The Druze became central figures in a recent, startling episode in the Middle East. Israel sent warplanes and troops into Syria to defend this Arab religious minority, attacking the armed groups that attacked them.
There is a long history to this recent event, and understanding it leads to deep insights into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The Druze are Arabs but not Muslims. Their religion originated as an offshoot of Islam about 1,000 years ago, but it quickly became very different in its precepts, which include a belief in reincarnation.
The story of the relationship between Druze Arabs and Jews in Israel departs radically from the conventional narrative of Israeli-Palestinian relations. The reason for the difference is simple: Unlike most Arabs, the Druze never fought against the Jewish state. From the beginning, they accepted the immigration of Jews to what was then Palestine and accepted the creation of the state of Israel. They have been loyal citizens ever since.
The main cause for this acceptance is religious. The Druze religion teaches its adherents to be loyal to whatever state they live in. As a result, Lebanese Druze are loyal to Lebanon, Israeli Druze are loyal to Israel and so forth.
Druze Arabs were universally granted Israeli citizenship when the nation was born in 1948. They were not driven out of their villages during the war of independence because they did not attack the nascent state. In fact, Druze volunteered to serve in the Israel Defense Forces and have been prominent within it ever since.
Until the 1956 Arab-Israeli war, they served as volunteers; after the war, they asked to be drafted like Jewish Israelis. Currently, the proportion of Druze men who serve in the military is slightly higher than the proportion of Jewish men who serve. (Druze women are not drafted.) Many Druze serve in elite units and are officers, including generals.
This relationship of loyalty is reciprocal; it is the reason Israel came to the defense of the Druze in Syria. Sheikh Muafak Tarif, head of the Druze community in Israel, called on the Israeli military to prevent massacres of Syrian Druze. Some Israeli Druze even blocked roads to demand the intervention on behalf of their Syrian coreligionists.
In Daliyat al-Karmel, a prominent Druze town, there is a monument to Druze Israeli Defense Force soldiers who died in defense of Israel, with a long list of their names. There is also a community wall with permanent inscriptions reading, “We have no other country” and “We walk hand in hand.”
Why is this information so unfamiliar to most? One reason is that Israeli Druze number only about 150,000 and comprise just 8 percent of the Arab population of Israel. Another reason is likely that their story departs so radically from the conventional narrative of Israeli oppression and Arab resistance. It took a war in Syria to bring the Druze to the world’s attention.
Since the creation of the Jewish state, Israel has taken many aggressive actions toward its Palestinian population. These forms of force range in intensity, from restrictions on the movement of people and goods (i.e., a “blockade”) to checkpoints that Arabs but not Jews must pass through, to military attacks like what is happening in Gaza.
These actions have taken a terrible toll on Palestinians. Nonetheless, the reasons, motivations and meanings of these actions are not clear, and achieving the vital goal of ending use of force against Palestinians requires an accurate understanding of why Israel has used so much force.
There are two main competing explanations. One is that aggressive actions toward Palestinians are based on a racist, oppressive, colonialist mentality that derogates Arabs. The other explanation is that these actions are all forms of self-defense — efforts to protect against violent attacks ranging in scope from bombs on buses to the massacres of Oct. 7. One hypothesis is about oppression and hate. The other is about people trying to stop their enemies from killing them.
Druze Arabs are of the same race as other Arabs; they just have a different religion. The hypothesis that Zionism is fundamentally based on racism is refuted by the story of the Druze in Israel. If other Palestinians did as the Druze did, then the checkpoints, restrictions and intermittent violence of Israeli self-defense would not exist. There would be no reason for them.
Of course there are racist individuals among Jewish Israelis, as there are among all populations. But they do not explain the basic story of the conflict between Israel and Palestine. Israeli self-defense has arguably sometimes involved brutal overreactions that killed many innocent civilians in the process of killing a few militants embedded among them. The story of the Druze does not demonstrate that Israel is faultless, but it does reveal that Israel’s use of force against Palestinians is the result of Palestinian use of force against them.
In the complex dynamics of world history, it is rare for one form of evidence to indicate so clearly which of two competing hypotheses is valid. The story of the Druze in Israel provides just such an acid test. And it shows that the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict did not have to be the way it has been.
Perhaps it also means that it does not have to be this way forever.
Jeremy Shapiro, Ph.D., is an adjunct faculty member of the Department of Psychological Sciences of Case Western Reserve University. He is the author, most recently, of “Finding Goldilocks: A Guide for Creating Balance in Personal Change, Relationships, and Politics.”
