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Who will appease the Druze? By Lily Galili? Tags: Druze, Israel Police, Peki'in  Ladies and gentlemen, there's been a turnaround! Until recently it was the Muslims in Israel who were considered the ultimate enemy, what MK Avigdor Lieberman (Yisrael Beiteinu) delicately dubbed a "fifth column." The torch of "public enemy" has passed to the Druze. How can you tell- Using the hummus index. Simple but brilliant. Just check where the Jews go to eat hunmus. Everyone remembers the empty restaurants in Muslim communities after the events of October 2000. The situation is repeating itself in the Galilee town of Peki'in, in the wake of their own October events, on the last day of October 2007. The market square is empty. The Jews, even those who come to Peki'in, give the Druze restaurants a miss and go to the Muslim establishments instead. Nabil Saida, who has a souvenir shop, stood in the middle of a deserted Hama'ayan Square last week, shouting and pleading into his mobile phone for the tourists to return to Peki'in. "The tour guides tell people not to buy from the Druze," he complained. His son-in-law, Salah Zinaldin, who owns Old Peki'in Hummus, was just as upset as he was. The day before a group of soldiers came to town. Zinaldin gave the key to the spotless restrooms to the female soldiers in the group. But when the time came for them to eat, he heard about the order: Don't buy from the Druze. Advertisement Zinaldin mentions his service in the Israel Defense Forces elite Paratroopers commando unit, which even included entering the Sabra and Chatila Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon; the insult is apparently worse than the financial injury. The story is the same for all the businesses in town: The Druze are out, the Muslims are in. The Druze are undergoing collective punishment until further notice, or as a woman who owns an empty restaurant in the center of Peki'in said last week: "Until there's a terror attack originating in Nazareth, and then the Jews will return to the Druze." It is not pleasant to hear, but it is true. Only an alliance forged in blood could generate such a deep understanding of the Jewish psyche. Israel's historical covenant with the Druze apparently did not include the wounding of 13 civilians during the riots that broke out in Peki'in when a particularly large police force raided the village at 3:45 A.M. to arrest 17 scofflaws. That was the declared purpose behind the operation that left a community, bleeding physically and emotionally, but it was only one version of the motive. A total of 24 police officers were injured in the operation. A police investigative committee, whose conclusions were published two weeks ago, criticized the command level. It ruled that the forces had been explictly ordered not to outfit themselves with the necessary protective equipment and that "the command and control were deficient." From the Druze perspective the report only exacerbated the situation. Their expectations for the removal of Northern District Police Commander Major General Shimon Koren not met; more importantly, they felt that the spirit of the committee's conclusions was a continuation of the same plot. It is a plot that cannot necessarily be defined, but they have no doubt that it exists. One of its incarnations has been translated into a large graffito in the center of town: "No to the Judaization of Peki'in." The photographer, journalist and artist Emil Swed, 37, says he suddenly feels as if he is in the territories- Hebron, to be exact. Last week friends from Kibbutz Regba called and asked him whether it was safe to enter the village to see him. Swed cannot quite believe this is happening to him. He was born and raised in Nahariya, where his father worked. He was involved in Israeli society and encountered the identity issue only when it came time to choose a wife. It was then that he understood the internal and external boundaries. He chose Maha, a young Druze woman from the village of Yarka. From her he heard for the first time about discrimination and oppression, and he did not quite believe her until they went to Ben Gurion International Airport on the way to their honeymoon. Swed, who looks and sounds Jewish, was delayed by security officers for the first time in his life; he was held for a thorough and humiliating three-hour inspection because Maha aroused their suspicion. After marrying Swed decided to return to Peki'in, his ancestral home. It was a deliberate choice of identity, which he never expected would be tested the way it has been since the events of last October. Since then, he is restless. Swed channeled some of his emotions into a photography exhibition that is currently showing in a Nahariya gallery. He voices other feelings - about the police, the state and his community, which he accuses of hypocrisy. "When the police did the same thing to the Muslims in October 2000 we remained silent, we said it was none of our business. Now it's our turn," he says sadly. Mercenaries Our conversation took place the day before he appeared before the Knesset Interior and Environment Committee, which had invited him to a discussion of the police committee's report. National Police Commissioner David Cohen also attended the session, and Swed had high hopes. He left disappointed. "I expected a clear apology, and what we got was a continuation of the whitewash," he said. He has a clear philosophy on the subject: He believes that the police raid, as well as the conclusions of the report, were designed to advance the big plan to liberate Peki'in. Of the Druze, of course. Swed has no doubt that the police were serving the interests of the settlers' associations that have settled in Peki'in in recent years, so different from the veteran Jewish residents of the town. The newcomers do not conceal their intention to Judaize the community. Sowing hatred and division are a means to the end. "The police entered, sowed seeds of hatred and left," he angrily sums up the violent October operation. "Paradoxically, the sentence in the committee's report that broke my heart is actually the one to the effect that many people in Peki'in endangered their lives to protect the policemen. There is a clear intention here to foment a civil war, a classic governmental divide and conquer technique," Swed says. And it is effective. The events, like the report, caused tension within Peki'in's Druze community, which is divided between those who want to forget and those who demand a continuation of the struggle. At the sight of a group of religious Jewish visitors in the heart of the village, Swed's seven-year-old son has asked with obvious discomfort what the Jews were doing there. "There are no more tourists, there are pilgrims," says Sweid cynically. "People who come for entirely different purposes, to sit around the spring from which, according to tradition, Rabbi Shimon Bar Yohai drank, to listen to lectures about the importance of Peki'in in Jewish tradition, and don't hear a word about the Druze. Then they eat the food they bring with them and leave. It's as though we don't exist-neither in history nor in the present." Swed anticipates trouble. He already knows soldiers from Peki'in who evade army reserve duty, which they used to do gladly. He tells for the first time - with obvious embarrassment, certainly no longer with pride -about his own service as a combat engineer and about the fact that he is a disabled veteran. "We are mercenaries," is how he chooses to describe the Druze who serve in the IDF. As a rule, Swed avoids cliches, but nevertheless he warns that "beneath the surface, boiling lava is bubbling here. If the erosion is not stopped by establishing a real investigative committee or by handling the situation properly, the Galilee will burn." This threat can be heard in different versions throughout Israel: from Bedouin in the South, Arabs in the North and now from the Druze as well. They are all threatening an intifada, and everyone is afraid of everyone else. The chief of staff's picture? The balcony of the home of Hussein Sweid, Emil's father, overlooks the square and the alleys that were the battleground in October. After 40 years in Nahariya, working for Isasbest Asbestos-Cement Industries, he returned to the village where his family has lived for generations, but the village changed before his eyes. The quiet balance among Peki'in's majority Druze, the Christians and the Jews is being upset by the extremists, who bring in a new type of guests and visitors. While we are talking, two figures appear out of nowhere: One is dressed in ultra-Orthodox garb, the other is wearing a towel on his head. Without saying a word they plunge into the spring, wet their faces and disappear. Hussein Swed Sr. resumes his story. In 1956 he was among the first Druze to enlist in the IDF after the signing of the mandatory military service agreement. Even today he does not think the agreement was a mistake, since the Druze have remained loyal to the state. Indeed, there has never been a Druze traitor, though there have been Jewish ones. In October he felt insulted more than anything else. Even now, when he recalls the sights he saw from the balcony, he can almost smell the smoke in his nostrils and hear the sound of shooting echoing in his ears. "Something strange happened here," he says. "They came to conquer the village, but in any case the village belongs to them, to the state." He is especially hurt by the humiliation. "They entered before dawn in the hope of awakening a frightened village. But the village wasn't frightened, it was humiliated. The degree of the reaction was in accordance with the degree of humiliation," he says, summing up the balance of fear. Sweid Sr. is also entirely certain that the invasion of Peki'in - as he calls the police operation - is one part link in a malicious plan to push the Druze into extremism, which in the future will serve as a pretext to expel them in order to Judaize the Galilee. "We know that such a contingency plan exists, but we won?t go along with it. We won't play into their hands," he says bitterly. He is also upset about the settlers who came to Peki'in from settlements in the West Bank, who have been heard to say that the infidels must be expelled from Peki'in, and about the police who invaded the village to help them "to liberate Peki'in." In the background of the view from the balcony is a large banner, waving in the wind: "Peki'in welcomes its guests," which seems like a parody in light of the empty streets. All around the square are shops decorated with Israeli flags, with a poster of the chief of staff and even with a U.S. flag. It doesn't get any more Israeli. Bookmark to del.icio.us   Power to the people Egypt plans to provide all of Gaza's electricity, to wean dependency on Israel. Calculated escalation Hamas has been trying for some time to create a balance of deterrence with Israel.

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