Nearly 4,000 Druze on the Golan Heights, about one-third of the total Druze population there, have applied for and received Israeli identity cards, according to Defense Minister Ariel Sharon. He made this claim in a meeting last Friday with Israeli Druze leader Sheikh Amin Tarif.
Sharon said he hoped life would return to normal soon on the Golan and expressed regret at having to seal off the four Druze villages “because of agitators in the area.” Israeli officials say they cannot explain the sudden increase in the number of Golan Druze accepting identity cards, but insist that no pressure is being used to get the Druze to accept the cards which they had refused to do for months.
CLASH BETWEEN SOLDIERS, DRUZE
Meanwhile, six Israeli soldiers and four Golan Druze were injured Friday in clashes with demonstrators who were protesting the issuance of the identity cards. Three of the Druze who were wounded, said by the army to have been endangering the soldiers, were a mother and her eight-year-old child and another member of the family, a 74-year-old man. Security sources said the soldiers shot at the legs of the demonstrators who were attacking them with metal bars and wooden beams.
Druze sources said many of those issued with identity cards have torn them up, burned them or returned them to the Israeli authorities. The Interior Ministry claims that the cards are only for purposes of identification to receive official services. But without an identity card, any Israeli or temporary resident is formally a “non-person” who can be refused health or other services.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
