If the alternative to “Israeli Occupation” is certain death at the hands of the Islamic State barbarians, perhaps Israel’s not so bad.
Every now and then, despite their fervent and fevered desires to paint Israel as evil, hate site Mondoweiss lets a little truth slip out, as in this quote from a Druze Arab living in the “occupied Golan heights”:
… as Syria continues to be in chaos, there is less opposition to Israel’s occupation here. People here in [the] Golan Heights identify with the state of Israel now more than before.
So when the alternative is certain death at the hands of [Assad/ISIS/Russia you choose], living as Israelis in Israel is pretty attractive even despite the “occupation”.
Here’s the full section, Wael Tarabieh (WT) and Kamara are both Druze being interviewed together:
Wael Tarabieh: When things in Syria went in other ways and the fundamentalists took the scene, things started to calm down [here]. The amount of blood and killing people see every day made people feel something… it meant there was something wrong in their original thinking, it’s not just one narrative. And people thought the regime will, you know, support the Druze, but Assad has killed the Druze, too. But the other part of it is, as Syria continues to be in chaos, there is less opposition to Israel’s occupation here.
Kamara Abu Saleh: People here in [the] Golan Heights identify with the state of Israel now more than before. In Syria, Egypt, Lebanon, everywhere, there is big chaos, war, revolution, killing, no safety at all. So that’s why in these days and these times, it’s very easy to use a narrative of making people identify with Israel and stay here. Israel says, “Your life is in danger, if you protest being in Israel, what [are] your choices? Go back to Syria? You want to be under Russian bombs and killed by ISIS and other groups?” So maybe it’s debilitating, this kind of feeling, because this kind of feeling is based on fear. It isn’t based on logical thinking.
(http://mondoweiss.net/2016/08/occupied-identity-colonialism/#sthash.6BPTGwjc.B5pO7dHQ.dpuf)
