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Lebanon's Druze leader urges Israeli Druze not to serve in IDF

Arab World Materials 30 December 2009 15:21 (UTC +04:00)
Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt urged Israeli Druze Tuesday not to serve in the Israel Defense Forces, saying such service clashes with Druze membership in the Arab nation.
Lebanon's Druze leader urges Israeli Druze not to serve in IDF

Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt urged Israeli Druze Tuesday not to serve in the Israel Defense Forces, saying such service clashes with Druze membership in the Arab nation, Haaretz reported.

Speaking to Nazareth-based Radio A-Shams, Jumblatt said that all Druze are Arabs who follow the Druze religion, and thus ties between Druze in different countries and between Druze and other Arabs were only natural.

The Druze leader, who was visiting Cyprus, met recently with a delegation of Israeli Druze dignitaries led by MK Said Naffaa (Balad) and clergymen from Mount Carmel and the Galilee. He said his ties with Israeli Druze began in Amman in 2001 and have been developing ever since.

Jumblatt noted that there was an increasing awareness of such ties among young Druze in Israel and said that many of them were already refusing to join the military. "The fact that the number of Druze avoiding military service has risen from 5 percent to almost 60 percent is proof enough of the importance of this connection," he said.

The percentage of Druze that join the military has long been contested by both sides of the ideological debate. At a conference in the Druze village of Julis attended by then-prime minister Ehud Olmert, Dr. Yussuf Hassan of Tel Aviv University presented a survey stating that 94 percent of Israeli Druze see Israeliness as an important part of their identity. IDF Col. Ramez a-Din told the conference that 83 percent of young Druze join the military, compared to only 72 percent of Jewish youths.

Jumblatt rejected criticism that he was intervening in another community's internal affairs. "There were voices that I can only describe as primitive who attacked our initiative, but we've proven that maintaining this relationship strengthens the Arab Palestinian identity of community members in Israel, and especially the young," he said. "The rising numbers of conscientious objectors show the Druze will no longer be border guards for the State of Israel."

Jumblatt, who in recent years has opposed Syria's involvement in Lebanon, said he did not rule out visiting Damascus, especially after Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri's visit there earlier this month. He stressed that Hariri visited Damascus as prime minister of a national unity government, not as a private individual or as head of a particular party.

Hariri's father, former prime minister Rafik Hariri, was assassinated in Beirut in 2005. The event provoked popular unrest that led to Syria's withdrawal from Lebanon.

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