Druze torn in their relationship with state
By Yair Ettinger
Haaretz, December 19, 2004
The TV images from the village of Maghar of Azzam Azzam celebrating his freedom, wrapped in an Israeli flag, filled Qaed Salame with anger. "Don't get me wrong, I respect the flag," he said. "But why wrap yourself in a flag? To prove loyalty? Even Jews don't do that."
At Qaed Salame's home in Hurfeish the name of Azzam Azzam came up in the course of a conversation about another Druze who has grabbed headlines, Captain R. of Hurfeish, the Givati battalion commander of the Girit outpost in the Gaza Strip who shot dead 13 year-old Iman Al-Hams in what has come to be known as the case of the "confirmed kill."
Last week the pact between the State of Israel and its Druze citizens was celebrated with unfurled flags; in Hurfeish other voices were heard, defensive, angry, ashamed, contrite. The week beginning with the release of Azzam Azzam from an Egyptian prison, and ending with the indictment against R., spanned the emotional spectrum of the Israeli Druze. Druze society is internally torn, swinging from pride and belonging to abandonment and alienation, between Maghar and Hurfeish.
Hurfeish, with 5,100 residents, overlooks Lebanon's mountains. Almost everyone who can carries a weapon here, in defense of the state of Israel. The local authority says that 75 percent of the men of working age are employees of the security forces: the IDF, Police, Border Police, or Prisons Service. The village's pride are its hundreds of officers, among them success stories like Hassein Fares, who was appointed commander of the Border Police this year.
But this pride is fragile, and can easily turn into indignation, as in the case of Colonel Imad Fares, who was convicted for improper behavior as commander of the Givati Brigade, or in the case of captain R. Their stories are different, but in both cases claims are heard in Hurfeish that they would not have stood trial if they weren't Druze.
Despite the gag order placed on the identity of the Givati commander, the fact that he was Druze found its way to the press and to the TV program "Fact" on Channel 2. Malek Bader, who heads the forum of Druze and Circassian council heads, asked army censorship to intervene, but IDF spokesperson Colonel Miri Regev turned down the request, saying that "the Druze identity of Captain R. is not a censorship issue and bears no effect on state security." After the media exposure, Bader spoke out: "R. is an IDF officer. Pointing out his Druze origins is totally unacceptable and causes unnecessary damage to the Druze image. The fact that he was Druze is irrelevant."
Sa'id Amer, a relative of R, is bitter about the media's treatment: "A few days ago a story came out about a `confirmed kill' in the naval commandos, and suddenly the whole world is out to defend them," he said. "The Druze are powerless. No one said about the navy soldiers, `The guy who fired the bullets was Ashkenazi?' Why is this?"
Some say the army dumps the injustices of occupation on the shoulders of the Druze. Dr. Rabah Halabi of Daliat al-Carmel, who teaches at the Hebrew University's School of Education, says that "the establishment uses the story of R to say, `It's not us, these are not the values of the Jewish army."
Sheik Tawfik Salame, a religious leader in Hurfeish, says the killing of Iman al-Hams was "in inhuman act, which conscience cannot bear, but why focus on this story, when other affairs have been pushed aside? If the army is so concerned about the morality of its troops, let them leave Gaza."
But what about the substance of the charges against R? Some believe, like MK Ayoub Kara (Likud) that it is all a conspiracy. "He was screwed," says Nazem, 20, of Hurfeish, an infantry soldier. "He was too strong in his unit, his soldiers hated him." But underneath the defensive front, the killing of Iman al-Hams provokes deep feelings of shock and shame. In some of the villages people speak about an educational crisis, about young people discarding their values. Sheik Salame sighs. "We have a difficult dilemma. As humans this story pains us. I have a child her age. We wonder how this could happen? We did not raise our children this way."
Dr. Halabi, along with his criticism of the IDF says; "Some of the Druze in the army have lost all restraint and behave wildly to prove their mettle. We know this from other historical cases, like the Algerian soldiers in the French army, who behaved savagely. This is the tragedy of mercenaries, which is, after all, what the Druze are." A small minority in the Druze community are calling for cancelling mandatory service for the Druze, and encouraging recruits to refuse serving in the territories. But this voice is marginal and considered extreme, and motivation to serve in the IDF remains generally high.
Salim Bariq, a Ph.D. candidate at Haifa University says that in these times of turmoil, a public debate is sorely lacking in the Druze community. We have no newspaper, the educational system is in crisis. Someone has to explain to young people going into the army that the enemy is human, too. We have no leadership or guidance," he said.
