"I've Had Enough": Resisting Military Service in Israel

Ram Rahat is not the sort of Israeli you would expect to be defying the status quo.

Middle aged with graying hair, Rahat is an immigrant, a Canadian who moved to Israel years ago. And like many Israelis born in North America, he has a fair amount of patriotism for his new country.

But he also has his doubts.

Rahat is a part of the Jerusalem-based Yesh G’vul, an organization that supports Israeli soldiers who refuse to serve military duty inside the Occupied Territories of Palestine, a region now under full control of the Israeli military.

He speaks about war, jail, discrimination, and resisting the military in a country where attendance is mandatory for everyone.

IMC: What does Yesh Gvul do, and what do the words [“Yesh Gvul”] mean?

R: Yesh Gvul is a movement that supports the selective refusal of soldiers, which is say that we support soldiers who refuse to take part today in the occupation. When Yesh Gvul was started, it was people who refused to take part in the invasion of Lebanon. We’re not a pacifist movement—rather, it’s a movement that incorporates soldiers and supports soldiers who refuse to take part of what they see as political actions that the military is being given to do.
Yesh Gvul literally means a couple things. It means “there is a border,” because we’ve always been saying that there’s a border in Lebanon and we’re saying that there should be a border with the Palestinians. It means “there is a limit,” which is to say that everyone of us has a personal limit, and finally it’s a Hebrew idiom which means “I’ve had enough.” It’s a very common Hebrew idiom….

IMC: Can you describe what IDF [Israeli Defense Force] soldiers are being expected to do that is causing them to selectively refuse their duties?

R: It’s not always a question of what they’re being asked to do in terms of specific action; it’s a question of a general situation the army is involved in. In Lebanon, it was the general opposition to invading another country when people didn’t see any real security reasons behind it. The same thing was said of the occupation. Although many people… their refusal is based on the fact that they have done a tour of duty or two in the Occupied Territories, have seen the reality of oppressing the Palestinians, have seen the reality of how this affects Israel’s security as well, and from there have come to the point of they’ve decided that they’re not willing to take part in it anymore.

IMC: Why did you personally decide to refuse?

R: I refused during Lebanon during 1982. And since then I have not had the dilemma of having to refuse since then because I was reassigned then to a base outside Tel Aviv. I refused then because… I saw the invasion of Lebanon as being politically motivated. It had nothing to do with Israeli security—on the contrary, it was something that I saw would work against the security of Israel instead of enhancing it…. Before the invasion, there were no missiles coming into Israel. Only as a result of that and the Lebanese resistance, we started having missiles fired into Israel.

IMC: So do you feel that a unilateral pull-out from the Occupied Territories would cause the suicide bombing in Jerusalem and elsewhere to stop?

R: Well, the question is what is a unilateral withdrawal—the question is how is a unilateral withdrawal done? If a unilateral withdrawal means coming back to the 1967 border, that might be a place that we can start to work from…. I think that if Israel is willing to return to the 1967 borders, I think there will be a Palestinian partner we will be able to deal with, and we will be able to come to a peace settlement in any event. If the unilateral withdrawal is [not] including [dissolving] a large amount of the [Israeli] settlements, which will include a large amount of Palestinian towns and villages on the west side of the fence, then there’s no point to it. It won’t enhance security whatsoever.

IMC: So you’re in favor of dismantling the settlements in the West Bank and Gaza?

R: I’m in favor of repatriating the settlers to Israel. I think that it should be pointed out that the settlers are human beings that have to be dealt with as human beings. We have to be able to offer them reasonable compensation, which will give them a chance to rebuild their lives within Israel on the one hand. On the other hand, leaving the settlements [buildings] intact could be part of solving the refugee problem as well.

IMC: If there are over 1000 refuseniks, why have less than 500 signed the Courage to Refuse letter? …How do you know how many refuseniks there are?

R: The 1000 figure is a ballpark figure, it’s not an accurate figure, and it’s based on a number of different petitions, because there are petitions other than the Courage to Refuse petition. There’s Yesh Gvul and the petition of the high school students... Putting those three petitions together, we’re already talking about somewhere around 800 people. There are a number of people who are not aware of the petitions or did not sign them for various reasons. Each petition has its own specific emphasis: Courage to Refuse has a very specific narrow definition of refusal, which means they’re dealing only with people who refuse to go to the Occupied Territories, which means someone who totally refuses to take part in the army… cannot sign that petition. It also means that someone who will go to a base in the West Bank and has no contact with the civilian population also cannot sign that petition. They as of now only sign reservists and not conscripts. […]

What we do know is that for every two people who are going into jail now, one of them is a Courage to Refuse person and one of them isn’t, in general terms. Which means that if we take their figures and double them, we can be pretty sure we’re somewhere in the range of 1000.

[…]
IMC: Can you explain what selective refusal is? …Why are some people only refusing to serve in certain areas rather than rejecting militarism as a whole or the entire military?

R: That’s the exact point: selective refusal is not pacifism. Both Courage to Refuse and Yesh Gvul see the army as something necessary for Israel in the present constellation, that Israel has real security threats that have to be dealt with. So we are not in favor of people opting out of the army entirely. However, we oppose using the army for political purposes, for continuing the occupation. […] In these things, at least for Yesh Gvul, we see these as matter of personal conscience and not something that the movement dictates. The way that someone decides to oppose the occupation—anyone sets their own particular red lines. We don’t support pacifism as a movement, because we see the need for the army. In generally, we see the Green Line as a line that should not be stepped over. Obviously, there are some activities that someone will do, even within the Green Line, that are geared towards the occupation.

[…]
IMC: A lot of people have said that by going into the West Bank and Gaza and continuing the occupation, that is defending the country, and that if there was pull out of the army, then suicide bombings would increase, and there is no intention of being peaceful. Why does your opinion differ—what is that based on? Why do you feel that pulling out or people not going in as IDF soldiers… would encourage peace?

R: Well, there are three reasons, essentially. First of all, we are not only talking about peace, we are talking about security in terms of Israeli citizens. One of the realities of the occupation is that Israel proper is not being guarded—there is no border, there is no patrol… the whole area aside from the roadblocks is open to attack because all the resources of the army are being geared towards defending the settlements other than guarding Jerusalem, Netanya, Tel Aviv, etc. Especially the Courage to Refuse people that have come in the last couple months to make the decision to refuse, have made the decision not first and foremost out of concern out of Palestinians, but out of a concern for Israel’s security itself. In other words, why do we not have a defendable border?
Since Israel pulled out of Lebanon two years ago, the amount of terrorist attacks from Lebanon can be counted on the fingers of one hand. There are far less than what we experienced before that, and that I think is largely due to the fact that we have a defendable border there, an intelligent border with a high-tech fence and soldiers patrolling it. I don’t think there is any question that the Israeli army is the strongest army in the area… We have no border that we are defending today. We’re very busy defending the settlers—we’re not defending Israelis within the Green Line… Yesh Gvul did not oppose the occupation in the first Intifada because of suicide bombing because of suicide bombing, we opposed it because we are oppressing another people. […]

IMC: What’s the history of selective refusal? It’s been used in Lebanon in 1982—was it used before that? How did it evolve, rather than just a pacifist movement that would reject the military outright?

R: The idea of selective refusal was very sporadic before Lebanon. There were cases of it…. But the movement of selective refusal came into existence with Lebanon. The history of Yesh Gvul is in a lot of ways the history of selective refusal. When Israel invaded Lebanon, a number of reservists felt that they could not take part in it, refused…started going to jail. Out of that original group that went to jail, Yesh Gvul arose... By 1985, the time when all the reservists were pulled out of Lebanon, there were 3500 people that had signed on to that petition….

So that’s where it came from. The movement has always had its high points when Israel has been in conflict. For instance, from 1982 to 1985, when masses of Israelis were in Lebanon; with the First Intifada, which was 1987 to…1993; and again with the start of the present Intifada.

IMC: How does Yesh Gvul support refuseniks? Do you offer some sort of financial aid while in jail? Or it simple a matter of circulating a petition…?

R: The petition is not to support the refuseniks… it’s to make a political act out of their refusal…

The actual support for the individual refusenik is a lot more complex… it starts with the hotline… for people when they get a call-up order, to deliberate if they want to refuse. Not everyone is certain they want to take such a step… even if they oppose the occupation it’s not an easy step to take. We advise them how to do things, how to minimize the possibility they will go to jail. So from the moment someone call there is who counsels them…. When someone go to jail, we provide moral support for people in jail, for their families, we’ve set up a system of adoption groups to make sure that people get letters. There might be demonstrations carried out in places throughout the world near Israeli consulates asking for people to be released…. In other words, to give them the support and any kind of assistance they need while they’re in jail as well. We carry out a vigil once a month at the jails…. And these are all acts of support so they know that they are not alone….

There is a fund which supports people financially. Why do they need to be supported? Because when someone goes to reserve duty, they lose their salary. Instead they get the equivalent of their salary from social security. If they go to jail, obviously they don’t receive it—this would be true of someone who is just in jail for a criminal offense. So this is where Yesh Gvul steps in to make sure that people don’t have to make a choice between their pocketbook and their conscience. But it’s only one small part of the full package of supporting people.

IMC: Do refusenik tend to be Zionists, or are they anti-Zionists? And isn’t that kind of a contradiction in terms? If you feel that the Occupied Territories were given to you by God, does it make sense to go and defend them by force?

R: Refuseniks include Zionist, non-Zionists, post-Zionists, anti-Zionists…. All of the refusal movements are non-party movements and don’t have very evolved political platforms. Ending the occupation and returning to the 1967 borders, that sums up Yesh Gvul politic platform essentially.

Personally, I don’t accept the definition you’ve just made of Zionism. There are a lot of secular Zionists out there. Obviously a secular Zionist does not think that the land of Israel was given to us by God. Zionism for a lot of people means that I see a place in the world for the existence of a Jewish state, and a Jewish state doesn’t have to be an entire historic land of Israel, whatever that means. It can be something the international community accepts and that the Palestinians accept, which means dealing with a two-state solution. I don’t know if I personally consider myself a Zionist today—when I came to Israel, I definitely considered myself a Zionist. I definitely believe in the acceptance of the state of Israel, I feel that this is my home, and I will oppose the occupation with all the strength that I have, but I will also oppose anyone who wants to take apart Israel. So I don’t see any contradiction whatsoever in being a Zionist and resisting the occupation. There are even people in the refusal movement who are religious and opposed to the occupation.

IMC: How many refuseniks are in jail now? How many have gone? And also… one person has gone to jail three times now.Why would someone go to jail multiple times for being a refusenik?

R: There are currently nine people in jail….
About 150 people have gone to jail since the start of the Intifada. […] Of those, about over 100 have been since this past March. And the high majority of those have been since Operation Defensive Shield [the April invasion of the West Bank] has started.

Multiple terms: let’s break that down into two groups of people. One is the reservists, who are saying they are refusing to go to the Territories. In most cases, that doesn’t happen, there are only a couple people who have been tried for their second time. […]

The other group are conscripts that refused to be drafted into the army at all, and these the army tends to come down harder on, which means that they will be tried again and again… until there is a breaking point, until either the army breaks or they break. Last year it took the army about three times around before they actually let people out. Now there are people who have gone into their fifth time—although some of those are like four ten-day sentences, in terms of total days it might be less than reservists who have been sentenced two times. It’s a game of chicken… of when the army decides this person isn’t going to be broken and release him, on the grounds of him not being fit for the army system.

IMC: Israeli society bases some social benefits on whether or not you’ve served in the military. For example, it can be harder to get a good job if you haven’t served. Generally, it’s a way to discriminate against non-Jews, but has it been used to punish refuseniks? Have they been denied social benefits after they’re out of jail…?

R: First of all, the discrimination against having not served in the army is far less than it was, say, ten years ago. There were a lot of things you couldn’t do—there were problems with getting a driver’s license, even, problems with employment. A lot of those things have gone by the boards already, in terms of Jews. Obviously, part of the reason of some of this legislation is to discriminate against Arabs, but there was also a stigma against Jews who had not served in the army once upon a time. […]

Number two, you have to divide refuseniks into two separate categories. The people who are reservists have done their army service, they are not discriminated against in terms of legislation [or] even personal[ly]. I’ve never heard of a situation where someone got fired or something because they refused and went to jail.

In a lot of ways, Israeli society, at least in the Jewish millieu of Israeli society, is far more tolerant than American society. In other words, okay, it’s another political view, we’ll argue with you about it, but you’ll still be our friend, you’ll still be our business associate, etc.

So the consequences for most people end with the actual jail time.

IMC: In the case of the Viet Nam War in America, one famous person, Mohammed Ali, said, “No Viet Cong ever called me nigger,” which meant that he was not going to fight for America because America was discriminating against him. Clearly, Arabs can’t serve in the military, but do refuseniks tend to be people who are otherwise discriminated against in Israeli society? Are they for example, non-Jews, or new immigrants or poor people who are choosing to refuse because they don’t agree with the way Israeli society treats them anyhow?

R: In general, no. The people who are refusing are coming out of middle-class to upper-middle class households, tend to be educated, tend to be …people holding decent jobs. The motivation is more on the one hand ideological motivation… and on the complementary part of that was that people who have been brought up to be decent human beings. In other words, their parents brought them up not to use indiscriminate violence.

A lot of people who are making the decision after serving a couple tours of duty are not radical leftists in terms of political views, but they’re decent human beings, and they can’t see themselves do this kind of action as decent human beings. There are a certain amount of immigrants who are refusing, the Russian immigrants. I think they tend to be people from a more pacifist background.

I don’t really see the socioeconomic connection here. There is another thing, which is the refusal among the Druze which is taking place, which is much less talked about. Druze are saying we identify ourselves as Arabs and we are not willing to go into the army. Druze are identified in Israel as not being Arabs, so they are drafted into the army. There you might find a certain amount of correspondence with the blacks in the United States. Here is a fine example of it: on the one hand, an amount of them have a political consciousness to say I’m not going to take part of these things, and on the other hand you have a lot of Druze in the border police, which is the worst of the units in terms of the Palestinians.

IMC: Also during the Viet Nam War, American soldiers would resist the military while they were serving in it, by committing acts of sabotage, refusing to work, sometimes injuring or killing their commanders. [Is this] happening in the IDF?

R: Most people who are refusing are refusing. They’re not sabotaging. So no, I don’t think so. The point is not to be there, not to sabotage while you’re there. There was an instance where someone painted “End the Occupation” on a whole bunch of tanks. Generally speaking, that hasn’t been the modus operandi—certainly not killing. We may not be pacifists, but we’re certainly not in favor of the use of violence.

IMC: Even since the refuseniks ranks began growing—and they have grown quite a lot since, say, February—there has been a worsening of the situation between the Palestinians and the Israelis. Obviously those things aren’t correlated, inasfar as you’re not causing it to get worse, but do you feel that the refuseniks are making a difference in the situation?

R: Not at the moment. …It’s still too small a group to have an impact on policy decision-making. But say, in Lebanon, you had 3500 reservists who were refusing—whole units of reservists who refused to go back to Lebanon after one tour of duty, and that’s a very powerful message and it’s very hard for the army to ignore. We are not at that point in this point in time. I feel like we and the rest of the peace movement are at a point now where we are building a base for better times. Those better times are not tomorrow and they’re not three months from now, it might take two years, but there’s an importance in building a base so that when the atmosphere in Israeli society changes that base will be there.

IMC: Thank you.