MENA Minorities

German daily Tagesspiegel (+) featured an inside article about the Druze community in Israel and the complex dialectic of loyalty vis a vis the state against the background of the war in Gaza, the nation state law and the Kaminitz law. Your's truly is cited as well. „Natürlich bin ich Araber. Aber zuallererst bin ich Israeli“ : Die Minderheit der Drusen und ihr besonderes Verhältnis zum Jüdischen Staat von Tristan Fiedler Mehr als jeder Vierte Israeli ist kein Jude. Neben muslimischen und christlichen Arabern gibt es Armenier, Beduinen, Bahai’i, Samaritaner, Aramäer und viele andere in dem Land. Eine der kleineren Minderheiten sind die Drusen. Die gut 140.000 Menschen machen wenige r als zwei Prozent der Bevölkerung des Landes aus . Doch das Verhältnis zwischen ihnen und dem Staat Israel ist ein ganz besonderes (....) Heute gilt das Drusentum als eigene Religion. Doch entstanden ist es im 11. Jahrhundert aus einer Abspaltung des schiitischen Islams

Just came accross an older report from Deutschlandradio (in German) about Israel's only mostly Maronite village of Jish including some even older quotes by yours truly. Maroniten in Israel Vertriebene Christen kämpfen um ihr Dorf

Social Anthropologist Gebhard Fartacek (check out his work on shrines in Southern Syria) from the Austrian Academy of Sciences edited a reader about Druze reincarnation narratives. The book was just published this week and the e-book is also available as open access via Peter Lang Publishing. If you are interested in Druze religion you will find interesting contributions by  Fartacek, Lorenz Nigst (University of Vienna),  Eléonore Armanet ( Aix-Marseille University) ,  Nour Farra Haddad ( Saint Joseph University)  and  Salma Samaha (Lebanese University). I was asked to provide an overview of the current political situation of the Druze communities, which I did basically by summarizing all my existing research after a decade long preoccupation with different dimensions of Druze politics. One might notice that even though my chapter has "contemporary situation" in the title, some recent crucial events are not mentioned like the devastating attack on Druze villages by ISIS in J

Israel voted (again) on  March 23 so lets have a look at the Arab members of the new Knesset and possible successors: Likud (30 seats) Druze Fatin Mulla  from Yarka (28th slot) is currently deputy minister in the caretaker government and reenters the Knesset. Nael Zoabi , a former principal, was presented as the party's first ever Arab and Muslim candidate (39th slot). He and former Druze minister Ayub Qara (42nd slot) have only theoretical chances to become a MK's in the years to come due to resignations. Blue and White (8 seats) Mufid Marid (9th slot), a Druze military officer from Hurfaish on the Lebanese border has good chances to enter the Knesset in case his party makes it to government. The female Druze candidate of the last elections, outgoing MK Ghadir Mrih, switched over to Yesh Atid after  the coalition of Benny Gantz with Likud and recently announced a break from politics. Labor (7 seats) Controversial filmmaker ( "Lady Kul El-Arab" )  Ibtisam Mara'ana

The just elected twenty third Knesset has some remarkable features: - four Druze MKs will be sworn in on March 16, which means a high degree of overrepresentation of the Druze community (barley 1.6 per cent of the total population according to official numbers). The Druze members will be: Fateen (Fatin) Mulla from Yarka for the Likud. He had been elected before in 2019 and seems the be the new "Druze No.1 representative" of the Likud instead of former minister Ayoob Kara. Gadeer Mreeh (Ghadir Mrih) from Daliyat al-Karmal for Blue and White. The the my knowledge first female Druze parliamentarian in the Middle East ever had also been elected before in 2019. It's worth mentioning that her candidacy was not opposed by the religious leadership. Jabar 'Asakla from the Eastern Galilee town of Mghar for the Joint List. 'Asakla is a secretary of the communist dominated HADASH gathering. He had also been elected first in 2019. Hamad 'Amar from the city of  Sh

Jordan based journalist Madeline Edwards has a nice article at Middle East Eye about the mere chaotic situation in Suwaida, I am briefly cited as well. ' Security chaos': Kidnappings and clashes threaten relative peace in Syria's Sweida   by  Madeline Edwards, Middle East Eye "... When protests broke out across Syria in 2011, they appeared too in Sweida.  Like elsewhere, citizen journalists and activists took to social media to tell the story of the war as it soon began to unfold. Opposition militias also sprang up.  And yet the Syrian government has largely spared Sweida the kind of mass arrests and bombing campaigns it waged elsewhere, seeing the province’s Druze as a politically sensitive minority group with whom it didn’t want to sour relations.  “Even though there was violence in Sweida too, the crackdown of the regime was not on the same scale of brutality as in other parts of the country,” says Tobias Lang, an analyst who has focused on Druze politic