Who are the Druze? Community shaken after bloody Golan attack

The rocket attack that killed 12 young Druze in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights has brought this religious minority to the forefront of the escalating conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu paid tribute to the community, which has long played an outsized role in the Israeli army, as he visited the scene of Saturday’s attack blamed on the Lebanese militant group.

“The Druze community paid a very high price in the war,” he said on Monday. “The State of Israel will continue to stand by your side.”

He delivered his speech to local politicians in Majdal Shams, a town in territory Israel captured from Syria in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, but protesters gathered nearby and shouted in Arabic and Hebrew at the embattled premier to “get out,” reminiscent of scenes that had played out a day earlier during a visit by several Israeli cabinet ministers.

Some of the anger was directed at the Israeli government, with some protesters demanding better protection from rockets fired by Hezbollah since hostilities began after the October 7 Hamas attack.

Others expressed the frustration of Israel’s 150,000-strong Druze community, which feels marginalized by the growing Jewish supremacism of the Israeli far right.

Their frustration with their status as second-class soldiers is compounded by the fact that over 80 percent of Druze join the Israeli army and fight and die side by side with their Jewish brothers in arms, including in the current war.

There was also anger at Hezbollah, which is believed to be behind the attack but denies any responsibility. “Keep our children out of these wars,” shouted a man at one of the funerals, which was broadcast on Arab media channels. “We have nothing to do with all this.”

Such comments reflect the unique history of the Druze in the region: an ethnic Arab minority of about a million people spread across Lebanon, Syria and Jordan, as well as Israel.

The religion, whose roots go back to 11th-century Egypt, is often described as an offshoot of Shiite Islam, but also includes teachings from other religions and ancient philosophies.

Sami Nasib Makarem, in his book The Druze faith, described the religion as mysterious, as it did not accept converts and opposed mixed marriages. Because it had developed “in an environment intolerant of unorthodox beliefs,” its followers transmitted the faith orally, wrote Makarem, a Druze Lebanese scholar, and its literature was not widely distributed.

Despite their history of resistance to foreign rule, including uprisings under the Ottomans and French colonialists in Syria, the Druze are considered fiercely loyal to the state they live in. This is reflected in their strong presence in the Israeli military, where they often reach high ranks.

“These are part of the values ​​of our religion. I am Israeli,” says Eman Safady, a researcher of military affairs in the Middle East who remains the only Druze serving in the Israeli army.

The reality for the Druze living in the Golan Heights is more complicated. The community numbers about 20,000 people, and only about a fifth of them have Israeli citizenship.

For years, the Golan Druze feared that their territory might one day be returned to Syria as part of a peace agreement, and so they largely remained loyal to the Assad regime in Damascus. But since the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011 and the weakening loyalty of the Syrian Druze to President Bashar al-Assad, this attitude has changed.

“The older generation, separated from their families in Syria, still lives with the mindset that they are under Syrian rule,” Safady explains. “The younger generation has undergone a kind of ‘Israelization.’ They have studied in the Israeli education system (and) local politics is now integrated into the Israeli system.”

However, the break with the Israeli state came in 2018, when Netanyahu’s right-wing government passed a controversial law that established Israel exclusively as the nation-state of the Jewish people.

Most minorities in the country, but especially the Druze, saw this as a betrayal. Tens of thousands took to the streets in protest, opposition leaders vowed to change the law, but Netanyahu remained unmoved and the law remains in force.

There is also anger over the lack of housing and inadequate public infrastructure in Druze towns. Locals blame this on a lack of planning and investment by the state.

The Druze community in Lebanon is relatively united, but there are differences of opinion regarding its orientation towards Hezbollah and Syria.

Walid Jumblatt, a staunch defender of Palestinian rights and the most influential leader of Lebanon’s Druze, condemned the targeted attack on civilians killed by a rocket attack on a soccer field on Saturday, while directing his anger at Israel, which is trying to capitalize on the tragedy, and urging vigilance in the face of “the enemy’s destructive project.”

Nevertheless, chants calling for more forceful action against Hezbollah could be heard in Majdal Shams on Sunday. “Destroy Beirut!” several locals shouted in Hebrew on Israeli television.

Safady said many Druze believed the city was targeted by Hezbollah, an Iranian proxy force, as “revenge for siding with the Jews.” “People are angry: their children went to play soccer and were torn to pieces – that’s understandable. But many of us care about Lebanon. Our brothers and sisters are there,” she added.

Shortly after Saturday’s attack, Hezbollah took the unusual step of issuing a statement denying responsibility for the rocket, saying it had “absolutely nothing to do with the incident and categorically denies all false accusations in this regard.”

The rocket attack came at a time when Hezbollah was trying to mend its frayed relations with Lebanon’s Druze to avoid further sectarian tensions – which stemmed in part from the Syrian Druze’s recent break with the Assad regime – said Mohanad Hage Ali, deputy research director at the Carnegie Center in Beirut.

Syria is home to the largest Druze community, which lives mainly in the southern province of Suwayda. Suwayda was largely spared from the civil war because there was an informal agreement between the Druze leaders and Assad: in exchange for exemption from military service and a limited deployment of state security forces, the Druze leaders agreed to tacitly support his government.

But Syria’s economic collapse has tested that alliance, and the province has seen a wave of protests since 2020. These protests have received support from Druze across the region, further complicating the patchwork of Druze alliances.

At a small vigil in the capital of Suwayda, Druze residents held signs blaming the Assad regime and its ally Hezbollah for the “murder of children” in Majdal Shams.

“For us, every life lost is even bigger because we are so small,” said student Ayman, who asked to be addressed by his first name for fear of retaliation. “Hezbollah has done a good job protecting Lebanon over the past ten months, but how could they make such a big mistake?”