Druzification from below: The case of Arameans in the north Israel

Abstract

This article sheds new light on the Aramean movement in northern Israel, drawing from studies on nationalism, racialisation, ethnic conflict and minority mobilisation. In 2014, Israel allowed members of several churches to identify as Aramean. The pivotal role in the Aramean minority's distancing of itself from the Arab identity was played by the Israeli Christian Aramaic Association (ICAA). Specifying and partially adapting Yusri Hazran's concept of ‘Druzification’, meaning the Israelis' conscious policy of minoritising indigenous populations and encouraging their conscription to the army, the term ‘Druzification from below’ is proposed to stress the bottom‐up character of the Aramean movement in the north of the country as well as the agency of Middle Eastern Christians. My general standpoint is that ‘Druzification from below’ can be perceived as an adaptive strategy—a survival response to structural political conditions and urbicidal practices of the ethnocratic state and adaptation to external threats.