Gassing the Druze
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The Cross of Bethlehem Nowhere this abuse is sadder than with the Druze people. This week we had been reminded of that in an almost incredible way: Israel is metaphorically gassing the Druze. Please allow me a short introduction to the topic, so that the news would be clearer. Druze people live in Israel as two distinctive groups. The first is concentrated in the northwest – mainly in Peki'in, Yarka, Beit Jann, Daliat al-Carmel, and Tefen. They are full citizens and serve in the IDF; in fact much of their income is based on their activities within the military intelligence. Their unusual activities in the army are described in excruciating detail in The Cross of Bethlehem The second Druze group lives in the occupied Golan Heights, in four villages near the Mount Hermon. Few of them have accepted Israeli citizenship; the majority of them are Syrian citizens. I met them during my service in the IDF, though few details of the meetings made it into The Cross of Bethlehem One should expect – that is if one was fool enough to consider the Israeli Administration as honest – that the State of Israel would take extraordinary care in being supportive toward the Druze in the Galilee, who made an unconditional pact with the state as early as in 1948. Roughly 400 of them died as Israeli soldiers. Many years ago, Yitzhak Rabin told thousands of Druze in Daliat al-Carmel: "You don't have to prove loyalty, you've done your share ... now it's our turn to repay you, to do and give; we owe you." Maybe that’s another reason why the Shin Beth took care of Rabin. Druze are the least of the citizens; while considering their overall population, they have paid the highest proportional price in human lives. Israel despises them: sewage runs open in their villages. Moreover, in the 1950s the Druze lands in Yokne'am were expropriated and military camps were set up on them. In 2008 the camps were dismantled, but the lands were not returned to the Druze. High-tech plants have been built there; they pay taxes to Yokne'am, a Jewish settlement. Galilean Druze are now between a rock and a hard place. They can’t undo their pact with the terrorist State of Israel, and they cannot expect any sympathy from the Palestinian or any other Arab country. Their crimes are particularly ugly. What did happen now? Israel is planning the expropriation of Druze lands in the Jezreel Valley in order to lay Route 6, a railway track and a gas pipeline on these lands. Israel is gassing the Druze.
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