A group of Druze elders in traditional robes and flat hat topped with a white...

A group of Druze elders in traditional robes and flat hat topped with a white headdress sit along a wall during the funeral of a popular. The Golan Heights Druze are part of a secretive Islamic sect who live in Syria and Lebanon and parts of Israel. The election of [Ehud Barak] as Prime Minister in israel has raised the Druze hopes for an israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights and a return to Syrian rule, There are 19,000 Druze currently living on the Golan Heights - from a population of 130,000 that lived here prior to Israel capturing the plateau in the 1967 Six Day War. The Druze on the Golan Heights are fiercely pro-Syrian but maintain good relations with Israel, although with many charges of discrimination leveled at the Jewish state.