Emil Masud is an Arab Druze who identifies as “forever Syrian,” and Ofer Megged is an Israeli settler in the contested Golan Heights. They might seem unlikely partners, but a fight to save the environment against Israeli big business has thrust Masud, a local farmer, and Megged, a physics professor, into a burgeoning alliance that is shifting mutual perceptions between the Golan’s Druze and Jews.

“Our lands will be destroyed," Masud told Al-Monitor at his family home in Masa'de. "We cannot allow this disaster to happen. Druze, Jews, [there is] no difference. We have joined hands against a common enemy to stop it.”

It all began when one of Israel’s “green” energy companies set its sights on the cherry and apple orchards owned by the Druze. Energix wanted to erect dozens of towering wind turbines, some of them 64 stories high, on the farmers’ land. Company officials began quietly courting Druze locals, promising them jobs and other incentives, like yearly payments of around $11,000 for letting them build the turbines on their individual plots. Six hundred square meters per turbine — or about 6,500 square feet — that was all Energix needed, the operatives said. 

The civil war in Syria was raging. Farmers could no longer sell their produce there after Sunni jihadis hostile to the Druze seized control of the border. Incomes melted, and the offer sounded good. So a steady trickle of farmers signed contracts with Energix. As many as 40 Druze landowners are believed to have taken the bait.