While Israel undeniably owes its Druze population much gratitude and while we can readily understand why Israel’s Druze population would not be overjoyed with the new Israeli identity law, we suggest that the protests of some in the Druze community will not endure. And the reason is not all that complicated.
It is important to appreciate that no substantive rights were diminished by the new law. It was essentially a symbolic statement that Israel is a Jewish state and an authentic expression of Jewish history. That is hardly a revolutionary notion and, indeed, has been generally accepted for millennia.
Thus, the Druze population can hardly claim that their support for Israel was informed by the assumption that it would somehow be a place where they could establish a distinct Druze political entity. Rather, they expected that they would enjoy equality before the law and the ability to freely live according to their customs and religious beliefs. And they have.
Some have asked why the identity law was enacted now. One likely explanation is the Palestinians’ growing insistence that the Jews have no significant ties to the land of Israel and that they will never acknowledge Israel as a Jewish state. Indeed, the Palestinians are becoming increasingly transparent that they will never abandon their hope that some day they will constitute a majority of Israel’s population.
So there would seem to be no time like the present to put something on the books that plainly declares to one and all that these Palestinian delusions are, well, delusional.
