Head of first Druze-led party sees positive change toward Israel among Golan neighbors

By Lazar Berman

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1 November 2022, 9:13 pm

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Lazar Berman is The Times of Israel's diplomatic reporter

Dawn Social Power founder Wajdi Taher at the grave of Sultan Ibrahim in Masade, on election day, November 1, 2022. (Lazar Berman/Times of Israel)

The founder of Israel’s first Druze-led party says that of all Druze politicians, he has the best chance to enter the Knesset in this election.

“If the other parties respected you, they would’ve put you in the top ten,” Dawn Social Power chief Wajdi Taher tells The Times of Israel, referring to Druze politicians way down on party lists. “If Likud respected the Druze, they would’ve reserved the 28th spot for minorities, not the 44th spot.”

Sitting at a table next to the grave of Sultan Khalil Ibrahim, Taher says his party — known as Shachar in Hebrew — will not join a Benjamin Netanyahu-led government, but is open to serving in a coalition headed by Benny Gantz or Yair Lapid.

The 45-year-old resident of the Druze town of Masade in the Golan Heights was a schoolteacher, lifeguard, and social activist before entering politics as senior advisor to Gesher’s Orly Levy-Abekasis when she was community empowerment and advancement minister in the Likud-led government from 2020-21. He quit when she joined the Likud party.

Taher explains that his party, which focuses on social issues and economic justice, is made up of eight distinct groups, including students, pensioners, Bedouin, Druze, and teachers. There are four Jews and four Arabic-speaking minorities on the list.

He says he suffered socially among his Golan Druze neighbors for taking Israeli citizenship, finding himself barred from weddings and funerals. But their views about Israel are changing.

“Since the violence in Syria, Druze in the Golan [Heights] changed direction and said there is no more Syria and we don’t want to be there,” Taher explains. “I’m talking about the younger generation.”

There are still avidly pro-Syrian elders who make noise, he says, but they don’t have the power they once did.

“Their decisions are binding only for themselves. They can’t even decide whether they drink water out of a glass cup or a plastic cup at home. They can’t even decide for their wives, their sons, their daughters.”