and intelligentsia in 1948 compounded the isolation of those non-Jews who remained in Israel and allowed for local traditional and religious leaders to assume a preeminent position in their communities because they were targetted as liaisons to the state.
25. See Abu Libdeh, et al., A Survey of the Syrian Population of the Occupied Golan Heights, op. cit.p. 58.
26. Ibid., p. 61.