Since then, the Druze in Golan have been cut off from the Druze in Syria.
Indeed, history has shown that the Druze are a faithful and welcoming people.
"The Druze community is a great community, " said Araidi upon his appointment.
Christian leaders suspect that Walid Jumblatt, the Druze leader, is working the Lebanese crowd and world opinion for his own political ends.
The Druze are also known for their distinctively large-but-flat pita breads.
On the north side of the main street is the Druze Heritage Centre, a small and free museum that exhibits traditional Druze artefacts, weapons and lots of photos of men with moustaches.
Further down the street is Beit Oliphant (also called Beit Druze), the former house of Sir Lawrence Oliphant, a British Christian author who made friends with the Druze and moved here in 1882.
So Christian Maronite leaders, including their patriarch, have rallied to prevent the Druze leader anointing his own man as president, a post the constitution allots to one of their own, even though uneasy about the continuing rule of their co-religionist, President Emile Lahoud, who is seen as a stooge of his Syrian counterpart, Bashir Assad.
Mr Siniora's coalition of Sunni Muslims, right-wing Christian parties, liberals, and the main Druze faction led by Walid Jumblatt, did indeed win 72 of the Lebanese parliament's 128 seats in the spring of 2005, riding on sympathy generated by the assassination of Mr Siniora's patron Rafik Hariri, a billionaire and five-term prime minister.
The outspoken Druze leader, Walid Jumblatt, has lost half his fief to his chief rival, Talal Arslan.
Opposition to the current government, for instance, has been bolstered by some Christians who share the majority's loathing for Syria, but would rather ally with Syria's friends, including Hizbullah, than work as junior partners to the Sunni, Druze and rival Christian parties that form the present ruling coalition.
This time the Sunni, Christian and Druze coalition -- led by the son of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, who was assassinated in 2005 -- won its own mandate.
When the family arranges to marry its daughter to a Druze from Damascus, the wedding must be held at the border.
By contrast, the IDF does not draft Arab Muslim citizens, the exceptions being loyal Druze, Circassian and Bedouin trackers.
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Stay at the El-Manzul Druze Lodging in Isfiya, a huge house where guests can enjoy a Jacuzzi, massages and a traditional Druze breakfast of labneh, pita bread, olives and a variety of small salads.
Over the coming four weeks all parts of the country will have a chance to vote, except that is, for the Israeli-controlled zone - and a handful of mountain villages where a lack of reconciliation between Christians and Druze has delayed the return of displaced inhabitants.
Jaramana, a town in the Damascus suburbs with a Christian and Druze population that has mostly been pro-regime, was the site of violence Monday night.
When the cabinet voted to submit the bill to parliament, Lebanon's senior Maronite, Muslim (both Sunni and Shia) and Druze clerics all attacked the ungodly move.
It's about a Druze family in the Golan Heights, a Syrian territory the Israelis have occupied since 1967.
Others come from Majdal Shams, a Druze village in the occupied Golan Heights.
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The USS New Jersey undertook a relentless counterattack against Syrian and Druze forces, shooting its 16-inch guns for the first time since the Vietnam War.
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"Now whenever I score a goal, of course I feel pride, " says the 12-year-old Druze villager.
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As recently as May 2008, heavily armed forces loyal to the parliamentary opposition, made up of Hizbullah, the fearsome Shia party-cum-militia, and motley allies backed by Syria and Iran, stormed areas loyal to the parliamentary majority that is dominated by Sunni Muslims, Druze and right-wing Christian parties and backed by Saudi Arabia and the West.
The rest of the population -- ethnic Kurds (10%), Druze (3%) and Christians (10%) -- remain largely on the sidelines, for now at least as fearful of a Sunni successor government as they are of continued Alawite control.
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Syria never populated the Golan in the past, except with troops and Druze militia.
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Today his house is used as a military memorial dedicated to Druze residents who served in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
They then filled the new building with engravings and portraits of Ottoman sultans, French cavalry officers and Druze tribesmen, as well as faded photos of old Beirut and the villages of Mount Lebanon.
The group is currently providing assistance to 6, 000 Syrian families across the country who are displaced by the violence Sunni and Shiite Muslims, Druze, Alawite as well as Christian.
Among minority groups such as Christians, Palestinians, Druze and Kurds, as well as the prosperous Sunni urban merchant class, far fewer now view the state as a bulwark against extremism.
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