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Israeli military joins peace movement!
Here is an article about israeli reservists (refuseniks) who are refusing to fight in the occupied territories. See also my video interview (from s/29/01 in SF) with an Israeli peace activist, self-proclaimed Zionist, and 10 year member of Israeli military.
Israel's army of peace
Battle-scarred reservists are refusing to serve in the occupied territories.
They are nothing less than heroes
Jonathan Freedland
Tuesday March 05 2002
The Guardian
Even the most stoic of Israelis are beginning to feel scared. The sight of
a single family - father, mother and two daughters, one aged seven, the
other a toddler - wiped out on a busy Jerusalem street has shocked those
who thought they could be shocked no more.
Even the Israelis who live in a kind of internal exile - avoiding the news,
listening only to music stations on the radio, steering clear of reality -
were jolted by that Saturday bomb, aimed deliberately at a crowd of
mothers, children and babies in pushchairs.
And the attacks have not let up. Yesterday saw another killing spree: a
restaurant shooting in Tel Aviv, a suicide bus bombing in Afula, a drive-by
attack in the West Bank and a mortar raid on Sderot - not a settlement, but
a town inside Israel-proper.
At times like this, Israelis are not much in the mood for criticism. They
feel desperate, the victims of a relentless war which makes targets of the
most vulnerable: burger bars, buses and babies.
So now is not an easy time for Israel to be told of the errors of its ways;
the wounds are too raw. It helps that any critics can be dismissed so
easily. If they are Palestinian or Arab, they are enemies of the state. If
they are outsiders they are, at best, meddling know-nothings or, at worst,
anti-semites implacably hostile both to Jews and their aspiration to have a
place of their own.
If they are Jews from outside Israel, they are "armchair" snipers, sounding
off from the comfortable sidelines. The less charitable version says any
Jewish critic of Israel is, simply, a self-hating Jew.
But now there is a group who cannot be dismissed. They are not outsiders,
do not sit in armchairs and hate no one, least of all themselves or their
country. They are Israeli soldiers - battle-scarred combat veterans
including a number of senior officers - engaged on perhaps their toughest
ever mission. They are the "refuseniks", and their mission is peace.
It began with a newspaper ad, signed by 50 army reservists, declaring that
when they were called up for their annual month of military service they
would refuse to serve in the occupied territories. In the month that has
passed, the ranks of Ometz Le-Sarev have swelled.
There are now 314 signatories to that original declaration, with 200 more
refuseniks allied to a similar group: 500 recruits to Israel's army of
peace. Thanks to the central place of Israel's conscript army in the
nation's life, they ooze credibility. Not only have they all worn the
country's uniform, but they are the men in their 20s and 30s the Israeli
army regards as its new generation of commanders.
Nor are they fringe lefties outside the Israeli consensus: more than 10 of
the early refuseniks wear the crocheted skullcaps that serve as the badge
of religious Zionism. All are avowed patriots, who insist they are happy to
do their regular reserve duty but who refuse to act as occupiers on the
West Bank or in Gaza. They adamantly believe in a Jewish state - they just
want no part in ruling over another people.
All that makes them impossible for their fellow Israelis to ignore.
Opponents can throw none of the usual accusations. They know these men are
not cowards: they have risked death before and their current stance exposes
them to the prospect of at least a month in jail. Three are already behind
bars.
Even their critics have to concede that these men are motivated by love of
country. If they merely wanted to avoid the personal agony of a West Bank
tour, they could fly abroad or develop a convenient health problem - both
familiar techniques. Instead they are taking a stand in public and on
principle. Lest anyone accuse them of providing succour to the country's
enemies, they refuse to give on-the-record interviews to the foreign media:
it is Israel they want to persuade.
And so Israel has to listen. The refuseniks tell their personal stories,
explaining why they can no longer serve in an occupation force, and no one
can wave aside their testimony as anti-Israel propaganda. Uri Dotan of the
Nahal Infantry Brigade wonders if his personal breaking point was "the
pregnant woman that my soldier did not let through the roadblock in Hebron
because her stomach was not big enough. She later gave birth to a stillborn
child in the crooked paths she followed in order to skirt the checkpoint on
her way to hospital".
N oam Ziv, a paratrooper, tells of one night when he was sent in to Nablus
to arrest a terror suspect. The man had a four-year-old boy at home and,
realising they could not leave the child alone, the soldiers took the boy
along with his father. But "because the orders are to cover suspects' heads
with sacks, at dawn I found a four-year-old boy sitting in the detainees'
shack next to his handcuffed father, both of them with sacks on their
heads. They didn't hesitate to put a sack over the head of a four-year-old".
No one can close their ears to this testimony, crying media bias or
anti-semitism. These are Israel's soldiers speaking, in their own words.
And so the refusal movement has had a seismic impact on Israeli society. It
has dominated the comment pages and the phone-in shows. High-level backing
has come from writers, politicians and retired military brass. Israel's
former attorney-general, Michael Ben Yair, says: "History's verdict will be
that their refusal was the act that restored our moral backbone." Perhaps
the greatest compli ment has come from Ariel Sharon: he blamed the latest
wave of terror on the refuseniks, suggesting they have got even the warrior
PM rattled.
I admit, I initially had my doubts. My first thought was that, one day
(soon, I hope) a progressive Israeli government will order the army to
withdraw from the occupied territories and to evacuate, by force if
necessary, the Jewish settlements on those lands. That will be a great
test, as the Israeli state turns on thousands of its own citizens. My fear
was that the current resistance would set a precedent - allowing rightwing
reservists to defy the orders of a future, peace-making PM.
I have been won over - by the desperation of the times, by the enormous
moral impact this protest is already having, and by the sheer immorality of
the occupation. In a democracy, the elected government has every right to
demand the obedience of its army. That rule still applies, and should,
where Israel remains vibrantly democratic- inside the pre-1967 borders. But
in the West Bank and Gaza no democracy has applied for 35 years; to demand
citizens enforce a military occupation in the name of democracy is a
logical absurdity.
So now I regard these men not as traitors, as their enemies allege, but as
exponents of the very best in Jewish and Zionist tradition. Their protest
is an act of great bravery, and they - every last one of them - are nothing
less than heroes.
You can make donations to the refuseniks by via Bank Hapoalim. Branch:
Pinkas, Tel Aviv. Branch number: 754. Account No. 105377. Name of account
holder: Ometz Le-sarev.
http://www.seruv.org.il
j.freedland [at] guardian.co.uk
Copyright Guardian Newspapers Limited
Battle-scarred reservists are refusing to serve in the occupied territories.
They are nothing less than heroes
Jonathan Freedland
Tuesday March 05 2002
The Guardian
Even the most stoic of Israelis are beginning to feel scared. The sight of
a single family - father, mother and two daughters, one aged seven, the
other a toddler - wiped out on a busy Jerusalem street has shocked those
who thought they could be shocked no more.
Even the Israelis who live in a kind of internal exile - avoiding the news,
listening only to music stations on the radio, steering clear of reality -
were jolted by that Saturday bomb, aimed deliberately at a crowd of
mothers, children and babies in pushchairs.
And the attacks have not let up. Yesterday saw another killing spree: a
restaurant shooting in Tel Aviv, a suicide bus bombing in Afula, a drive-by
attack in the West Bank and a mortar raid on Sderot - not a settlement, but
a town inside Israel-proper.
At times like this, Israelis are not much in the mood for criticism. They
feel desperate, the victims of a relentless war which makes targets of the
most vulnerable: burger bars, buses and babies.
So now is not an easy time for Israel to be told of the errors of its ways;
the wounds are too raw. It helps that any critics can be dismissed so
easily. If they are Palestinian or Arab, they are enemies of the state. If
they are outsiders they are, at best, meddling know-nothings or, at worst,
anti-semites implacably hostile both to Jews and their aspiration to have a
place of their own.
If they are Jews from outside Israel, they are "armchair" snipers, sounding
off from the comfortable sidelines. The less charitable version says any
Jewish critic of Israel is, simply, a self-hating Jew.
But now there is a group who cannot be dismissed. They are not outsiders,
do not sit in armchairs and hate no one, least of all themselves or their
country. They are Israeli soldiers - battle-scarred combat veterans
including a number of senior officers - engaged on perhaps their toughest
ever mission. They are the "refuseniks", and their mission is peace.
It began with a newspaper ad, signed by 50 army reservists, declaring that
when they were called up for their annual month of military service they
would refuse to serve in the occupied territories. In the month that has
passed, the ranks of Ometz Le-Sarev have swelled.
There are now 314 signatories to that original declaration, with 200 more
refuseniks allied to a similar group: 500 recruits to Israel's army of
peace. Thanks to the central place of Israel's conscript army in the
nation's life, they ooze credibility. Not only have they all worn the
country's uniform, but they are the men in their 20s and 30s the Israeli
army regards as its new generation of commanders.
Nor are they fringe lefties outside the Israeli consensus: more than 10 of
the early refuseniks wear the crocheted skullcaps that serve as the badge
of religious Zionism. All are avowed patriots, who insist they are happy to
do their regular reserve duty but who refuse to act as occupiers on the
West Bank or in Gaza. They adamantly believe in a Jewish state - they just
want no part in ruling over another people.
All that makes them impossible for their fellow Israelis to ignore.
Opponents can throw none of the usual accusations. They know these men are
not cowards: they have risked death before and their current stance exposes
them to the prospect of at least a month in jail. Three are already behind
bars.
Even their critics have to concede that these men are motivated by love of
country. If they merely wanted to avoid the personal agony of a West Bank
tour, they could fly abroad or develop a convenient health problem - both
familiar techniques. Instead they are taking a stand in public and on
principle. Lest anyone accuse them of providing succour to the country's
enemies, they refuse to give on-the-record interviews to the foreign media:
it is Israel they want to persuade.
And so Israel has to listen. The refuseniks tell their personal stories,
explaining why they can no longer serve in an occupation force, and no one
can wave aside their testimony as anti-Israel propaganda. Uri Dotan of the
Nahal Infantry Brigade wonders if his personal breaking point was "the
pregnant woman that my soldier did not let through the roadblock in Hebron
because her stomach was not big enough. She later gave birth to a stillborn
child in the crooked paths she followed in order to skirt the checkpoint on
her way to hospital".
N oam Ziv, a paratrooper, tells of one night when he was sent in to Nablus
to arrest a terror suspect. The man had a four-year-old boy at home and,
realising they could not leave the child alone, the soldiers took the boy
along with his father. But "because the orders are to cover suspects' heads
with sacks, at dawn I found a four-year-old boy sitting in the detainees'
shack next to his handcuffed father, both of them with sacks on their
heads. They didn't hesitate to put a sack over the head of a four-year-old".
No one can close their ears to this testimony, crying media bias or
anti-semitism. These are Israel's soldiers speaking, in their own words.
And so the refusal movement has had a seismic impact on Israeli society. It
has dominated the comment pages and the phone-in shows. High-level backing
has come from writers, politicians and retired military brass. Israel's
former attorney-general, Michael Ben Yair, says: "History's verdict will be
that their refusal was the act that restored our moral backbone." Perhaps
the greatest compli ment has come from Ariel Sharon: he blamed the latest
wave of terror on the refuseniks, suggesting they have got even the warrior
PM rattled.
I admit, I initially had my doubts. My first thought was that, one day
(soon, I hope) a progressive Israeli government will order the army to
withdraw from the occupied territories and to evacuate, by force if
necessary, the Jewish settlements on those lands. That will be a great
test, as the Israeli state turns on thousands of its own citizens. My fear
was that the current resistance would set a precedent - allowing rightwing
reservists to defy the orders of a future, peace-making PM.
I have been won over - by the desperation of the times, by the enormous
moral impact this protest is already having, and by the sheer immorality of
the occupation. In a democracy, the elected government has every right to
demand the obedience of its army. That rule still applies, and should,
where Israel remains vibrantly democratic- inside the pre-1967 borders. But
in the West Bank and Gaza no democracy has applied for 35 years; to demand
citizens enforce a military occupation in the name of democracy is a
logical absurdity.
So now I regard these men not as traitors, as their enemies allege, but as
exponents of the very best in Jewish and Zionist tradition. Their protest
is an act of great bravery, and they - every last one of them - are nothing
less than heroes.
You can make donations to the refuseniks by via Bank Hapoalim. Branch:
Pinkas, Tel Aviv. Branch number: 754. Account No. 105377. Name of account
holder: Ometz Le-sarev.
http://www.seruv.org.il
j.freedland [at] guardian.co.uk
Copyright Guardian Newspapers Limited
For more information:
http://www.indybay.org/news/2001/10/105240...
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However, coming from the UK liberal media, we must also understand this in context. Which is, the Palestinian people will not be liberated by Israeli's. There is a fundamentally racist dynamic happening in international activism, which is the belief that Israeli peace activists are key to ending Israels reign of terror. While this is true, we must remember that the best hope lies within the intifada, and a strong opposition amongst Palestinians.
Nessie, you do realize that there are more groups fighting in the intifada than just Islamic Jihad and Hamas? There is also Hezbollah, PFLP, DFLP. Each group has its own version of what kind of armed resistance to use. Many only hit combatant (i.e. active IDF officers) targets. Many disagree with the idea of non-combatant targets. Many, many more are relatively non-violent, concerning themselves with building community organizations, holding marches, monitoring checkpoints, non-violently intervening in combat situations, etc. All of these people collectively consider themselves the intifada. It is a REAL dis-service to talk against the intifada and assume that everyone who participates in it is someone who kills civilians.
Furthermore, your insistance that the intifada will not work ignores history. See: Algiers
All warmongers have no care for who they kill and civilians are deliberately targeted for military and political purposes. Most of us know of specific cases. A very clear example of how civilians are targeted and how standard lies are made to cover up the terrorism is the 1996 massacre at Qana by the Israelis. Following the UN investigation, this terrorism was so apparent that all countries in the UN (except one) voted to punish Israel.
The killing of civilians whether it is by Americans or Germans, or Israelis and Palestinians is based on tactical consideration, and in most cases there is nothing accidental about it. The thinking behind the tactics is that if we punish civilians bad enough, they will demand that their leaders surrender to the killers in o der tostop all the misery . Sharon 's policy.
While terrorism with bombs and guns is easy to see for some of us, the terrorism that follows is less clear to many. Iraq is a good example. UN bombs and sanctions have killed about 600,000 children age four and under since 1991. This data is derived from a huge study of 40,000 homes in Iraq by UNICEF and the WHO in the spring of 1999.
By our compliant support, all Americans taxpayers are guilty of this ongoing terrorism.
The new propaganda is that we have to kill them before they kill us. There is to be no trials, only lawlessness. There is only a return to barbarism. Does it make the other side a bunch of terrorist if they think as we do?
Peace
-- An anarchist referring to international law as a basis for justice? That is hilarious!
As anarchist says, how many years of living this would it take for you to see "non-combatants" as racist invaders? Let us be clear that the settlers are on a state-sanctioned mission to bulldoze Palestinian homes and buildings, and replace them with Israeli-only (really zionist-only) buildings.
-- and as nessie (i think) pointed out, the palestinians are on a mission to buld a state. you wanna-be radicals are wacky!
I didnt refer to it as a basis for justice. I referred to it because the fact that the settlements are illegal shows the extent of blatant disregard shown by the US-backed Israeli government.
international law
by anarchist2 • Friday March 08, 2002 at 06:18 PM
"An anarchist referring to international law as a basis for justice? That is hilarious!"
I didnt refer to it as a basis for justice. I referred to it because the fact that the settlements are illegal shows the extent of blatant disregard shown by the US-backed Israeli government.
-- i don;t get it, wouldn;t *any* action by *any* government be inherently bad in the eyes of an anarchist? I am not trying to troll with this, it is a serious question.
"What I am saying is that Palestinians need help. Killing women and children drives help away"
I am saying that there has to be a better reason than what Americans think. To me, that is not a reason. But you do offer a more serious reason:
"If you fight oppression in an honorable way, I’ll support you. If you murder innocents, then you yourself are an oppressor."
Which I agree with. My problem is with the equation of "support intifada fighters" being equal to "support the murderers of innocents." I still find that to be offensive. Within the context of all the comments, I don't think that is what you are saying. But I think the original comment standing alone does say that.
"What’s your point here, that it’s OK to kill women and children if you have low self esteem?"
It isnt an excuse and it isnt an apology. It was said only for information/understanding purposes.
"I’m right about this. You aren’t. Please reexamine your position. Do you really want to be remembered for supporting terrorism for reasons of race?"
Again, I am not supporting it. If my previous message was race-baiting, this is terrorist-baiting.
"If some guy on your block had a lousy childhood, does that make it alright for him to murder your mother? I think not."
Of course not. But I know plenty of Israeli's who do understand why, whether they think it is right or wrong. And they understand that the solution is the intifada. They may disagree on the strategies of that intifada, as many people do disagree even amongst the armed resistance. But they do not condemn the intifada itself.
"Never offer uncritical support to anybody solely on the basis of their race. Uncritical, unilateral support for anything that any Palestinian does, is not only racist, it’s reactionary, because it supports reactionary elements among the Palestinians"
I would never offer uncritical support to anything. But I would also not make broad, general statements about an ethnic-based resistance based on the actions of a few groups. And also be careful about how solidarity and support could be offered, to the benefit of Palestinians and to the benefit of my cause, which I feel are fundamentally linked to each other. If I could not make an effort to understand where people are coming from, I probably should just not make any kind of effort at all. And there are enough anarchists covering the "not making any effort at all" task.
"When somebody is committing the cold blooded murder of innocents in your neighborhood, wherever that may be, you have a moral responsibility to do whatever it takes to stop them, whoever they are. It makes no difference what color their skin is, what language they speak or what’s their name for their deity."
It is that "whatever it takes to stop them" threshold which is what we are talking about. You mean to say "whatever it takes to stop them but..." I agree the threshold is at civilian deaths.
Sure, in the fantasyland of rhetorical meaninglessness. But for one second, allow the awful weight of the real world to enter your philosophical and irrelevant ramblings: getting a parking ticket is not the same as living in occupied Palestine. And, just to re-iterate for you one more time, I wasnt using it as a "basis for justice," I was using it to illustrate the blatant disregard of US-backed IDF. You should try a little harder not to troll.