The
Courage Of Teenage Refuseniks
A Beacon Of Hope
By Avi Shlaim
23
March 22, 2004
The Guardian
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.
O utside 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.ilm - 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