New Druze reservist association to tackle challenges faced by group - interview

“My name is Adiv Abo Asi. I am 40 years old, self-employed, married, and a father to a two-year-old girl,” he introduced himself. Since the very beginning of the war, Abo Asi has been serving in the IDF’s reserves. “I’m actually talking to you in my uniform,” he said with a smile. Abo Asi, who serves at the headquarters of one of the IDF’s units, is a captain in rank.

“I lived abroad, but from the 9th grade on, I studied in Jewish schools. So much of my daily life is more closely aligned to that of the Jewish community, as to the way of life in my village back home,” he said, referring to his hometown of Daliat al-Carmel.

“In my studies in high school and university and in my work as a senior manager at Fattal hotels in Eilat, 99% of the time, I was surrounded by my Jewish colleagues,” Abo Asi recounted.

“October 7 was a slap in the face that shook all of us,” he recalled. “The entire country got up on its feet and was ready to go and fight for the sake of everyone, including for us – the Druze sector.”

But then, when it became clear that the war would go on for a long time, Abo Asi started to feel what he described as a gap between the conduct of the Druze reservists and their Jewish counterparts.

“Some of my Druze reservist friends and I started a WhatsApp group that was meant for helping each other with military equipment – from sending helmets to finding connections in the army. As for myself, I was part of another reservist group, one that was mixed but with a Jewish majority, and I became aware of an intriguing difference between the attitudes in the two groups,” he explained.

"We, as Druze, are overly eager when it comes to fighting, even if it means sacrificing many things along the way. The percentage of recruitment of Druze reservists is among the highest in the country, as well as the percentage of combatants. We lost 11 officers and soldiers, young flowers picked too early, who protected all of us with their bodies. Being the small community that we are, these are very high numbers,” Abo Asi determined.

“Just like our Jewish counterparts, we put aside our lives, spouses, houses, businesses, and loans. We dropped everything when we were called to protect our home, our land, our family, and our country,” Abo Asi continued, adding, “But our over-eagerness and excitement often come at the expense of traits such as acting in a calculated way, tending to our other affairs, and making sure that whatever we set aside remains intact for when we come back.”

He said that the discourse that he was exposed to in the Jewish majority group revolved much more around the ways in which to manage life while simultaneously fighting in the war. “They were talking about this and that aid fund, submitting applications, and requesting aid from the state while all the while discussing the war,” he elaborated.

In juxtaposition, “In the all-Druze group, the talk was more about finding ways to overcome fighting exemptions, helping to find ways to guard towns and communities, locating military equipment – everything was about the war itself.”

“I ran a survey regarding the aid funds,” Abo Asi continued. “Out of 600 people in the group, only two knew what I was talking about. I was shocked and it opened my eyes to the fact that we are missing out on a basic and helpful attitude, which is all about how we can conduct regular lives during the war.”

“I do not feel comfortable discerning between Druze and Jews because we are brothers,” he added shyly. “But in the end, there is a difference in perceptions, and in our sector, there is probably a lack of awareness about the issue of life during war. Perhaps our situation would also be better if we learned from each other,” Abo Asi said.

Fines instead of roses

Then, as the war began to tune down, reality got even more challenging for the Druze community. “Our leaders decided to end the war’s initial ‘grace period’ and started going on vacations, engaging in small-scale politics, and, finally, giving out huge fines over illegal construction.”

Abo Asi explained that the minimum fine for building misconduct is usually a whopping NIS 300,000. “There are also demolition orders and other problems. Someone sent me a picture of the fine he got while he was inside Gaza fighting Hamas. He told me: ‘I do not have a clear mind to fight properly because I do not know if my wife and children will have a home.’ This is not child’s play – if you do not pay until the end of the month, you may receive a criminal record, which causes many difficulties,” Abo Asi pointed out.

“We decided to take up the gauntlet, stop with the slogans and act in unison,” he continued. “Based on the original WhatsApp group, we formed another one made up of people who are committed to every Druze reservist and aimed at reaching all the Druze reservists out there to mutually help each other.”

The group grew even larger, and soon enough, Abo Asi discovered that it also included people of influence. “We suddenly had respectable lawyers as well as accountants who could help people manage financially concerning businesses affected for the worse during the war. Now, everyone brings their own expertise to the mix and together, we slowly grow and develop,” he said excitedly.

This week, Abo Asi met with leading lawyers, international investors, and entrepreneurs such as Hemi Zucker.

“These meetings prove how much power we have when we come together. Some of the most notable law firms in Israel, such as Yechiel, Shimon Katz, and Shmuel Israel, agreed to help us pro bono with legal representation during the war, and they also brought in investors from abroad,” he noted.

Abo Asi and his colleagues now plan to establish a foundation for the benefit of the Druze reservists named The Druze Reserve Association in Israel.

“We are neither a political movement nor a private sector company, but we will have to reach out to politicians and businesspeople and more if we want our voices to be heard. We want to continue to fight for our country and we are not doing anyone a favor – this is our right and our duty,” he said.

Further, he observed, “Druze reservists are willing to give whatever it takes to go into Gaza, defeat Hamas, and bring back the hostages, knowing that they might have to sacrifice their own lives. But as I said, it is very difficult to keep a clear mind when so many things are weighing down on us, including fines, demolition orders, the nation’s state laws, the Kaminitz Law, or an electricity bill.”

Abo Asi reminds us that the Druze communities own plots of land that are listed as theirs, according to formal registrations, but bureaucratic hardships prevent them from building new houses and expanding their communities. “For decades we have been hearing about new outline plans which never crystallized. Meanwhile, our young families are the ones paying the price.”

“We are not demanding anything extraordinary. We want our reservists to come home after months of fighting – not to find a fat fine – but a metaphoric bouquet of roses in the form of their most basic rights, including building permits and having electricity,” Abo Asi stressed.

“My family in Usfiya has cables above their house split into 22 other houses so that they can connect to the grid. An ambassador of the State of Israel is part of one of these families – and his house is not connected to the electricity grid. How difficult is it to find solutions? [Finance Minister Bezalel] Smotrich can find clever solutions to get building permits in settlements and connect them to electricity, but for some reason, when it comes to our villages, it gets more difficult for him,” he opined.

“I know of people with degrees and security positions who were fired because of these fines, which entail criminal records,” Abo Asi added, discouraged.

“I have to say,” he said firmly, “I sing ‘Hatikvah’ with pride. I know that this is the Jewish state. All I am asking is to be treated equally, as the Declaration of Independence states. As Druze in our culture and religion, we do not aspire for a state. We are loyal to our land and the country where we were born and will protect it at all costs. But as combatants, our people have to enter the battlefield with a clear head.”

Abo Asi explained that another aim of the foundation will be about introspection.

“We also have to look at ourselves as a society and see what, where, and why we are missing out. Life should not be just about ‘what they did to me’ but also ‘what I did and how I can improve.’

“We have very successful and educated people in our sector who push to establish cultural spaces that will allow the Druze in Israel to develop in many ways using professional guidance in places where the Druze are still lagging behind general society, like in hi-tech. We want to be an integral part of cross-border successes and for that, we need strength and unity,” he said.

Abo Asi hopes that the new foundation will help in achieving these goals. “Neither politicians nor clergymen are involved in this, and we have not contacted them,” he highlighted. “But first and foremost, our goal is to win this war and bring the hostages back. Only then can we be free to do the rest.”

“My main message to the world is that we, as Druze reservists, are connected to this land. We love this country and embrace it with all our might – and we also want to receive this embrace back. We want to be given our basic rights without having to fight for them. Let’s leave fighting and wars for our enemies and focus on building our society here, making it more inclusive and equal,” he declared.