Israeli Druze rally against new law that makes them ‘second-class citizens’

Tens of thousands of people gathered in Tel Aviv on Saturday to protest against Israel’s new law declaring it the nation-state of the Jewish people, which has provoked outrage among the country’s most integrated minority, the Druze.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has defended the law, which says only Jews have the right of self-determination in the country and downgrades Arabic from an official language, from fierce criticism at home and abroad.

But his right-wing government has been blindsided by the backlash from Israel’s Druze community which has voiced a deep sense of betrayal over a mostly declarative law that many felt cast them as second-class citizens.

The Druze are ethnic Arab members of a religious minority that is an offshoot of Islam incorporating elements of other faiths. Their biggest communities are in Lebanon and Syria.

In Israel they number around 120,000 – less than two per cent of citizens. But unlike other Arab Israelis, who are mainly exempt from military service, Druze are drafted into the conscript army and widely active in mainstream governance and media, some rising high in the political and military ranks.