The mayor of the largest Druze village located on the Israeli side of the Golan Heights dismissed a recent United Nations report criticizing Israel’s control over the territory as “a total joke,” the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported on Friday.
Dulan abu-Saleh, the mayor of Majdal Shams, objected to a report issued by the UN Economic and Social Council, which claimed that “the occupied Syrian Golan” was suffering from “economic and social repercussions” due to Israeli “occupation.”
“I don’t understand what they’re talking about, it’s laughable,” the mayor told the Israeli newspaper Makor Rishon, adding that Druze living in the Golan “don’t serve in the IDF and so far are only receiv[ing] from the state.”
“Why don’t they condemn the horrors in Syria, where dozens of children are killed daily? Golan residents have a good life,” he added. “Although we weren’t included in some major cabinet decisions on budgets, when we build and make up plans we never felt discrimination. On the contrary, we always found an attentive ear.”
Karim Batkhish, a resident of the town of Masa’ada, rejected claims that there was support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad among the Golan Druze, saying: “The war in Syria is irrelevant to us. Some may say they support Assad but it’s a lie to show Syria we’re with them. They’re lying, no one wants to see Syria here.”
While Israel offered citizenship to the approximately 20,000 Druze residents of the Golan after it initially extended its jurisdiction to the territory in 1981, it was only accepted by some 1,700 people — less than 10 percent — prior to the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011. Over the past five years, citizenship applications have spiked, with hundreds of Druze (frequently youths) seeking Israeli citizenship.
The Druze community in Israel numbers close to 130,000, a majority of whom are citizens of the state. According to the Israeli Defense Forces, over 80 percent of the Druze population serves in the military, where many have reached senior positions. Photographer Aviram Valdman profiled the community for the August 2013 issue of The Tower Magazine:
Amid the din of religions, ethnic groups, sects, and clans that make up the Middle East–Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews, Shiites, Sunnis, Catholics, Orthodox Christians, Alawites, Hashemites (and the list goes on)–one group, the Druze, remains tantalizingly quiet. A community with roots in Islam that is Arab by ethnicity, the Druze exist as both a distinct nationality and a religion that worships according to the tenets of a sect shrouded in secrecy.
The Druze are known for their loyalty to the countries they call home, including Israel, where they have distinguished themselves in business and on the battlefield, as well at the dining table and political forums. With their communities tucked into the hills of the Galilee, where some of the most cherished shrines, including the Tomb of Jethro, still exist, the Druze are a part of Israel and yet separate from it, deeply embedded in national life and yet able to maintain a distinct identity that has endured for centuries.
[Photo: Jule Gamal / Flash90 ]