What is the Golan Heights and who are the Druze? – CNN
“Druze of the Golan Heights share the territory with around 25,000 Jewish Israelis, spread across more than 30 settlements. Last year, the UN Human Rights Council sounded alarms over Israel’s plan to double the settler population on the Golan by 2027. Syrian Druze in the Golan have suffered from discriminatory policies, especially those relating to land and water allocation, according to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. ‘Over the years, the expanding Israeli settlements and their activities had reduced the access of Syrian farmers to water, due to discriminatory policies related to prices and fees,’ the UN committee said.
“Druze in the Golan Heights have historically opposed Israeli laws they saw as attempts at ‘Israelization.’ In 2018, thousands of Druze-led protesters opposed the Jewish Nation-State Basic Law put forth by the Israeli parliament, fearing it would deepen discrimination. The law established Israel as the historic home of the Jewish people with a ‘united’ Jerusalem as its capital and declared that the Jewish people “have an exclusive right to national self-determination” in Israel. Druze leaders at the time said the controversial law made them feel like second-class citizens because it didn’t mention equality or minority rights.”
Irony? As the Netanyahu government retaliates against Hezbollah, civilians who were killed by the rocket attack happen to have been Druze Arabs living in Israeli-occupied territory. Israeli law discriminates against non-Jews including the Golan Heights Druze, while Israeli settlers encroach on their land and take away their water.