[1407] in peace2
Israeli Veterans Refuse to Serve
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Felix AuYeung)
Tue Jan 29 15:20:53 2002
Message-ID: <B0DAC1CD7DB7D511B98C00105ACC5A2B056D8C@BDCFB>
From: Felix AuYeung <FAuYeung@pittsburghfoodbank.org>
To: "'peace-list@mit.edu'" <peace-list@mit.edu>
Cc: "'fadia.rafeedie@yale.edu'" <fadia.rafeedie@yale.edu>,
"'dcelder@alum.princeton.edu'" <dcelder@alum.princeton.edu>
Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2002 15:22:51 -0500
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60 Israeli Veterans Refuse to Serve
Lee Hockstader
Washington Post Service
Tuesday, January 29, 2002 3
Petition by Reservists Condemns West Bank and Gaza Occupation
JERUSALEM More than 60 Israeli Army reservists, half officers and all of
them combat veterans, have publicly refused to continue serving in the West
Bank and Gaza Strip on the ground that Israeli occupation forces there are
abusing and humiliating Palestinians.
.
"We will no longer fight beyond the Green Line for the purpose of occupying,
deporting, destroying, blockading, killing, starving and humiliating an
entire people," declared the petition signed by the reservists and published
in Israel's best-selling daily newspaper, Yedioth Ahronoth.
.
Over the years there have been instances of eligible Israelis declining to
serve in the army at all, or refusing to serve in certain places for reasons
of conscience or politics. What makes the current case unusual is that so
many combat reservists, both soldiers and officers, have come forward
publicly at one time.
.
Moreover, the organizers of the petition, a pair of reserve lieutenants in
their 20s who have served previous stints in the Israeli-occupied
territories, say their goal is to collect 500 signatures and launch a broad
social campaign.
.
"We all have limits," Reserve Lieutenant David Zonshein, 28, a software
engineer and one of the two men who drafted the petition, told Yedioth. He
said that although "you can be the best officer," suddenly, "you are asked
to do things that should not be asked of you, to shoot people, to stop
ambulances, to destroy houses in which you don't know if there are people
living."
.
Lieutenant Zonshein, who wrote the petition with Reserve Lieutenant Yaniv
Itzkovich, 26, a university teaching assistant, declined to speak with
foreign correspondents. But along with several other signatories of the
petition, they told Yedioth about incidents in which Israeli troops had
opened fire on Palestinian children and other civilians who posed no
apparent danger to their lives.
.
In a statement, the Israeli Army said: "To serve in the Israeli Defense
Forces is obligatory under the law and there is no place for reserve
soldiers to choose what jobs they want and what jobs they don't want. The
writers of the petition don't represent the soldiers and officers of the
reserve who understand their mission and are working days and nights toward
the security of the state of Israel and peace for its citizens."
.
Most Israeli men are required to serve as army reservists until they are 45
years old, typically spending a few weeks to a month or more each year away
from their families and civilian jobs.
.
Raanan Gissin, spokesman for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, acknowledged that
allegations of abuse by the army do happen and should be investigated, but
he dismissed the petition and refusals to serve in the army as a "marginal
phenomenon."
.
The petition "undermines the basic tenet of Israeli democracy," he said.
"You can't have a government in which people can decide" they will bomb
"this target but not that target. You abide by the rule of the majority and
the majority has decided this is the government and this is its policy."
.
Since the current Palestinian armed uprising erupted in September 2000, more
than 500 Israelis have refused to serve in the Israeli occupied territories,
including pacifists and veterans, recruits and reservists, according to such
objectors.
.
Of that number, about 40 have been sentenced to prison terms that are
generally brief, including 12 reserve officers. Others have been ignored or
given army jobs inside Israel.
.
Ram Rahat, 45, a former combat soldier who refused to serve during Israel's
invasion of Lebanon in 1982, said the current refusals mirror patterns that
emerged in previous conflicts. He said it showed that people who have gone
through army reserve duty "a couple of times, going through the territories
and seeing the reality of what's going on there, are starting to get fed up
with it." Mr. Rahat, an accountant, added, "It's exactly what happened in
the first intifada as well. As more and more people did reserve duty and
came back for their second and third tours, there were more and more cases
of refusal."
