Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza
Strip has in the past three years provoked increasingly violent resistance from
Palestinians - and vocal criticism from inside Israel. The most outspoken
critics are five teenagers who refuse to serve in the Israeli Defence Force
(IDF) because it is an army of occupation.
Thirty-six years of policing the West Bank and the
Gaza Strip have had a profound effect on the IDF, turning it into an instrument
of territorial expansion and colonial oppression. The only people the IDF
defends in the occupied territories are the Jewish settlers, and it is
remarkably indulgent towards the extremists among them. Towards the Arab
population, on the other hand, it behaves with the utmost inhumanity.
In recent months, 28 Israeli pilots and 13 members of
an elite commando unit have joined the five refuseniks in protest against the
army’s conduct in the occupied territories. Yet it is the courage of the five
that is truly astonishing because of the price they are prepared to pay for
following their conscience.
The teenagers, known as “the five”, are Noam Bahat,
Matan Kaminer, Adam Maor, Haggai Matar and Shimri Tsameret. They were recently
sentenced each to a year in prison, and the time they spent in detention
pending trial will not be deducted. All refused to serve in the IDF because of
the occupation and all were ready to do civilian service instead, but the offer
was rejected.
In defence of its draconian sentence, the court
pointed out that the five did not refuse to serve as individuals, but rather as
a group and with the explicit objective of bringing about a change in Israeli
policy in the territories. In this respect, the court ruled, their actions
strayed beyond the bounds of classic conscientious objection into the realm of
civil disobedience. In support of this ruling, the court cited a letter signed
by some of the five while still in high school.
The letter, dated September 3 2001, was addressed to
the prime minister, Ariel Sharon, and was signed by 62 sixth-formers with
Haggai Matar at their head. The signatories protested against “the aggressive
and racist policy pursued by the Israeli government and its army” and gave
notice that they did not intend to take part in the execution of this policy. “We
strongly resist Israel’s pounding of human rights. Land expropriations,
arrests, executions without trial, house demolition, closure, torture, and the
prevention of healthcare are only some of the crimes the state of Israel
carries out, in blunt violation of international conventions it has ratified.”
A year later a second letter to the prime minister,
signed by 320 men and women aged 16 to 18, accused Israel more pointedly of war
crimes, of trampling over democratic values and of blatant abuses of
Palestinians’ human rights. The occupation, it said, is not only immoral; it is
damaging the security of Israeli citizens.
The letters, and attendant publicity, prompted a much
tougher attitude towards conscientious objectors. Draft resisters were no
longer released after a few months, but put on trial.
The five presented themselves at their trial not as
pacifists but as conscientious objectors and, specifically, as opponents of the
occupation. They insisted that their conscience left them no choice but to
refuse to enlist. The verdict of the three military judges was pronounced in a
crowded courtroom in Jaffa on January 4. They accepted the argument that
freedom of conscience is a right in Israeli law, only to interpret it in a way
that undermined its practical value; in essence, they accepted the prosecution’s
claim that exemption from military service should be granted only to total
pacifists.
The judges found the accused guilty of “a very grave
crime which constitutes a manifest and concrete danger to our existence and our
survival”. This statement is highly revealing of the mindset of the judges. In
the first place, it is suffused with sanctimonious self-righteousness,
depicting Israel as the victim rather than the aggressor. Second, it conveys a
seriously skewed picture of the military balance of power, casting Israel - the
fourth greatest military power on earth - as a little David up against a
Palestinian Goliath. Third, it shows that the judges, unlike the accused, are
unable or unwilling to distinguish between Israel proper and the Zionist
colonial project beyond the green line.
The judges wrote in their ruling that the sentence
was intended to serve as a warning to others, especially in the light of the
spate of reservists from elite units refusing to serve. In other words, the judges
hoped that inflicting such a savage sentence would silence criticism of the
army and deter other Israelis. Their reasoning betrayed their provenance as
little cogs in a huge and heartless bureaucratic-military machine.
Outside the courtroom, in an impromptu press
conference, the refuseniks declared that they were proud of their actions and
that they could continue to challenge the occupation until it ends. “We are
being punished for saying the word occupation. So here I say it again:
occupation, occupation, occupation,” said Matan Kaminer. “They commit war
crimes and they expect us to keep silent,” added Haggai Matar. “But we will not
be silent. We will speak out against the occupation even when we pay a price.”
The lucidity, wisdom and courage of these young
Israelis are impressive by any standard. All are patriots who love their
country and are anxious to serve it, but only in a constructive civilian
capacity and only inside its legitimate borders. They have chosen the hard way
to fight for their ideals when an easy way out was available to them. They are
a beacon of honesty, decency and sanity in a society that has lost its soul as
a result of a prolonged, brutal occupation.
Ariel Sharon’s brand of Zionism can only lead to more
violence and bloodshed, but the refuseniks hold out hope that Israel will
return to its senses. They are surely right to single out the occupation as the
root of all evil. For the occupation not only negates the right of the
Palestinians to national self-determination; it also undermines the democratic
foundations of the state of Israel. Young and inexperienced as they are, the
refuseniks instinctively grasp the truth of Karl Marx’s dictum that a people
that oppresses another cannot itself remain free.
Supporters of the five have prepared a petition to be
sent to Sharon, stating that his government is jailing them for their
convictions, and calling on him to set them free. To sign this petition, visit www.refuz.org.il - the conscientious
objectors’ website. These objectors deserve all the sympathy and support they
can get, for their struggle is not for themselves, but on behalf of a much
higher ideal: recovering their country’s humanity.
Avi Shlaim is a professor of international relations
at Oxford University and author of The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World
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