The Druze and the Jews
The Origins of an Unlikely Alliance
Jacob Boyars
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Within the national and ethnic framework of the Middle East, the Druze remain a little-known and often misunderstood group, due to their secretive religion, lack of nationalist aspirations, and relatively small numbers. In Israel in particular, the Druze are often regarded as something of a curiosity. Though they speak Arabic, practice a religion which is closely related to Islam, and have been present in the country since centuries before the beginnings of the Zionist movement, the Druze do not, as one might expect, align themselves ideologically or politically with the Israeli Arab or Palestinian cause. Israeli Druze are subject to compulsory military service like their Jewish counterparts, with many attaining positions of importance in the army or police. They vote overwhelmingly for Jewish parties in parliamentary elections, and live peaceably, despite lingering discrimination against them by the Israeli authorities. In short, despite what might have been a predilection to do otherwise, the Druze have wholeheartedly thrown their lot in with the Israeli state.
Several scholars, notably Laila Parsons, Kais Firro, Gabriel Ben-Dor, Zeidan Atashe, and Nissim Dana, have written on the relationship between the Druze and the Zionists in the period shortly before Israel came into being. They identify the short-term factors which led the Druze to ally themselves with the Jews. These include internal Druze communal politics, hostility on the part of Palestinian Muslims due to the Druze’s neutrality in the early stages of the conflict, and shrewd Zionist diplomacy which succeeded in co-opting Druze elites and promoting the notion of a unique Druze identity apart from that of their Arab counterparts.
Similarly, the reasons for a strengthened Druze-Israeli relationship over the past six decades are fairly clear. The Druze were accorded a special place by the Israeli authorities, which, in spite of their definite second-class status, convinced the Druze that their best interests lay in pragmatically dealing with the state on a peaceful, constructive basis, rather than adhering to a more militant Arab nationalist line. The connections which developed in this period, as the Druze benefited economically and attained positions of respect in the security forces, have simultaneously drawn them into a closer identification with Israel, and severed any vestiges of identification with larger Arab or Palestinian goals.
The bulk of non-Israeli scholarship on the Druze holds that their alliance with Israel was motivated entirely by temporal, pragmatic factors, or by cynical manipulations on the part of the Zionists that disconnected them from their Palestinian brethren. But those hypotheses, while perhaps valid, are incomplete and seem to ignore the broader historical and ideological issues at the heart of the Druze alliance with Israel. I will instead argue that Druze history, religious belief, and cultural values made their disengagement from Arab-Muslim culture an understandable if not predictable occurrence, thus leaving the Druze open to the possibility of an alliance with the Zionists.
The Druze faith originated from a break with Shi’ite, specifically Isma’ili, Islam during the tumultuous reign of the Fatimid Caliph al-Hakim in the early years of the eleventh century. A certain messianic theology developed (which al-Hakim encouraged) whereby al-Hakim came to be venerated as divine—a belief that made headway after his mysterious disappearance in 1021 CE,1 which his followers took as a temporary occultation from which he would return as a redeemer.2 These worshipers of al-Hakim took on the name Druze, after one Muhammad al-Darazi,3 an early missionary of the faith.4
On the level of practice, the Druze religion often mirrors Islam, but is different in many respects as well. They celebrate eid al-fitr and eid al adha,5 as do Muslims, and their “traditions characterizing ceremonies such as engagements, marriage, birth, circumcision, divorce proceedings, funerals, and even burial prayers are identical.”6 However, they also “completely reject the five bases of Islam: they deny the belief that Muhammad was the last of the prophets; they do not fast during the month of Ramadan; they do not observe the pilgrimage to Mecca (hajj); they do not pray five times a day; and they do not practice charity according to Islamic sharia rules.”7 Instead of adhering to the five specific behavioral prescriptions that characterize Islam, the Druze faith revolves around seven abstract duties (al-shurut al-sab’a), which include recognition of the divinity of al-Hakim, monotheism, the negation of non- Druze tenets, and mutual help and solidarity between Druze.8 The Druze do not pray daily as do Muslims, but meet communally on Thursday evenings, and Druze women, unlike Muslim women, are allowed to easily initiate divorce and own property.9 On the whole, the Druze religion resembles Islam, but the details of Druze practice render it entirely different from normative Islamic practice. Complicating the matter, however, is the fact that in certain places and at certain times, the Druze have adopted Islamic practices, including, for instance, fasting during Ramadan.
Setting normative practices aside, a more basic (and more difficult) question must be addressed: whether or not the Druze are Muslims. To this day, there is no consensus, though various academics have argued for both sides. For example, Samy Swayd, in his book The Druzes: An Annotated Bibliography, states:
Druzes, and especially the initiated members of Druze society and those familiar with the Druze religious doctrine, agree that their faith is an Islamic sect, that Druzes follow Islamic tenets (sha’a’ir), and that it is impossible to separate the sect from Islam. All Druze writers who have investigated the Druze authentic manuscripts confirm without any reservation the Islamicness of the Druze sect.10
Laila Parsons argues the opposite, in equally unequivocal terms. She states that “[W]hile Druzism has its origins in an Islamic past the Druze cannot properly be called Muslims. The Druze certainly do not regard themselves as Muslims, nor are they regarded as Muslims by Muslims.”11 Nissim Dana, the leading non-Druze, Israeli scholar of the matter, gives credence to both opinions. He references a decree by scholars at al-Azhar University that “Druze are Muslims, since, like the Muslims, they recite the two testimonies and believe in the qur’an,”12 but stresses that “there is, however, no consensus of opinion that the Druze are in fact Muslims. Among the Druze, it is very rare for a religious figure to voice an opinion on this issue.”13 He concludes that
based on all that is written above, it can be stated with certainty that the Druze religion is an independent religion, absolutely different from other religions. It regards Islam with hostility. Ordinarily, this is not evident from the outward religious behavior of the Druze....In this regard, it is important to mention the command to the members of this faith not to openly expose the fundamental principles of their faith.14
This point raises the larger issue of certain unique stumbling blocks which prevent the ready understanding and classification of the Druze faith. The Druze, like their Shi’ite counterparts, are said to practice taqiyya (dissimulation). Taqiyya is the intentional concealment of their true faith, including even the outward adoption of aspects of other faiths to avoid persecution.15 The extent to which taqiyya is practiced—and therefore the extent to which seemingly Islamic practices on the part of the Druze represent their true faith—remains a subject of debate. The point that taqiyya should not be used too often to counter-intuitively explain the Druze’s open behavior (that is, to argue that their seemingly Islamic practice means that they are practicing taqiyya, not that they are Muslims) is well-taken. Nevertheless, it is clear from the historical sources that the Druze have regularly modified their behavior to conform with local Islamic practice.
Furthermore, not all Druze are privy to the details of their own faith. Some Druze, approximately one-sixth or so, receive the status of uqqal (wise), or religious initiates.16 Only they are taught the secret Druze religious texts, while the remainder, the juhhal (ignorant), remain uninformed. This further complicates any attempt to disentangle true Druze beliefs from false ones, since many Druze themselves may be unaware as to where their faith ends and Islam’s begins.17
The debate over the Druze’s possible status as Muslims is best summed up as follows:
The Druze do not see themselves as Muslims, despite the fact that most of the Druze believers are apparently of Muslim origin and despite the fact that they focus their activity primarily in relation to Muslims. Thus, there are those who suggest that they be considered as Muslims, though it is clear that this is a view cultivated by people of a certain political inclination, but for which there is no genuine religious substance. 18
In fact, Druze folkways clearly indicate that the Druze believed themselves to be different from Muslims, and more so, regarded them in a distinctly negative light. As one author notes, “[t]he prophet of Islam is charged with permitting forbidden matters and presuming to speak in the name of Allah.…Mecca, the ka’ba, and the black stone are described in a negative light: they are doomed to be destroyed, since they are the source of evil.”19 Additionally, a Druze proverb states that “the Shi’a deserve fifty curses, the Sunnis forty, the Christians thirty, and the Jews twenty.”20 This reflects Druze doctrine, which holds that “of the three monotheistic religions, the status of the Muslims would be the worst, and especially that of the Shi’ites; followed by the Christians; while the Jews would suffer the least punishment of all the nations.”21 There are two readily apparent reasons for this unequal denunciation, one theological, and one historical. First, since the Druze broke off from Shi’ite Islam, and Druze practice resembles that of Islam, a strong warning was needed to dissuade believers from questioning why their faith differed from Islam at all—Judaism and Christianity were not ideologically threatening in this sense, and could therefore be comparatively ignored.
Beyond this theological rift with Muslims, the Druze have often suffered at their Muslim rulers’ hands. This was in part due to Muslim intolerance of the Druze’s heterodoxy, and in part simply a product of the Druze’s numerical inferiority and territorial discontiguity.22 This persecution has had wideranging effects. One scholar understates the matter (but nevertheless makes himself quite clear) by saying that “one must remember that prior to 1948 the treatment of the Druze minority in Palestine by their non-Druze neighbors was not altogether amicable. This resulted in the Palestinian Druzes’ attitude of indifference towards whichever government was running the country.”23 Regardless of its cause, Muslim persecution of the Druze predisposed the Druze to distance themselves from Palestinian Muslims.
By contrast, Druze feelings toward Jews have historically been neutral, even positive. Most scholars on the subject quote the description by the famed Jewish traveler Benjamin of Tudela in approximately 1167: “A people called Darazyan…they have no religion, and live in the big mountains and the crevices of the rocks; no king or minister is a judge over them….And they are loving of the Jews, and they are light of foot on the mountains and hills, and no one can battle with them.”24 Whether this characterization of the Druze having an affinity for the Jews is historically accurate or not is a matter of debate. Several scholars accept it as a matter of fact. Robert Brenton Betts writes, “The fact that the Jews are the least condemned might account for the relatively good relations the Druze in Israel enjoy with the Zionist government.”25 Likewise, Gabriel Ben-Dor avers that “there is overwhelming evidence for the mutual understanding between the Jews and Druzes from the twelfth century on…”26
Others, however, disagree. “This historical antecedent is overstated,” Parsons writes. “Benjamin of Tudela’s comments reveal no more than that a cordial trading relationship existed in the twelfth century between the Druze of the Shouf mountains and a few local Jewish artisans. It is grasping at straws to suggest that there is any historical connection between this cordiality and a twentieth-century political alliance born out of specific economic and political circumstances.”27 Another scholar claims that “the historical record, however, suggests a different picture. Druze-Jewish relations prior to the twentieth century did not much differ from the relations the Druzes traditionally maintained with other ethnic communities and groups in the area. At certain times and in certain places these were good and served mutual interests, but there were also periods of friction and bloody clashes.”28
This controversy, of course, is difficult to separate from present-day political considerations. Jewish and Druze Israelis have attempted to prove the existence of a historical Druze-Jewish relationship, as this would serve to legitimize the communities’ current close ties. A few Druze, and many non- Druze Arabs, have attempted to portray these purported ties as ahistorical. They have argued, more so, that these claims of historical ties are evidence that Israel manufactures history for the purpose of separating the Druze from their Arab or Palestinian brethren, creating a “newly invented common Druze- Jewish history” where none previously existed.29
The balance of the evidence suggests that Jews and Druze did not have a notably good relationship in the pre-Zionist era. It seems that the two rarely mixed, and when they did, they were not greatly concerned by each other. This in itself, though, is a strong piece of evidence as to why the Druze chose to side with the Jews in the twentieth century, given the notably bad relations between Druze and Muslims that characterized the entirety of Druze history.
Whereas the Druze’s status as Muslims is a hotly contested issue, their status as Arabs is not. On this matter, there exists a definite consensus among the scholarly community that the Druze are Arabs. On the most basic level, the Druze’s native language, and the language of their holy books, is Arabic, and their food, style of dress, music, and other cultural forms are very similar or identical to the surrounding Arab culture. “[U]pon examining the lifestyle of the Druze, one cannot help but discern the great similarity between them [and other Arabs] in language, culture, food, and popular beliefs.”30 Moreover, “any serious observer must acknowledge the obvious fact that the Druze are Arab not only by language and culture but also in large part by racial origin.”31 Interestingly, this contradicts the Israeli position that the Druze are a people apart from the Palestinians, and it therefore strengthens the contention that the Druze-Israeli alliance was not obvious.
Their Arab-ness aside, the Druze constitute a distinct ethnicity. “The three attributes of ethnicity—being ancient, being symbolic and having cultural traits that can be transmitted across generations to the very young— together constitute the ingredients for the construction of exclusiveness and stratification.”32 The Druze exhibit all three of these characteristics. They additionally live apart from Christians and Muslims, refrain from intermarriage, and, particularly since the establishment of Israel, have begun to assert their uniquely Druze heritage.
It is easy to get bogged down in semantics when discussing these matters. “Out of many cultural traits shared with other Arabs,” one commentator writes,
only their religious ideology and the type of formal organisations associated with it are unique to the Druze. Clearly the Druze, despite their religious uniqueness, do not represent a distinct cultural tradition; rather, they form a variant, a cultural ‘dialect’, so to speak, along a single cultural continuum. In brief, being a Druze does not mean being non-Arab. 33
And in a different context, “admittedly, the Druze do constitute a distinct ethnicity, but it is an ethnicity that lies within broader Arab/Islamic culture.... I argue that, aside from religious dogma, the difference between Druze and non-Druze is one of expression of the same norms, variations along the same scale. Truly, the case of Arabism is one of a united culture, but a fragmented society.”34
Though defining the Druze’s uniqueness may be difficult, the reality is clear: what is important here, as one writer puts it “is the way they perceive themselves rather than the hard facts of history.”35 The Druze are Arabs, and their culture resembles that of the surrounding Arabs, but they are an ethnic group in their own right.
Thus far, we have seen that the Druze are not Muslim, that they bear ill will towards Muslims and Islam, and that, if anything, this historical animosity might have served to predispose the Druze to joining forces with the Zionists. Still, the Druze’s decision to ally themselves with Israel might seem surprising. First, historically, the Druze were essentially faced with choosing sides in a cultural or nationalist conflict. And though the conflict between the Druze and Muslims was serious, it is somewhat surprising that the Druze should have chosen to join forces with a largely foreign entity, whose members spoke an unfamiliar tongue and lived according to an entirely alien set of cultural mores. Second, regardless of how large the rift between Palestinian Muslims and Druze appears to have been, the Palestinians, for their part, fully expected the Druze to defer to ethnic solidarity and come to their aid. Such sentiments, even if ill-founded, do not arise from nowhere. Finally, the degree to which the Druze joined forces with the Zionists and later Israel may be surprising in its own right. Anti-Muslim sentiment might adequately explain why the Druze did not enthusiastically join the Palestinian cause, but it cannot explain why they did enthusiastically join the Israeli one.
Accordingly, three aspects of Druze culture bear on why the Druze chose to ally with Israel: their forswearing of nationalism, their emphasis on the value of one’s land, and their support for their country of residence. The Druze have historically been content with their status as a minority in ethno-national states dominated by other groups; they have “never demanded a nation-state of their own, and accept the status of a minority in other nation-states.”36 Rather, the Druze have traditionally focused on pragmatically looking after their interests, regardless of what power governs them from afar.37 “It has always been their custom to accept the facts of life and deal with them in a practical and flexible manner.”38 The connection between this cultural value and the matter at hand is clear: Arab nationalism did not appeal to the Druze at large because nationalistic aspirations are not part of their worldview; moreover, allying with Israel was advantageous to the Druze from an economic and security standpoint.
The significance of the second aforementioned Druze value—namely the emphasis placed on clinging to one’s land—goes hand-in-hand with the first. The Druze’s priority has never been attaining a country of their own, but rather retaining the land they already possess. In light of this, it makes sense that the Druze chose to ally themselves with the Israelis, who, as the reigning governmental authority, controlled their land.
Scholars who view Israel’s relationship with the Druze in a dim light make the same point, albeit obliquely. “After the Israeli occupation of 1948,” one writes:
The Druzes did not leave their country. This may be due to the fact that the Druzes have always been so attached to their land that it is traditional for them to die on their land rather than to leave it. Being mostly small land owners, the majority of the Palestinian Druzes main income is from their land. In order to remain integral in their land, the Druzes of Palestine had therefore to adopt an unresisting and passive attitude towards the Israelis, especially when they realized that the Arab governments at the time of the Israeli occupation in 1948 were not prepared for fighting.39
In other words, Druze attachment to the land outweighed nationalistic considerations. An Israeli Druze echoes these sentiments: “For the Druze, ownership of the land, by inheritance or purchase, and its cultivation and defense, have always been a supreme value, ensuring their physical survival….A Druze therefore believes that just as he holds and defends his land, so the land protects him and assures him both physical and spiritual survival.”40
The third and final Druze cultural precept at issue is the emphasis placed on loyalty to one’s country, which is a combination of the first two values of non-nationalism and defending one’s land. “The Druze say simply that they are citizens of the country in which they live, loyal to it and hence willing to fight for its survival and defense...there cannot be a question of divided loyalties because there is only one supreme loyalty, to the defense of the homeland.”41 This too has contributed to the Druze’s willingness to support Israel.
Given the Druze’s religious distinction from and historic tensions with Muslims, their neutral or positive relations with the Jews, and their lack of nationalistic tendencies, the Druze alliance with Israel seems logical. However, one must be wary of viewing the Druze, and their political alliances, in a reductive fashion. As a Druze scholar who is opposed to the community’s partnership with Israel points out, it is a mistake to regard the Druze as monolithic. If one does so, “the Druze community becomes reified, seen to act and react under the sway of socio-economic and political factors independently from individuals.”42 Indeed, why the fateful decision to ally with Israel was made had little to do with primordial questions of religion or culture, and very much to do with the needs and desires of Druze individuals, some powerful and others not.
What this essay has sought to do is demonstrate that the Druze-Israeli alliance did not come out of nowhere; that in light of Druze history it makes sense. I have argued here that elements of Druze religious beliefs and the community’s historical experiences predisposed them to disengaging from the wider Arab polity, and concomitantly to throwing their lot in with the Zionists in the years immediately prior to Israel’s independence. What occurred in the period immediately before, during, and after Israel’s War of Independence, and in the decades since, was not, of course, predetermined by any of this. It depended on individual people and their predilections, and, as logical as the alliance seems, it just as easily might not have come about. Still, the grounding of these relatively recent events in a broader Druze history should serve to provide needed context to the debate over how the Druze became Israelis.
Jacob (Chuck) Boyars is a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences. He is double majoring in Asian and Middle Eastern Studies and History.
Notes
1. Swayd, Samy S. The Druzes: An Annotated Bibliography (Kirkland, WA: ISES Publications, 1998), 17.
2. Betts, Robert Brenton, The Druze (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 198), 9. Isma’ili theology of the time “promised a radical political change… that failed to materialize. The failure of the Isma’ilis once in power to achieve their universalist aims spawned Druzism.” In other words, when temporal change failed to occur, people sought an outlet in messianic theology. More specifically, from the seat of his empire in Cairo, al-Hakim undertook to implement a number of changes to the religious status quo, including the destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, restrictions on the practice of the hajj, and the persecution of local Jews and Christians, all as part of, it is said, a plan to “unite the Islamic world under his aegis at whatever cost.” Al- Hakim gained a reputation at the time for irrationality and capriciousness; whether he was in fact insane or cunningly astute remains a subject of historical debate. What is certain, though, is that in 1010 C.E., some Isma’ili leaders in Cairo began to speak of al-Hakim in messianic terms, quoting “passages from revealed scriptures which they interpreted as pointing to al-Hakim as the fulfillment of the promise.” When al-Hakim disappeared, this veneration morphed into a belief that he would return as a redeemer.
3. Ben-Dor, Gabriel, The Druzes in Israel: A Political Study (Jerusalem, Israel: The Magnes Press, Hebrew University, 1979), 40.
4. Early Druze migrated north from Egypt and set up small communities across the Levant. Today, Druze are indigenous to Lebanon, Syria, and Israel.
5. Khuri, Fuad I., Being a Druze (London, UK: The Druze Heritage Foundation, 2004), 213.
6. Dana, Nissim, The Druze in the Middle East: Their Faith, Leadership, Identity, and Status (Brighton, UK: Sussex Academic Press. 2003), 39.
7. Dana, 109.
8. Betts, 19.
9. Betts, 18.
10. Swayd, 32.
11. Parsons, Laila, The Druze between Palestine and Israel, 1947-1949 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000), 14.
12. Dana, 39.
13. Dana, 40.
14. Dana, 51.
15. Dana, 52. “Since the Druze were a minority subject to the rules of Islam and there are principles in their religious belief considered as complete heresy in the religion of Islam, they were thus compelled to develop two systems of behavior: outward behavior (zahir) suited to the beliefs of the Muslim rulers; and on the other hand , genuine, internal behavior (batin), concealed from the eyes of the surrounding society.”
16. Druze society generally maintains traditional Arab gender roles, with women not holding leadership positions, and rarely leaving their villages to work. However, women are accepted as uqqal, and are considered especially well suited to receive this status due to their presumably better abilities to meet the higher standards of conduct prescribed to uqqal.
17. Dana, 151. “The juhhal, who are not part of the religious elite, have not the tools to discern between truth and what is offered as ‘truth’, and are tempted to think at times that the Druze faith is part of Islam. We find, then, that the basis of taqiyya, which is meant to offer protection to Druze from the machinations of strangers, especially Muslims, has become a stumbling block and an impediment for many of this community, and even encourages drawing closer to Islam.”
18. Dana, 18.
19. Dana, 44. “The sanctity that Islam ascribes to the black stone is compared to the sanctity Christians ascribe to the cross, and wonder is expressed that anyone should run through the desert to that lifeless black stone.”
20. Betts, 20.
21. Dana, 52.
22. See examples cited by Atashe 35-36,
23. Makarem, Sami Nasib. The Druze Faith (Delmar, NY: Caravan Books, 1974), 3.
24. Dana, 17.
25. Betts, 20.
26. Ben-Dor, 98.
27. Parsons, 4.
28. Firro, 3.
29. Firro, 76.
30. Dana, 39.
31. Betts, 25.
32. Khuri, 237.
33. Khuri, 235.
34. Khuri, 16.
35. Khuri, 237.
36. Ben-Dor, Gabriel: “The Druze Minority in Israel in the Mid-1990s”. Jerusalem Letters of Lasting Interest number 315, June 1, 1995. Accessible at http://www.jcpa. org/jl/hit06.htm.
37. Khuri, 231. “The Druze possess a distinct ethnicity of which they are very proud; so proud that they have managed to maintain intact for about ten centuries. Their history is replete with shifting alliances, for they made new ones as old friends turned to enemies. They learned that if they were to survive as a religious community in the middle east, they had to adopt a wide variety of tactics, sometimes cooperating or appeasing, sometimes competing or opposing, sometimes confronting or aggressively attacking a real or perceived threat no matter what its source- even a former ally. Guided by the principle of self-preservation, especially in times of danger, they used diplomacy or force as they deemed necessary.”
38. Ben-Dor, The Druze Minority.
39. Makarem, 3.
40. Atashe, 9.
41. Ben-Dor, The Druze Minority.
42. Firro, 9.