Between Israel and Lebanon: The Druze Intifawda¹ of October 2007

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Notes

 1. Intifawda was a coinage suggested, at the time of the 2007 Peki'in riots which couples the well-known Arabic term Intifada with the Arabic word fawda (chaos).

 2. It has been suggested that the Galilee Druze, in particular, represent a genetic isolate and have preserved a genetic pool of quite ancient Middle Eastern origin. See L.I. Shlush et al., ‘The Druze: A Population Genetic Refugium of the Near East’, PLoS ONE, Vol. 3, No. 5 (2008), http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0002105.

 3. Although the first Baath Party Congress took place in 1947, the Syrian Baath Party only came to power in 1963. By this time, despite intermittent Syrian Druze conflict in the Jabal al-Druze region, south of Damascus, with the earlier Shishakli government (1949–1954), primarily against the Arslan clan, the Druze were ultimately coerced into submitting to the sovereignty of Damascus in their heartland. Shishakli was assassinated in Brazil, in 1964, by a lone Druze, in reprisal for Syrian army behaviour in the Jabal al-Druze. See Thomas Philipp and Brigit Schäbler (eds.), The Syrian Land: Processes of Integration and Fragmentation, Stuttgart, 1998, pp. 369–396.

 4. Some 160,000 Christians fled from the Chouf and Mount Lebanon during this campaign. Michael Johnson, All Honourable Men: The Social Origins of War in Lebanon, London, 2001, pp. 62–63.

 5. The June 2009 elections in Lebanon resulted in a less than spectacular performance from Hizballah on the opposition side. According Hizballah leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, ‘The resistance arms are for facing the Israelis and defending the country’, Beirut Daily Star, 9 June 2008.

 6. The town of Abu Snan, in the Galilee, is a good example of this with an ethnic mix (54.7 percent Muslim, 26.4 percent Druze and 18.9 percent Christian).

 7. Laila Parsons, ‘The Druze and the Birth of Israel’, in Eugene Rogan and Avi Shlaim (eds.), The War for Palestine, Cambridge, 2001, pp. 60–78.

 8. Nur Masalha, ‘Introduction’, in Nur Masalha (ed.), Catastrophe Remembered: Palestine, Israel and the Internal Refugees, London, 2005, p. 14.

 9. It is commonly accepted that the defeat of a group of Druze fighters—on the Palestinian nationalist side—at the battle of Ramat Yonatan was the catalyst for the Druze ultimately siding with the Jewish forces. Individual Druze in the town of Peki'in recall the arrival in the town of the Druze leader in the 1947–1948 period, Salih Khnayfis, of Shfamr, and his involvement in the negotiations with the town mukhtar, Youssef Bek, and the Jewish forces.

10. The Unit of Minorities ultimately became a cause of conflict as it came to be looked on as a unit born of segregationist tendencies.

11. I have met with a number of Israeli Druze veterans of the First Lebanon War, on the Israeli side, who were involved in such operations.

12. See Zeidan Atashe, Druze and Jews in Israel-A Shared Destiny?, Sussex, 1997, p. 132.

13. According to Professor Sammy Smooha of Haifa University 75 percent of Israeli Arabs, between the ages of 16 and 22, support voluntary national service. Ha'aretz, 21 February 2008.

14. An interesting overview of the uniqueness of certain Druze beliefs is to be found in Anne Bennett, ‘Reincarnation, Sect Unity, and Identity Among the Druze’, Ethnology, Vol. 55, No. 2 (2006), pp. 87–104. The belief in reincarnation is considered by many to be of non-Middle Eastern origin.

15. Honour killing, often considered to be specific to the Muslim Arab community in Israel, is also found in the Druze community.

16. Often mentioned, too, is the suggestion that the Druze of the Galilee and environs were destined for ‘transfer’, in an early Zionist scheme. See Kais Firro, A History of the Druze, Leiden, 1992, pp. 337–350.

17. The abandoned Palestinian Arab village of Suhmata lies a few kilometres down the road from Peki'in and during the 1936–1939 Arab Revolt the Jews of Peki'in fled the town, although some later returned.

18. The danger posed by the powerful fireworks used and the seriousness with which it was ultimately taken is reflected in a document published by a Druze committee set up after the disturbances. It also criticizes groups such as Peki'in Forever, accusing them of sectarianism.

19. This sort of confusion of authority is not atypical of minority communities. Police–community conflict is more marked in the Muslim Arab communities within Israel. Badi Hasisi, ‘Police, Politics and Culture in a Deeply Divided Society’, The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, Vol. 98, No. 3 (2008), pp. 1119–45.

20. The Arabic term mustawtaneen for ‘settlers’ (a direct translation of the Hebrew mityashvim) was used in general conversation. This is the same term that tends to be used for Jewish West Bank settlers, although this was being used for Jewish citizens of Israel, within Israeli territory.

21. These ‘settler’ groups were identified as Peki'in L'Netzach and Moreshet Ha-Galil.

22. The summer of 2007 saw a general increase in the Druze villages of Daliyat al-Karmel and ‘Issifiyya, outside Haifa, in connection with government plans to confiscate land.

23. The riots of October 2000, in the Galilee, came on the heels of the outbreak of the al-Aksa Intifada. As a result of the riots, Jewish Israeli visitors to the Arab towns of the region began to informally boycott the towns out of a mixture of fear and resentment. This had ongoing economic implications for the towns.

24. Israel Harel, ‘Conditional Loyalty’, Haaretz, 2 November 2007.

25. Eli Rekhess, ‘The Evolvement of an Arab-Palestinian National Minority in Israel’, Israel Studies, Vol. 12, No. 3, (2007), pp. 1–28.

26. See Mahmud Darwish and Samih al-Qasim, Victims of a Map, London, 2006.

27. The discussion of the Druze in Israel in a nationalist context had begun to become more widespread. See Iman Handy, The Druze in Israel: A Less Persecuted Minority?’, Contemporary Arab Affairs, Vol. 1, No. 3 (2008), pp. 407–416.

28. Khalid Abu Toameh, ‘A Violent Wake-up Call in Peki'in’, The Jerusalem Post, 31 October 2007.