Cut Off From Syria : The Golan’s Druze Still Foes of Israel

Sixty years ago, at the height of a Syrian nationalist revolt against the French, the Druze of Majdal Shams fled from the fighting only to see their mountain village burned to the ground by French troops.

The flames that destroyed their homes also burned a lesson into the memory of the Druze villagers, who are members of a secretive, 900-year-old Islamic sect: If they do not stand up for their own interests, no one will.

The villagers are proud that they built their own municipal water system in 1949, channeling the runoff from the mountains around them. They built their first real school in 1952 and started paving their streets a few years later.

Battle for the Heights

They recall vividly the 1967 infantry and tank battle between Israel and Syria for control of these strategic heights and the old sheik who, at the height of the fighting, recalled the lesson of 1925 and urged wavering villagers to stand fast.

“Our honor is committed to our homes,” the sheik said. “We don’t want to be refugees.”

About 130,000 Syrians fled the Golan in the 1967 war, but a few thousand inhabitants of Majdal Shams and a handful of other Druze villagers remained behind to become subject to Israeli rule, separated from their relatives in Syria by a narrow, U.N.-controlled buffer zone.

Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres got a personal taste of Druze stubbornness when he visited here in February. Residents burned tires in protest and stoned his car.

The demonstrators, who at one point were dispersed only after Israeli security forces fired warning shots in the air, burned an Israeli flag and carried placards bearing the words “The Golan Belongs to Syria” and “Israel Is Palestine.”

A Vocal Minority

Israeli officials contend that opposition among the Golan Druze is actually limited to a small but vocal minority responding to pressures from Damascus.

Although it is true that the latest surge in anti-Israeli activism here corresponds with a period of rising tension between Syria and Israel, a two-day trip to the area and interviews with Druze and Israeli residents suggest that local discontent is more widespread and more complex than officially acknowledged.

While some of the Golan Druze are strongly pro-Syrian, others are simply pro-Golan Druze. And few have anything good to say about Israeli rule. These sentiments have hardened since Israel officially annexed the Golan in December, 1981, in an action that provoked almost unanimous international condemnation.

“We had more contact with the Druze before 1981,” said Eitan Liss, head of the regional council representing about 7,000 Israeli settlers who share the Golan with 13,000 Druze and untold thousands of well-fortified Israeli troops. “Now there is very little.”

The Druze complain that meetings with relatives in Syria, permitted under U.N. supervision until annexation, are now prohibited. They object that their children are forced to study Hebrew in school and that they are harassed by Israeli policemen and soldiers.

Israel, the Druze charge, has confiscated Druze land, imposed arbitrary limits on grazing rights for Druze livestock and unfairly taxed Druze farmers.

“We consider it economic war against us, to make us poorer and poorer,” said Salman Fakhr Din, a Majdal Shams contractor and a leading pro-Syrian critic of Israeli policy in the Golan. The Israeli authorities, he said, “believe that if people are hungry they won’t consider politics; they will only consider food.”

Rising to Mt. Hermon

Israel’s reasons for holding onto the heights are obvious. The Golan, a narrow plateau that rises gently from the south to the foothills of 9,200-foot Mt. Hermon in the north, overlooks Israel’s Hula Valley and part of the Jordan Valley and is within easy artillery range of collective and cooperative farms there.

Also, about a third of Israel’s water supply passes through the Golan.

Syria, meanwhile, is the strongest and seemingly most implacable of Israel’s declared Arab enemies. Israeli military sources say that Syria has three army divisions on its side of the U.N.-controlled disengagement zone on the Golan and three more between the Golan and Damascus.

An accelerated modernization program has given the Syrian army more and better equipment than it had when it drove to the pre-1967 Israeli border in 1973 before being beaten back.

“What we expected they would have in 1988 they have in 1986--operational,” said an Israeli officer familiar with assessments of Syrian strength.

2 Bellicose Speeches

Syrian President Hafez Assad made what were seen in Jerusalem as two particularly bellicose speeches on Feb. 27 and March 8. In one, he vowed to continue the military buildup until Syria had liberated Israeli-occupied territory, and in the other, he said that the Golan would one day be “the heart of Syria” rather than its southwestern frontier.

According to Israeli intelligence sources, the Syrians have recently been preparing half a dozen “security settlements,” just beyond the disengagement line, that are to be occupied by army officers and their families. Such settlements would eliminate one “early warning” mechanism that Israel has counted on to spot an imminent attack--the movement of additional commanders to the front.

In the context of what is seen as a growing Syrian threat, pro-Syrian elements among the Golan Druze are regarded as a potential fifth column in Israeli-held territory. Many Israelis still recall a former leader of the Golan Druze, Sheik Kamal Kanj, who was sentenced in 1972 to 23 years in prison as a Syrian spy but was released in a prisoner exchange a year later.

‘A Watchful Eye’

“We keep a watchful eye on those with Syrian connections,” a senior Israeli military source said.

While espionage is clearly a concern, the Israeli officer said that Damascus is also interested in stirring up civil disobedience among the Golan Druze, and he said it achieves this by putting pressure on relatives in Syria.

“By having this control over various families, they can keep alive the question of the Golan Heights,” he said, “even though they aren’t prepared yet to take any military action to get it back.”

Din, the Majdal Shams contractor, rejected charges of Syrian involvement here. He said the Golan Druze “want to be respected as Syrian residents living under Israeli occupation,” but he added, “We have a separation, and somebody there (in Damascus) can’t decide what’s good for us here and what’s bad.”

Syrian, Israeli TV

Residents are able to watch Syrian as well as Israeli television programs, including a special three-day-a-week “Education Program for Our People on the Golan Heights.” But their newspapers are mostly in Hebrew.

About 100 of the town’s 7,000 residents have a university education. Until annexation, a few were allowed to study in Syria. Every year, 10 residents study in the Soviet Bloc under a program financed by Moscow and administered by the Israeli Communist Party.

While most Golan Druze now carry Israeli identification cards, which they say are essential in order to travel or work, only a handful have accepted Israel’s offer of citizenship, and they are outcasts.

The pro-Israeli mayor of neighboring Misadah is shunned by the entire town. “He’s dead for us,” said a villager wearing the baggy black pantaloons and red and white headdress favored by Druze elders.

Mayor on Blacklist

Members of Mayor Muhsin abu Saleh’s family confirmed that townspeople refuse to have anything to do with him except officially. Abu Saleh, a lifelong resident and member of one of the area’s most prominent families, finds himself blacklisted from local weddings and funerals. His 22-year-old daughter, Gulyet, said the situation is causing problems for her in finding a husband.

Anti-Israeli feeling has been running even stronger since Israel’s reprisals for the anti-Peres demonstration last month. Majdal Shams residents held a press conference in Jerusalem last week to protest what was called the “provocative” visit by Peres.

At least 65 mostly young residents of Majdal Shams were detained after the protest. The authorities have been releasing them on probation in batches. Fourteen who arrived home while three Western reporters were here were given a hero’s welcome in the town square.

‘Go to Jail Anyway’

“One thousand times more, I am against the occupation now,” said Haitham Safadi, 22, who had been held for 15 days. He said he had not taken part in the late February demonstration but “I still went to jail. So next time, of course, I’ll demonstrate. I’ll go to jail anyway.”

The authorities have also put up a concertina-wire blockade to prevent access to a hillock on the eastern edge of town known locally as the “Shouting Hill.” Ever since visits with family members in Syria were prohibited after the Israeli annexation, Golan Druze had gathered on the hillock daily, using bullhorns to exchange messages across a half-mile-wide no man’s land with relatives on the Syrian side.

Police Van Arrives

But since March 7, a sign has warned that the hill is a “closed military area.” And when Din took the visiting reporters to see it, an Israeli police van was on the scene within minutes.

One of those who took part in the anti-Peres demonstration was Sheik Mahmoud Gherera, 86, who fought in the Syrian nationalist uprising in 1925.

“I was a good fighter then, and I’m still a good fighter,” Gherera said through an interpreter.

The difference, he said, is that then he had a weapon, and now “we have no weapons.” Even so, the old sheik boasted, “I can fight soldiers with my hands and sticks. If Peres sends five soldiers with sticks, it will be a fair fight.”