IDF suspends Druze officer who denounced nation-state law

Growing numbers of minority soldiers speak out against controversial law they say will officially relegate them to second class citizens

IDF officer Amir Jamal (L), a member of Israel's Druze minority community. (Israel Defense Forces/Flickr/CC BY-NC 2.0)
IDF officer Amir Jamal (L), a member of Israel's Druze minority community. (Israel Defense Forces/Flickr/CC BY-NC 2.0)

The Israel Defense Forces on Tuesday suspended a Druze officer who publicly criticized a controversial new law that enshrines Israel as the exclusive nation-state of the Jewish people, and which has been criticized as discriminatory toward Israel’s non-Jewish minorities.

Amir Jamal was suspended for 14 days for his Facebook post denouncing the legislation that he said would officially relegate him and members of the Druze minority as second class citizens.

“Why should I serve the state of Israel, the state that I, my brothers and my father have served out of devotion and love for our homeland.. to be [labeled] second class citizens?”

The Sunday morning post appeared to have been removed several hours later.

Jamal, who said that he and his two brothers were veterans of the 2008, 2012, and 2014 Gaza wars, directed his remarks to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and called on other Druze soldiers to quit the IDF in protest of the law.

A second Druze officer, Shady Zidan, followed in his footsteps later Monday.

The army said in a statement that Jamal’s superiors “made it clear to him that he was expected to refrain from publishing the post, in which he identified himself as an IDF officer.

“There is no place for political discourse of any kind in the IDF,” the statement said.

The nation-state bill — which for the first time enshrines Israel as “the national home of the Jewish people” and says “the right to exercise national self-determination in the State of Israel is unique to the Jewish people” — has sparked widespread criticism from Israel’s minorities, the international community and Jewish groups abroad.

The law became one of the basic laws, which, similar to a constitution, underpin Israel’s legal system and are more difficult to repeal than regular laws.

Illustrative: A memorial service for Israeli soldiers at the military cemetery in the Druze village of Isfiya in northern Israel. (Government Press Office)

The Druze, a breakaway sect from Islam, are the only minority that has taken upon itself Israel’s mandatory draft, and serve in large numbers alongside Jewish soldiers in some of the IDF’s most elite units.

Druze leaders, including three Knesset members, last week petitioned the High Court of Justice against the legislation, saying it was an “extreme” act that discriminated against the country’s minorities.

The law has been derided as discriminatory toward the country’s non-Jews, and has prompted other Druze soldiers to speak out against it.

Earlier this week, a Druze deputy company commander in a combat unit announced his resignation from the IDF in protest of the law, saying he could not serve Israel as a second class citizen.

“Until today, I stood in front of the national flag with pride and I saluted it. Until today, I sang the Hatikva national anthem because I was sure that this is my country and I am equal to all others,” Zidan wrote. “But today, today I refused for the first time in my service to salute the flag, I refused for the first time to sing the national anthem.”

Posted by Shady Zidan on Friday, April 22, 2016

“I am not a political person…But I am a citizen, like all others, and give my all and more for the country. In the end I am a second-class citizen?” he added. “So thank you, I am not prepared to be part of this and, likewise, I am joining this campaign, and so I have decided to stop serving this country.”

A Druze soldier identified only as “K,” told Hadashot news Tuesday that he and other members of the community serving in the Israeli army felt the law was “a slap in the face.”

In an apparent response to the growing protest by Druze soldiers, IDF chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot urged them Tuesday to leave politics “outside the confines of the army.”

Eisenkot called on minorities in the IDF to “leave the controversial political issues outside the confines of the army,” a military spokesperson said Tuesday. “As an inclusive people’s army whose goal is to defend Israeli citizens and win wars, we are committed to safeguarding human dignity, irrespective of race, religion, and gender.”

Eisenkot asserted that “the shared responsibility and the warrior’s camaraderie with our brothers the Druze, Bedouin, and other minorities serving in the IDF, will continue to guide us.”

President Reuven Rivlin (L) meeting with Druze community leaders at his residence in Jerusalem on July 29, 2018. (Mark Neiman/ GPO)

Eisenkot also met with Druze spiritual leader Sheikh Muafak Tarif in a bid to discourage the growing protests.

After the meeting, Tarif urged Druze soldiers “to leave yourselves and the IDF out of the public debate,” and said he and other political leaders “will fight for you.”

On Sunday, President Reuven Rivlin expressed his opposition to the law during a meeting with Druze leaders, telling him that “our partnership exists at the core and foundation of this state.”

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