In the summer of 2018, tens of thousands of Druze citizens of Israel gathered in Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square for a rare protest demonstration. Their central demand was the annulment of two laws passed a few months previously: the first was the so-called Nation-State Law, which enshrines in law the Jewish character of the State of Israel while ignoring its democratic core; the second was the Kaminitz Law, which paved the way for a draconian crackdown on illegal construction, especially in Arab and Druze communities.

More than five years have passed since that massive demonstration but neither of these two hot-button issues has been resolved. The Nation-State Law has been neither annulled nor amended and it continues to be seen by Druze citizens as the state’s way of permitting discrimination against them. When it comes to the Kaminitz Law, there is ample evidence of what happens when requests are submitted to expand a village and the size of the fine issued when someone finally breaks down and builds an unlicensed home on privately owned land – because it is close to impossible to do so legally.

In the past few months, even before the war in the Gaza Strip, the horrific events of October 7 and the deaths of seven Druze soldiers in the fighting, there had been a change in the attitudes of young Druze men and women: more and more of them want to replace the current leadership and adopt a more aggressive approach toward the state. They are sick of making do with promises and waiting for results that never arrive.

“It is time to tell the story of the Druze community anew,” says Shahrazad Hassoun-Kamal, a resident of Daliat al-Karmel. “Our connection to the State of Israel is not based solely on military service. We saw it when everyone in the Druze community rallied round during the war – the men were on reserve duty, the women prepared food, money was raised and we opened up our homes to people evacuated from the South.”

According to Hassoun-Kamal, a lawyer who is also involved in social and commercial ventures, “there is a massive gulf between the Druze and all the other Israeli citizens, the Jews, in terms of understanding the massive impact of the Nation-State Law and the Kaminitz Law.” Among the Jewish population, she says, the automatic response to any discussion of the Kaminitz Law is “I also cannot build a house wherever I want.” This, she explains, ignores the fact that the state does not offer the Druze community any other solution to the housing shortage and de facto forces them to build homes on their own land illegally.

Another Druze activist, who asked to remain anonymous, spoke to Shomrim about the Nation-State Law. “Ever since 2018 [when the law was passed], every Druze citizen has had a gnawing feeling in the pit of their stomach. From an early age, we are taught loyalty. Our identity is rooted in the soil. When the Nation-State Law came along, it took away my confidence. My daughters are being raised as Israelis and I am afraid of the day when they will grow up to discover that they are not ‘Israeli enough’ and that they are not equal in the eyes of the law or the Israeli mainstream. Our message to the state is that we want equality for everyone. And that is what our struggle is about.”

According to the activist, while the young generation of Druze citizens grew up, studied, and recognizes the Jewish environment and Israeli culture up close, Israeli society barely knows anything about the Druze community. As a result, most Israelis do not recognize the problems that these two laws cause the Druze community.

“When we joined the mass protests against the government’s judicial overhaul, we brought along the flag of the Druze community – and people asked us whether it was an LGBTQ flag,” says Nisreen Abo Asly, an attorney specializing in planning and construction. “Whenever there is an interaction between Druze and Jews, one can see the total lack of familiarity on their part, while we make the effort and are educated to know Jewish culture.”

According to Abo Asly, this is precisely the time – with all the patience and painful admiration and appreciation for the Druze soldiers who have fallen in battle and for Druze society as a whole – to ask tough questions: “People say that this is a time for war, not politics. But this is exactly the time for all of us to ask ourselves how we ended up here.”

In response to the situation, Abo Asly, Hassoun-Kamal and others are proposing the establishment of a public relations headquarters to coordinate activities with the Druze Religious Council and to ensure that Israelis are fully informed as to the problems facing the Druze community.

“When we joined the mass protests against the government’s judicial overhaul, we brought along the flag of the Druze community – and people asked us whether it was an LGBTQ flag,” says Abo Asly. “Whenever there is an interaction between Druze and Jews, one can see the total lack of familiarity on their part, while we make the effort and are educated to know Jewish culture.”

‘We are Very Unfocused in Our Struggle’

According to data from the Central Bureau of Statistics, the Druze community in Israel numbers around 150,000 people and some 42,000 households. Most of them live in 19 towns and villages, all located in the Northern District, Galilee and Golan Heights. The largest Druze communities are in Daliat al-Karmel, Yarka and Maghar. Education Ministry figures have, over the years, consistently placed Druze schools in first place for academic achievements, with over 80 percent of students obtaining a matriculating certificate, while the IDF reports that between 2015 and 2018, 75 percent of eligible Druze citizens joined the military.

The internal criticism of the long-serving leadership of the Druze community over the Nation-State Law and Kaminitz Law is nothing new. Now, the question that is being asked time and time again by Druze citizens of their politicians, the council leaders, the religious leaders and even their former IDF officers, who spearheaded the 2018 protests, is: What have you been doing all this time?

“For years, our leaders represented the Israeli establishment within our community, rather than representing our community within the establishment – and we’ve had enough,” says Saleh Abu Rokan, who has been active against the Kaminitz Law since before the war broke out and was responsible for erecting a Druze protest tent on the Carmel. “We are fed up. We want our rights,” he told Shomrim. “The straw that broke the camel’s back was the relatively high number of fines issued for illegal construction. Hundreds of young Druze residents got these fines.”

“We are not a very organized community when it comes to civilian matters,” says Abo Asly. “We do not have a lobby that organizes everyone. There is no single body the job of which is to think strategically about the future of Druze society. We are very unfocused in our struggle. The only body that unifies everyone is the religious council but its members are not politicians and this is not their job. They are responsible for the religion.”

The second barrier facing the Druze community in its struggle for equality, according to Abo Asly, is Israeli society itself. “As long as its morals do not change, the morals of Knesset members won’t change either. That is the only reason, in my opinion, that the Nation-State Law will never be overturned. As for the Kaminitz Law, the right thing to do is to freeze it and find a compromise.

“First and foremost, the state’s failings must be addressed. You have to have planning before you can have enforcement,” she adds. “Young members of the community are those who will end up paying the price and unable to build homes. Even when they leave their communities and look for an apartment in one of the nearby cities, people refuse to rent to them because they are Arabs.”

“The Nation-State Law doesn’t interest me at this moment,” Abu Rokan adds. “I and many more like me want to live with dignity in our communities. There is a solution to the Kaminitz Law. We can reach an agreement on what currently exists and then start expanding the existing communities.”

“It is time to tell the story of the Druze community anew,” says Shahrazad Hassoun-Kamal, a resident of Daliat al-Karmel. “Our connection to the State of Israel is not based solely on military service. We saw it when everyone in the Druze community rallied round during the war – the men were on reserve duty, the women prepared food, money was raised and we opened up our homes to people evacuated from the South.”

‘The Druze Don’t Need Any Favors’

The extent of illegal construction and demolition orders in Druze communities is not exactly clear. An Interior Ministry official told Shomrim that the state believes there are 10,000 unlicensed structures in these communities, adding that the lack of precise information is because the local authorities have very few details about the land and who exactly it belongs to. It is possible to get a ballpark figure, however, from an internal report published some 18 months ago by the Arab Center for Alternative Planning, according to which there are 500 unlicensed houses in, for example, Yarka and Isfiya alone.

Among young members of the Druze community, some believe that now – given the heavy price in terms of lost lives that they have paid during the war and the willingness expressed by some politicians, such as Welfare Minister Yaakov Margi and opposition leader Yair Lapid – is the perfect time to “use the momentum” and expose the Israeli public to the Druze community’s struggles – with the focus on social media platforms.

“I am delighted that there is a new and young generation that cares – especially women,” says Brigadier General (Res.) Amal Assad, one of the most prominent members of the Druze community, who also responded to criticism of the long-serving leaders, of which he is one. “I am doing everything I can to amend the Nation-State Law. The Druze community does not need any favors – the law should find room for everyone. As to the Kaminitz Law, I agree that the issue could be resolved with a government resolution. The state needs to allocate funds, to build new communities and to expand the existing ones.”

Some change is already happening. On the issue of planning and construction, for example, several important decisions for the Druze community have recently been approved: Interior Minister Moshe Arbel signed an order to connect around 80 homes in Beit Jann to the electricity network. The town of Kisra-Sumei, meanwhile, has been given permission to submit a new construction plan that would double the size of the community and allow for the construction of an additional 2,000 dwelling units. Similarly, plans have been approved for the construction of a new neighborhood in Daliat al-Karmel. In November, Arbel appointed attorney Assam Hamad as a special adviser on planning and construction and getting rid of building obstacles in Druze and Circassian communities.

Likewise, following the visit of President Isaac Herzog to Druze communities during the war, the President's Residence and the Justice Ministry launched a joint initiative to reduce the construction fines that have been imposed on soldiers and reservists serving in the IDF, families of fallen soldiers and kidnapped civilians – as well as for families who were evacuated from their homes and people whose homes were damaged during the fighting.

“The outline recognizes the difficulty paying fines experienced by people who were punished for building homes in communities where there is a significant planning challenge,” Herzog wrote. “An important element of the plan is recognizing the Druze community and expressing appreciation for its contribution to the state.”