...but I won't like it

The Golan Heights is one of the most beautiful and interesting places I've ever been. Looking down and to the west, the view is of rolling green orchards and small settlements. Looking up and to the east, the view is of mile-high mountains, bare in the summer, snow capped in the winter, straddling Israel, Lebanon and Syria. Everywhere you look, Lebanon and Syria loom in the dusty distance. On the Heights themselves are endless rocky cattle pastures, vineyards renouned for their Cabernets, minefields marked with discrete bright yellow signs and barbed wire, and the crumbled concrete of long-ago pummeled Syrian military installations.

As a plateau looking down over nations, the Golan feels separate. It is separate but of paramount strategic importance to whoever posesses it. From its 2000 foot height advantage, the Golan is the most logical place from which to lob shells on one's neighbors, as was the case during the famous 6-day war that led to Israel's control of the territory. The quiet and calm of sparse settlement and altitude makes the Golan feel like a tranquil monument, something that any nation would want to call their own.

The Golan is populated by Israeli settlers and Druze. The Druze are a small offshoot of Islam, with secret beliefs and their own holy books. In today's world, part of Druze belief is to pledge loyalty to whatever nation in which they reside. Druze settlements pepper much of Northern Israel. Israeli Druze commonly serve in the army, taking on some of the most dangerous missions. Many Druze are policemen and firefighters, fierce defenders of the nation. On a personal level, they are tough, but warm hosts, offering hospitality along with some of the best hummus and shish taouk on the planet, switching between Hebrew, English and Druze-Arabic without a hassle.

But for the Golani Druze, this loyalty presents a dilemma. Like the Golan itself, they remain separate. The Golan was taken from Syria by Israel during the 6-day war of 1967, where Israel's posessions were substantially increased, from the Sinai, to Jersualem, to the Golan. In 6 days of fighting around their towns and fields, the Golan Druze went from being Syrian to Israeli with no say in the matter. To this day, they shout from hilltops with megaphones to their neighbors across the border to give news of births and marriages to friends and relatives on the other side. While the Druze follow the rules of the nations they call home, many Golan Druze have refused Israeli citizenship. At first thought, it's easy to assume that they do this because they more closely identify with majority-Muslim Syria, but the answer is more complicated.

When we were in the Golan, my wife puzzled over the Druze renunciation of Israeli citizenship. returning to Tel Aviv, she drilled my American ex-pat friend about the Druze. His answer to why they'd renounce citizenship but be peaceable and loyal was simple, but not obvious. Consider the Druze perspective. 40 years ago, your town was in Syria until one day it wasn't. Syria has never been happy about losing the Golan (and your town) to Israel, and demands this piece of land in exchange for peace. It is possible that one day your town might be in Syria again. If you are a Golani Druze, would you want to be known as a loyal subject of the Zionist Enemy? Of course not, you'd be killed. So many of the Druze of the Golan choose to live in limbo. As my friend put it, they have to say "I'll be Israeli, but I won't like it... I'll take free health care and good education, but I won't like it." This is the only safe move for the long term good of them and their families. Really a fascinating predicament.

There is a major lesson for Iraq here. It's only wise to say, "I'll pledge loyalty to the Shi'ite-led government, but I won't like it." Or, "I'll go with to this or that tribal leader's plan for control of the province, but I won't like it." No one in Iraq would be wise to put all their eggs in one basket. What happens when the Americans leave and the power struggle ensues? No one doubts that many groups lay in wait for this moment. Knowing this, no one wants to be labeled a Shi'ite loyalist when the Sunni army generals get their acts together and overthrow the government. No one wants to be loyal to anyone else when anything can happen. Everyone knows that eventually the Americans will leave, and no matter how they leave, even if we magically get the current situation under control, there will be moment where every group who has laid low will emerge to make their moves.

People in Iraq cannot be Iraqi when they have no personal loyalty to the concept, conscieved of by the British in the twenties. People won't work for something that's liable to change or disappear altogether. With the idea of a bloody balkanization in the near-future, no one is going to settle down. This will end, but it will not end well. I just don't see another way.