by Emily Amrousi
A week after two Druze police officers gave their lives defending the Temple Mount, it is incumbent upon us to bestow the highest honors on the Druze community, invest resources in their towns, and show them the kind of generosity that they have shown us.
Druze Israelis visit the
shrine of Prophet Nabi Shu'ayb
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Photo credit: Dror Artzi / JINI  |
For a week I've been feeling that I want to scream: "My Druze brothers, your grief is our grief."
The covenant between us -- one persecuted
minority reaching out to assist another persecuted minority -- was
sealed in blood last Friday, in a terrorist attack on our spiritual
heart (Jerusalem), where Haiel Sitawe and Kamil Shnaan were stationed to
defend its walls. It has been a long time since I saw all of Israel
mourn this way.
You are not "friends of the state," you are
citizens. But you are friends of the Jewish people. Having chosen to
join your fate with ours, you deserve even more admiration than all our
security forces. You didn't have to choose this way. After all, the
terrorists who murdered Haiel and Kamil were also Israeli citizens, and
they chose differently. Two fighters were killed while defending the
state, by three citizens seeking the state's destruction.
* * *
In a green village at the foot of the Carmel
A loyal son was born to the State of Israel
He went to school, all boys
Two hours Muhammad; three hours Zionism.
He rode ahead with the blowing wind
At age 18 he joined the army
He chose an elite unit, then officers' training
His commanders were proud, he couldn't lose
They said: With the coat and the Uzi
Who could even tell he was Druze?
In Kiryat Shmona, facing fire and murder
He ran ahead of the pack, and drew his gun
He fell first as he went up the stairs
Badly hurt, his legs paralyzed.
When they took him away, they told the news:
With the blood on his coat and his Uzi,
Who could even tell he was Druze?
* * *
Yonatan Geffen's "Ballad for a Druze" contains
a third, more critical verse, but the first two verses are quite
accurate: The State of Israel is often blind to the Druze population's
contribution and slow to show its gratitude for their sacrifices. The
subpar state of infrastructure in Druze villages is an obvious example
of this type of injustice.
The Druze joined the ranks of the Israel
Defense Forces shortly after the establishment of the state, enlisting
in mandatory duty, when they were recognized as a religious ethnicity
(Israel was the only country that recognized them). But their military
service was not just a show of gratitude -- even before they came under
the mandatory draft, the Druze served in the IDF on a voluntary basis,
under a fascinating alliance with the Jews that began as early as 1938,
when they suffered persecution by the Arabs.
Some 400 fallen Druze IDF soldiers are
commemorated in the Yad Labanim memorial in Daliat al-Carmel, not
including the civilians who were murdered in terrorist attacks. The
percentage of fallen Druze soldiers is very high in comparison to their
percentage in the general population. Many of them showed extreme
courage and were abundantly decorated.
In 1972, Nabih Meri, then a youth group
counselor in the Druze town of Hurfeish, demanded to enlist in the
paratroopers rather than the minorities unit that existed for Druze
soldiers back then. He succeeded and advanced to the rank of colonel and
served as a deputy commander in Gaza. It was thanks to him that the
name of the minorities unit was changed to the Cherev Battalion.
Meri reasonably argued that changing the name would boost motivation among minorities to enlist in the IDF. He was right.
When riots erupted in the Western Wall tunnels
in 1996, Meri met with Palestinian officers in Gaza and promised them a
truce on behalf of Israel. He then rushed back to his soldiers, who
came under Palestinian fire from the direction of the Rafah crossing.
The bullets were faster than he was, and he was killed instantly.
Madhat Yosef, an exceptional high school
students who dreamed of attending medical school one day, followed his
father's footsteps and joined the Border Police. His father had served
as a border policeman for 28 years. In 2000, he fought to defend
Joseph's Tomb, where a Jewish forefather who shares a name with Madhat's
family is buried. The fighting was tough. A Palestinian sniper -- an
Arabic speaker just like Madhat -- fired a bullet into his neck and
wounded him critically.
The Israeli military command did not send
additional troops to the area to extract the wounded, opting instead to
rely on the cooperation of the Palestinian security forces. Madhat's
life slowly extinguished right before his friends, who did not have the
tools to help him and were busy fighting. His life could have been
saved, but for four hours he was left to bleed to death. Even now, 17
years later, no defense official has visited his grave to beg his
forgiveness.
When ax-wielding terrorists attacked a
synagogue in Har Nof and viciously murdered five Jewish worshippers, two
traffic police officers stormed the site and waged a heroic battle with
the assailants. Druze officer Zidan Saif fought with the terrorists
until he fell in an exchange of fire. His widow, Rinal, has kept in
touch with the widows of the other victims in the attack --
ultra-Orthodox Jewish women. Blood touched blood.
* * *
During the Holocaust, 26,000 Righteous Among
the Nations risked their lives to save Jews. Some 130 Arabic-speaking
Righteous Among the Nations live among us today.
Last Shabbat, in many synagogues -- Ashkenazi
and Sephardi -- the policemen killed on the Temple Mount were included
in the prayer. This was done in accordance with the instructions of the
late Chief Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, who once ruled that when a Druze soldier
is killed while defending Israel from its enemies a special prayer must
be recited, as is customary for Righteous Among the Nations.
Our shared fate ties us together -- two
national minorities (the Druze rebelled against French colonialism, the
Jews against the British). Our partnership is paved with military
tombstones alongside cobblestones of life and success (the local school
in the Druze village of Beit Jann has the country's highest
matriculation scores, for example). The painful side of our partnership
is the cost.
The mourners' tents erected in Hurfeish and
Maghar, the homes of the two slain police officers, may as well extend
across all of Israel. Every Israeli killed in the line of duty is a "son
to us all," but members of minorities who serve alongside us are even
more so. It is incumbent upon us to glorify these righteous individuals,
invest resources in their towns and their exceptional students and
teach our own children to thank them, so that the whole world may know:
Those who partner with us will be cherished and rewarded.
The nations of the world granted us a state on
the assumption that it would be a democratic one, and that we would
behave morally toward minorities. Our duty is to them as much as it is
to ourselves.
Our conscience should guide us to be as
generous toward them as they are toward us in ways that cannot even be
measured. If we want a true partnership with the country's Bedouin,
Circassian, Christian and Muslim minorities, if we want to tie our blood
to theirs in a shared life on this land, we need to bestow the highest
honors on our country's Druze population.
Emily Amrousi
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=44029
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