The Druzes in the Jewish state : : a brief history / / Kais M. Firro.

• Superior document: Social, Economic and Political Studies of the Middle East and Asia ; 64
• VerfasserIn: Firro, Kais,
• Place / Publishing House: Leiden, Netherlands ;, Boston, Massachusetts : : Brill,, [1999]; ©1999
• Year of Publication: 1999
• Edition: 1st ed.
• Language: English
• Series: Social, Economic and Political Studies of the Middle East and Asia ; 64.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource.
• Other title: Preliminary Material /; Acknowledgments /; List of Tables /; List of Maps /; Note on Tansliteration /; Introduction /; Chapter One Whence the Druzes? /; Chapter Two Particularism Revisited /; Chapter Three Toward Symbiosis: Traditional Elites and Official Policy /; Chapter Four Plowshares into Swords /; Chapter Five "Integration": Promises and Protests /; Chapter Six By Way of Conclusion: When Elites, Economy and Education Come Together /; Bibliography /; Index /; Social, Economic and Political Studies of the Middle East and Asia /
• Bibliography: Includes bibliographical references (pages [251]-255) and index.
• ISBN: 9004491910
• Hierarchical level: Monograph
• Statement of Responsibility: Kais M. Firro.

Following the war of 1948 Palestine's Druzes became part of the state of Israel. Overwhelmingly rural, they sought to safeguard their community's age-old ethnic independence by holding on to their traditional ethno-religious particularism. Ethnicity and ethnic issues, however, were ready tools for the Zionists in the pursuit of their policy aims vis-à-vis the state's Arab population. Central among these was the cooptation of part of the Druze elite in an obvious effort to alienate the Druzes from the other Arabs - creating "good" Arabs and "bad" Arabs served the Jewish state as a foil for its ongoing policy of dispossession and control. The author painstakingly documents the political, social and economic factors that ensured the "success" of these Zionist policies, but concludes that the fissured identity of Israel's Druzes today bespeaks a feeling of musiba , tragedy, within the community itself.