Israeli Reservists Refuse Territories Duty
Updated 2023-12-09
Ometz LeSarev -Wikipedia Courage to Refuse) is an organization of reserve officers and soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) who refuse to serve beyond the 1967 borders, but “shall continue serving in the Israel Defense Forces in any mission that serves Israel’s defense.” These conscientious objectors refer to themselves as refuseniks, a reference to the refusenik Jews of Soviet Russia. In 2004, Courage to Refuse and one of its founders, social activist David Zonsheine, were nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by 1992 winner Rigoberta Menchú and 1996 winner Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ometz_LeSarev
Refusal to serve in the IDF – Wikipedia Citizens of Israel have refused to serve in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) or have disobeyed orders on the grounds of pacifism, antimilitarism, religious philosophy, or political disagreement with Israeli policy such as its occupation of the West Bank. Conscientious objectors in Israel are known as sarvanim (in Hebrew סרבנים) which is sometimes translated as “refuseniks”, or mishtamtim (evaders, dodgers). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refusal_to_serve_in_the_IDF
2014-09-12 Israeli intelligence veterans refuse to serve in Palestinian territories Forty-three veterans of one of Israel’s most secretive military intelligence units – many of them still active reservists – have signed a public letter refusing to serve in operations involving the occupied Palestinian territories because of the widespread surveillance of innocent residents. The signatories include officers, former instructors and senior NCOs from the country’s equivalent of America’s NSA or Britain’s GCHQ, known as Unit 8200 – or in Hebrew as Yehida Shmoneh-Matayim. They allege that the “all-encompassing” intelligence the unit gathers on Palestinians – much of it concerning innocent people – is used for “political persecution” and to create divisions in Palestinian society.
The largest intelligence unit in the Israeli military, Unit 8200 intercepts electronic communications including email, phone calls and social media in addition to targeting military and diplomatic traffic.https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/12/israeli-intelligence-reservists-refuse-serve-palestinian-territories?
2014-09-12 Reservists From Elite IDF Intel Unit Refuse to Serve Over Palestinian ‘Persecution’ Forty-three signatories, including a major and two captains, in a letter to the prime minister: ‘Intelligence is an integral part of Israel’s military occupation over the territories.’ https://www.haaretz.com/2014-09-12/ty-article/43-ex-unit-8200-soldiers-to-refuse-reserve-duty/0000017f-e210-d568-ad7f-f37b5b310000
2014-07-23 50 Israeli Reservists Refuse To Serve in Gaza War More than 50 former Israeli soldiers have refused to serve in the nation’s reserve force, citing regret over their part in a military they said plays a central role in oppressing Palestinians, the Washington Post reported on Wednesday.
“We found that troops who operate in the occupied territories aren’t the only ones enforcing the mechanisms of control over Palestinian lives. In truth, the entire military is implicated. For that reason, we now refuse to participate in our reserve duties, and we support all those who resist being called to service,” the soldiers wrote in a petition posted online and first reported by the newspaper.
While some Israelis have refused to serve in the Palestinian territories of the West Bank, the military’s structure is such that serving in any capacity forces one to play a role in the conflict, said the soldiers, most of whom are women who would have been exempted from combat. https://forward.com/news/breaking-news/202671/50-israeli-reservists-refuse-to-serve-in-gaza-war/
2002-12-31 Israel Rules Reserves Must Serve in Occupied Territories The Israeli Supreme Court ruled today that reserve soldiers do not have a right to refuse to serve in the occupied territories. It held that Israeli society is too polarized and embattled to permit selective assertions of conscience by its fighters. In a decision that tried to balance Israel’s democratic values and its social and security needs, the court called this a ”time of division” and warned that ”the recognition of selective conscientious objection might loosen the links that hold us together as a people.”
The ruling was a setback to a group of combat soldiers and officers who, while saying they will serve elsewhere, refuse to serve in the West Bank or Gaza Strip because, they say, their duties there involve ”dominating, expelling, starving and humiliating an entire people.”
The fortunes of their campaign reflect the hardening of public opinion under the threat of Palestinian suicide bombings. The campaign, which began early this year, has drawn 512 members, but its leaders acknowledge that it has failed to gain much political traction nationally for its claim that the occupation is corrupting Israeli society. https://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/31/world/israel-rules-reserves-must-serve-in-occupied-territories.html
2002-05-15 Israel/Occupied Territories: Soldiers imprisoned for refusing to take part in human rights violations ‘Israel must recognize the right to refuse military service on grounds of conscience, as recognised under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to which it is a party,’ Amnesty International said. ‘We call on the IDF to take the concern of its own reservists, soldiers and conscripts seriously. It is a message to halt actions which breach human rights standards and international humanitarian law.’ A total of 460 reservists have so far signed a letter issued in January 2002 stating: ‘We shall not fight beyond the 1967 borders in order to dominate, expel, starve and humiliate an entire people.’
An earlier open letter to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in September 2001 was signed by 62 school students approaching the age of conscription. In explanation of their refusal to perform military service the letter said: ‘We strongly resist Israel’s pounding of human rights. Land expropriation, arrests, executions without a trial, house demolition, closure, torture, and the prevention of health care are only some of the crimes the state of Israel carries out, in blunt violation of international conventions it has ratified.’ https://www.amnesty.org.uk/press-releases/israeloccupied-territories-soldiers-imprisoned-refusing-take-part-human-rights
2002-03-04 Resistance Formed of Israeli Soldiers – refuse to serve in Occupied Territories As you may have heard in the news of the past week a remarkable form of resistance has emerged in Israel in the form of 50 combat officers and soldiers, who announced, in an open letter published on January 25th in the Israeli press, that they would no longer serve in the Occupied Territories.
Less than two weeks after the letter’s publication, another 150 soldiers signed up, among them many sergeants, lieutenants, captains, and even a few colonels (for a copy of the letter including the list of soldiers. http://seruv.nethost.co.il/defaulteng.asp ).
Concurrently, thousands of Israelis have called a telephone hotline to support the soldiers and to donate money to help them publish ads in local papers. A group of women are now organizing a petition, claiming that reservist men are not the only ones carrying the burdens of occupation, while a number of twelfth-graders, who will be drafted this coming summer, have also announced that they will not serve in the territories.
The uniqueness and force of the combat soldier’s letter, the fact that it has created such a stir both inside the military establishment and society at large, has to do with the profile of the people who initiated it. These are not radical leftists, but rather young men who are affiliated with Israel’s political center. They are members of the social elite who characterize themselves as having been “raised upon the principles of Zionism, sacrifice and giving … who have always served in the front lines, and who were the first to carry out any mission, light or heavy, in order to protect the State of Israel and strengthen it.” Moreover, they experienced firsthand the effects of the occupation, and no one can tell them that they do not know what is happening in the territories. https://www.timebomb2000.com/xf/index.php?threads/intl-resistance-formed-of-israeli-soldiers-refuse-to-serve-in-occupied-terrs.23456/
2002-01-31 Israeli army reservists refuse to serve in occupied territories More than 70 Israeli army reservists, including at least two dozen officers, have publicly stated they will no longer serve in the West Bank and Gaza Strip because of the brutality of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories.
“We will no longer fight beyond the Green Line [the border between Israel and the West Bank established after the 1967 Six-Day War] for the purpose of occupying, deporting, destroying, blockading, killing, starving and humiliating an entire people,” the group declared in a statement published Monday in Yedioth Ahronoth, Israel’s bestselling daily newspaper.
The petition was initiated by a pair of reserve captains—David Sonnschein, 28, a software engineer, and Yaniv Itzkovich, 26, a university teaching assistant-who have both served in the occupied areas over the last 16 months, a period during which nearly 800 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). Describing themselves as men “raised in the lap of Zionism,” the petition signers wrote that while they would continue to defend Israel, “they would no longer fight in the war for the welfare of the [Jewish] settlements.” The soldiers wrote they had “rendered service throughout the occupied territories and received orders and instructions that had nothing to do with the security of the state, and whose sole purpose is the perpetuation of domination of the Palestinian people.” This “mission of occupation and repression does not serve this purpose [the defense of Israel],” they said, “and we shall have no part of it.”
The soldiers said they had “witnessed with [their] own eyes the bloody toll that the occupation takes on both sides of the divide” and understood “that the price of occupation is the loss of humanity in the IDF and the corruption of the whole Israeli society.”
The petition—which quickly became known as the “Officers’ Letter”—evoked furious condemnation from representatives of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and the army general staff, and immediate reprisals against those who organized it. Despite the efforts to crack down on dissent in the army, another 50 reservists contacted the officers to add their names to the petition shortly after its publication in Yedioth and other newspapers. https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2002/01/isra-j31.html
2002-01-29 Israeli Reservists Refuse Territories Duty More than 60 Israeli army reservists, half of them officers and all of them combat veterans, have publicly refused to continue serving in the West Bank and Gaza Strip on the grounds that Israel’s 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 a petition signed by the reservists and published in Israel’s best-selling daily newspaper, Yedioth Ahronoth. The Green Line refers to the border between Israel and the West Bank.
Over the years, eligible Israelis have sometimes declined to serve in the army or refused to serve in certain places for reasons of conscience or politics. What makes the current case unusual is that so many combat reservists, soldiers and officers have come forward publicly at one time. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2002/01/29/israeli-reservists-refuse-territories-duty/186062ed-99f9-464b-b6bc-c7959f85c5b2/
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