Summary
Religious community in Pappe’s account which regards itself as Muslim, an offshoot of the Ismailis; in early April 1948, 500 Druze serving with the Arab Liberation Army deserted to the Jewish forces after a staged battle and a ‘treaty of blood’, becoming the main vehicle for the ethnic cleansing of the Galilee.
Details
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Pappe presents the Druze as a religious sect that regards itself as Muslim although Islamic orthodoxy does not accept the claim, emerged as an offshoot of the Ismailis, themselves a splinter group of Shia Islam (The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, PDF p.145).
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The Druze who had joined the Arab Liberation Army deserted in the beginning of April 1948, 500 of them, after first pleading to participate in a phony battle near Shafa’Amr and be taken captive before declaring their loyalty to Zionism; Khirbat al-Kasayir and Hawsha, between which the battle was staged, were the first two villages attacked within the area the UN had allocated to the Palestinian state, and were later destroyed (The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, PDF p.145).
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In the selection at Ghuwayr, Druze among the captured men were told they could stay while the rest had to go to Lebanon (The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, PDF p.139).
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Pappe calls the defection’s tragic consequence that Druze troops became the main vehicle for the Jews to carry out the ethnic cleansing of the Galilee, alienating the Druze from the rest of the Palestinians; with 350 Circassians who joined in April they formed the nucleus of Israel’s future Border Police (The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, PDF p.145).
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By the summer of 1948, Pappe writes, the Druze were now fully collaborating with the Jews, and in villages that were partly Druze, Christians were generally spared expulsion; in mixed villages the selection of who could stay was reserved to the intelligence officers (The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, PDF p.184).
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Israel’s divide-and-rule policy deported the Muslims of the mixed Muslim-Druze village of Amqa in July 1948 while allowing the Druze to join other Druze villages in the area (The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, PDF p.191).
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At Isfiya on the Carmel in August 1948, the Druze notables asked for the Bedouin living in their town to be expelled, claiming they were thieves and generally ‘incompatible’; the commander declined for lack of time, and the Bedouin of Isfiya remain a discriminated ‘lesser’ community (The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, PDF p.208).
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In October 1948 Israel’s divide-and-rule policy promised the Druze not only immunity but also arms as rewards for their collaboration, and a large Druze community was one of the factors that probably saved the village of Rama in Operation Hiram (The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, PDF p.215-216).
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At Hittin, the fact that the Druze had gone over to the Israeli side spurred the Israelis to capture the village, where the grave of Nabi Shu’ayb, the Druze’s holy prophet, lies (The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, PDF p.205).
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In Manna, the Druze are the paradigm, alongside Nazareth, of Non-expulsion due to orders from above: all Druze villages remained intact and their inhabitants were not subjected to collective punishment, even Yanuh, where a heated battle killed a large number of Israeli soldiers, largely because Israeli leaders concluded a cooperation agreement with some leaders of the sect on the eve of the state’s creation (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.32-33).
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In the Battles of the Ten Days the Druze villages were the first cases of non-expulsion in the Galilee, and the Druze of upper Galilee were likewise not targeted by the expulsion policy that uprooted dozens of neighbouring villages (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.26).
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In Manna’s Chapter 1 (part 2), the Druze battalion under Shakib Wahhab stopped fighting the Jews at Husha and al-Kasayir and withdrew in agreement with the Zionist side — an important juncture in the Galilee war; ‘Arif al-‘Arif’s distinction between Arab and Druze fighters is noted as reflecting tense relations between the Druze and the other sects (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.60).
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The secret agreement was implemented at Shafa ‘Amr in July 1948: most Arab battalion fighters returned to Syria and Lebanon, dozens joined the Israeli side, and Israel guaranteed Druze villages against the maltreatment, killing and destruction suffered elsewhere; Druze leaders also at times used their Israeli ties to help Muslim and Christian neighbours, and the Ma’di family of Yarka helped neighbouring villages conclude surrender agreements, as at Kufr Yasif (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.68, 84).
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Chapter 2’s opening repeats that all Druze villages remained intact and counts 10,700 Druze in the Galilee in November 1947 (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.83).
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In Manna’s Chapter 2 in full (part 3), Druze neighbours repeatedly sheltered and rescued the expelled: Sajur received the Kan’an family and the al-Bi’na and Dayr al-Asad expellees, Nahaf’s expelled were fed by Druze villages on the mountain trek, and Druze of Bayt Jan and al-Buqay’a brought Shaykh Jabr al-Ma’di’s intervention that reversed al-Rama’s expulsion of its Christians (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.89-92).
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Manna separates Druze treatment from Christian treatment against Morris: no Druze village suffered repercussions even after the battle of Yanuh, while Christians were killed and expelled at ‘Ilabun, Iqrit and Kufr Bir’im; all Druze, about 11,000 people, remained, rising from 1 percent of Palestine’s population before 1947 to 8 percent of Israel’s Arab population after the Triangle’s annexation, consolidated by the so-called “blood alliance” (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.112-114).
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Chapter 3’s opening section, “The Druze: The First Remainers” (part 3), gives the agreement’s making: the Jabal al-Arab battalion of about five hundred ARA volunteers under Shakib Wahhab deployed at Shafa ‘Amr in March 1948; Shai ties with Labib Abu Rukn and Salih Khunayfis, who brought in Jabr Dahish Ma’di of Yarka; after Husha and al-Kasayir (16 April) and Haifa’s fall, Khunayfis and Ma’di persuaded Wahhab to withdraw, in an agreement concluded in Khunayfis’s house on 9 May 1948, with volunteers choosing return home or Haganah service at twenty-seven Palestine pounds monthly (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.119-120).
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At Shafa ‘Amr on 14 July 1948 Israeli forces under Ben Dunkelman entered from the Druze side in a mock battle, both sides firing in the air, and a Druze unit under Sulayman Abu Rukn joined the town’s occupation and later Operation Hiram — consolidating what Zionist writings call the “blood pact” (Brit Damim) (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.121).
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In Chapter 4 (part 4), some Druze villages were also searched for smugglers, arms merchants and ‘Infiltrators’ sheltered among Druze neighbours — eleven rifles seized at Yarka on 31 December 1948 and ten weapons confiscated at Julis on 24 January 1949 — while dozens of young Druze served in the Minorities Brigade and others worked as guides for returnees and smugglers, enabled by their villages’ relative immunity (Nakba and Survival, PDF p.158).