Yesh Atid MKs meet Druze community leader

Yesh Atid chairman Yair Lapid and MK Yaakov Peri met with Druze community leader Moafaq Tarif in Julis, in the center of Israel today.

Tarif and other Druze leaders met yesterday with Prime Minister Netanyahu in Jerusalem.

Lapid said upon meeting Tarif: “First of all I would like to commend the sheikh for his swift and resolute condemnation of the terrible lynching that was perpetrated against wounded rebels arriving from Syria. Our alliance with the Druze community is engraved in stone and it eternal. It is based on our friendship, on the [Druze community members’] enlistment in the IDF and on the duty to obey the law. No one in Israel can, and no one should take the law into their hands. The State of Israel is committed to help the wounded who arrive here because of humanitarian reasons. We must steer clear of involvement in what is going on in Syria. We are obligated to the Druze, we are obligated to friendship and we are all obligated to abide by the law.”

Peri said that “Israel’s vague policy regarding what happens in Syria is a necessity of reality. The Druze of Syria are the brothers of our Druze brothers in Israel and this is where our humane concern for them arises from. The security establishment will know how to answer the needs of the Druze community.”

Tarif thanked the Yesh Atid MKs and said that the Druze community was “undergoing trying times. We are worried about what is happening in Syria and especially our brothers there.” Tarif added: “I turn to all the youngsters to listen intently and notice what words on our streets constitute incitement. There are a lot of lies, a lot of disinformation. This is all meant to create confusion in the Druze community and will end up harming us. The community and the religious leaders will all convene at the grave of Jethro and they are all united, all of them condemned the incident. Assaulting wounded people is against our path. We condemn it.”