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Druze in the Golan Heights Are Warming Up to Israel
(Ha'aretz) Amos Harel - Relations between the Golan Druze and Israel are becoming closer. The Syrian civil war, with the massacres perpetrated by the regime against its citizens, has weakened the bond between the Druze and the Assad regime, and reduced their desire to be reunited with the country that ruled there until 1967. Photographs of President Bashar Assad have been taken down from the walls of restaurants, while Israeli flags now fly over some of the educational institutions and over sports centers built by the Israeli national lottery. Female IDF soldiers teach classes in the schools. A quarter of the Golan Druze have acquired Israeli ID cards. Only a few people showed up for this year's event to mark Syrian Independence Day.