Tiny religious minorities and minority group rights: the case of the Druze community

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article deals with tiny religious minorities and examines the Druze religious minority in Israel, Lebanon, and Syria as its case study. The main argument is that minorities, despite keeping a low profile in international and national affairs, have usually been subject to major atrocities, forced conversion and ethnic cleansing in civil wars; minorities feel the brunt of discrimination by their own (including democratic) states and societies, and even engage in assimilation at high rates. The process of assimilation slowly leads to the dwindling and eventually disappearance of religious minorities under the trends of cultural convergence and the forces of globalization. The article asserts that tiny religious minorities, despite their weakness, but rather because of their weakness suffer proportionally more atrocities, discrimination, and assimilation than other majority or minority groups.