ON THE STATE'S EDUCATION APPARATUS: ZIONIZATION AND MINORITARIANISM OF DRUZE CONSCIOUSNESS IN ISRAEL

Following the 1948 establishment of the State of Israel, government officials designed policy to divorce the Druze from their cultural and national milieus. Since the early 1950s, Israeli policy-through formal and informal political and academic networks-has increasingly engaged in inventing a tradition that simultaneously separates the Druze from other Palestinians while connecting the former with the Jewish people via the person of Shu'ayb-or Jethro, Moses' father-in-law.3 There is also the alleged Druze religious doctrine of taqiyya, which requires the Druze to maintain "allegiance to the incumbent regime. Following Blanc's theory, Israeli scholars and politicians since the early 1950s have elaborated arguments and discourses centered on the notion that the religious commandment of taqiyya requires that the Druze submit to any form of government under which they find themselves.5 In this sense, they came to regard taqiyya as the essence of Druze existence and the moral and religious justification for Druze cooperation with the Israeli state.6 In fact, many Western studies describe taqiyya as the main element shaping Druze behavioral patterns. Furthermore, while the Druze interpretation literature refers to the concept of taqiyya, the writings of al-Amir al-Sayyid- the most prominent Druze interpreter of the religion-contain no sense of submission to the incumbent regime as part of the application of taqiyya.8 The theory that the Druze religion carries an obligation to be faithful to any regime was created by certain Druze circles in Israel, in order to justify the network of special relations that developed between the traditional Druze political and religious leadership and the Israeli establishment. [...]in 1957, it passed a law on conscription-taking advantage of the Druze's economic situation, the collapse of Palestinian society, the effects of the defeat, and alliances with traditional leaders.10 The state formed special Druze religious courts in 1962 and the Israeli authorities revoked recognition of 'Id al-Fitr as a Druze religious holiday in 1969.