wfn.org | WCC FEATURE Israel/Palestine: Can refusal stop the occupation?

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World Council of Churches - Feature
Contact: + 41 22 791 6153 +41 79 507 6363 media@wcc-coe.org
For immediate release - 18/03/2005

CAN REFUSAL STOP THE OCCUPATION?
By Martin Smedjeback (*)

							     Free photos
available, see below

The refusal movement in Israel has grown rapidly over the last few years.
It has become more accepted in Israeli society to refuse military service
in the occupied territories and become what is known as a "refusenik".
According to a very optimistic Arik Diamant, director of Courage to
Refuse, the movement can lead to what many believe to be the unthinkable.
"We are getting very good vibes," says Diamant. "We will be ending the
occupation within five years." A member of the Ecumenical Accompaniment
Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI) gives an account of this new
phenomenon.

Since the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, the army has
played a very large role in Israeli society. Many of Israel's most
powerful politicians had long careers in the army. The army employs tens
of thousand of people, and most citizens in Israel have done two or three
years of military service, not including the many years spent on reserve
duty.

"In the 1980s, refusers were called traitors, and everybody scorned us,"
says Eyal Hareuveni, himself a refusenik and active in the refusal
organization Yesh Gvul. "Today you see scientists, pilots and commandos
who refuse military service. Now it is even considered noble not to serve
in the occupied territories." Recent polls reveal that 25 percent of the
adult Jewish population in Israel thinks that it is a soldier's right to
refuse to serve in the occupied territories. Among teenagers, the number
is 43 percent. "It is sinking in," says Diamant, a former paratrooper. "We
are getting very good feedback."

> A shock to the army

Throughout Israel's history, there have been those who have refused to
serve in the army, but they have been very few and scattered. When the
Lebanon war began in 1982, more people questioned Israeli army policies
Because of the controversy it generated on the home front, that war was
likened to the American experience in Vietnam. The death toll for Israeli
soldiers was high, leading to fierce debate in the media and among Israeli
citizens. As the war continued, some reservists organized themselves and
collectively stated that they would refuse to serve in Lebanon for
political reasons.

"The army was in shock," remembers Hareuveni. "This was the first time
anyone refused for political reasons." It responded by sending the
refuseniks to jail, but that tactic did not stop the movement. Approximately 3,000 soldiers signed a petition announcing their refusal to serve in
Lebanon. In 1985, the army stopped sending reservists to Lebanon for fear
of feeding the movement and starting an uprising within the army, and the
first refusal movement was born. It was called Yesh Gvul, which is Hebrew
for "There is a limit."

> The Intifadas bring new waves of refuseniks

The first Intifada, which began in 1987, created another wave of refuseniks, and the current, second, Intifada has seen the establishment of many new
refusal organizations. In 2001, a first movement for conscripts - those
inducted into the army for the first time on graduation from high school -
started. The 18-year-old founders called their movement "Shministim",
which means high school. Together, they wrote a letter to prime minister
Ariel Sharon declaring that they "refuse to take part in acts of oppression against the Palestinian people, acts that should properly be called
terrorist actions". The letter has been signed by more than 300 potential
conscripts to date. Many of them have served time in prison for their
refusal to be inducted. Five were recently sentenced to serve one year in
prison, the longest term in Israeli history for such an action.

In 2002, a "combatants' letter" was signed by 50 combat officers and
soldiers. In it, the signatories promise that, "We shall not continue to
fight beyond the 1967 borders in order to dominate, expel, starve, and
humiliate an entire people." In the same letter, they declare that they
still believe in the Zionist dream, and are willing to continue serving in
the army "in any mission that serves Israel's defence." The letter was the
beginning of the Courage to Refuse movement, which today numbers 623
soldiers who have refused to serve in the occupied territories.

Perhaps the most surprising development in the refusenik movement was a
2003 letter by some Israel Air Force (IAF) pilots stating that they would
"refuse to take part in Air Force attacks on civilian population centres,"
and that "the ongoing occupation is corrupting all of Israeli society."
IAF pilots are considered among Israel's greatest heroes.

> Are we seeing the end of the occupation?

Diamant seems very confident that the nonviolent method of political
non-cooperation, in this case not cooperating with the occupation, is the
most effective method to end it. "Demonstrating is completely useless*
because you can't really demonstrate in the occupied territories," Diamant
says. "I tried tens of times. Once, I went to demonstrate in a settlement
which expanded with a new neighborhood, and we were not allowed in there.
The minute you cross the 'Green Line', there is no democracy whatsoever.
The only effective means of combat is to refuse to take part in the army,
and it is working."

Diamant thinks that it will take five years to stop the occupation. Others
in the refusal and peace movements are not so optimistic. Hareuveni sees
positive changes in the Israeli mentality, but points out that the peace
movement is still rather small. "We in the radical peace movement are a
few thousand people," Hareuveni says. "It is a tiny minority."

To date, a total of 1,362 soldiers have officially refused in one way or
another - a fairly small number compared with the millions of Israelis who
have served in the Israel Defense Force. Of course, rather than facing the
stigma of refusing, many others quietly get out of serving, either in the
occupied territories or altogether, by finding a way to be declared unfit.
The army usually goes along with this so as not to see the refusenik
numbers swell and have to admit that there is a movement.

Diamant notices a distinct change in the mentality of the common soldier.
"Many of my comrades in the army say that they don't know if they have the
guts to refuse and to go to prison for it, but they will not go back to
the occupied territories," he says. "People are serving out of fear, and
it is starting to crumble."  [1,070 words]

(*) Martin Smedjeback is secretary for nonviolence in the Swedish
Fellowship of Reconciliation. During a prior visit to Israel and Palestine, he collected material for a book entitled "Nonviolence in Israel and
Palestine". He worked until end 2004 in Jerusalem as a member of the
Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel.

For more information on the refusenik movement see:
http://www.refusersolidarity.net
and the book: "Refusenik! Israel's Soldiers of Conscience" compiled and
edited by Peretz Kidron.

Free high resolution photos to accompany this story are available at:
http://www.wcc-coe.org/wcc/what/international/palestine/refusniks.html

The Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI) was
launched in August 2002. Ecumenical accompaniers monitor and report
violations of human rights and international humanitarian law, support
acts of non-violent resistance alongside local Christian and Muslim
Palestinians and Israeli peace activists, offer protection through
non-violent presence, engage in public policy advocacy and stand in
solidarity with the churches and all those struggling against the
occupation. The programme is coordinated by the World Council of Churches
(WCC). Website: http://www.eappi.org

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