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After Ten Years of Syrian Civil War, Young Druze in Golan Shifting Focus to Israel
(Ha'aretz) Jonathan Shamir - Syria's civil war has ushered in a sea change for the Druze community in the Israeli Golan Heights who saw their future in Syria, after the protracted conflict left 600,000 Syrians dead and 12 million displaced. Wael Tarabieh, 53, who works at the Al-Marsad human rights center in Majdal Shams, admits that after the disintegration of the social fabric of Syria, the local Druze population in the Golan doubts it will ever return to Syrian rule. In the past, free tuition and monthly stipends from the Syrian government lured thousands of Golan Druze to study in Syria. This ground to a halt after the war began and the number of Golan students studying in Israeli universities spiked. The Israeli government, meanwhile, increased investment in the area for the development of Druze regional councils. Roaa Khater, who was director of the Education Department in the Druze village of Mas'ade for most of the past decade, says, "The Druze in the Golan Heights experience security and prosperity: quality of life, education, employment. At the end of the day, this is what's really important to them - and this is what they find in Israel." The Druze community used to ostracize everyone who took Israeli citizenship, but the situation is different today. As of 2018, 20.6% of Golan Druze held an Israeli passport and the rate is growing.