Druze Leader Slams UN Over False Anti-Israel Charges

"The mayor of the largest Druze town on the Golan Heights at the weekend offered scathing criticism of a recent UN Economic and Social Council statement that accused Israel of negatively impacting the living conditions of 'occupied' populations.

In typical fashion, the UN last month decried what it called the 'economic and social repercussions of the [Israeli] occupation on the living conditions of the Palestinian people in the occupied Palestinian territories, including East Jerusalem and the Arab population in the occupied Syrian Golan.'

Dulan Abu-Saleh, the mayor of Majdal Shams, the largest Druze town in the Golan, called the charge 'laughable.'

'I don't understand what they're talking about,' Abu-Saleh told the Israeli newspaper Makor Rishon. 'Although we weren't included in some major cabinet decisions on budgets, when we build and make up plans we never felt discrimination. On the contrary, we always found an attentive ear.'...

With the eruption of the Syrian civil war in 2011,... hundreds of additional Golan Druze have applied for citizenship, while a growing number now openly acknowledge that they prefer to remain part of Israel.

'No one wants to see Syria here,' Karim Batkhish, a resident of the Druze town of Masa'ada, told the newspaper."