Some Israeli Reservists Refusing To Serve In Palestinian Lands

by Ferry Biedermann

"To humiliate people to impoverish them and drive them to the verge of hunger, that is forbidden," said Yishai Rosen-Tzvi, talking about the Israeli army's treatment of the Palestinian population in the Occupied Territories.

Rosen-Tzvi belongs to a group of some 75 enlisted men and officers who signed a petition last month refusing to serve in the Occupied Territories. "We shall not continue to fight beyond the 1967 borders in order to dominate, expel, starve and humiliate an entire people," the statement read.

The number of names on the petition, under the heading "Courage to Refuse," has by now reached almost 300 and is updated regularly on the group's web site: seruv.nethost.co.il.

They, and maybe as many as 500 others who refuse to serve but have not signed the petition, are spearheading a reawakening of the Israeli Left. The peace camp was stunned into dormancy by the failure of Ehud Barak's peace moves and the outbreak of the intifada. The objectors, known as refuseniks, were made the centerpiece of the peace rally on Feb. 9, which was organized by leftist peace groups.

With his knitted skullcap, crew-cut and blue shirt, Rosen-Tzvi looked more like a supporter of the National Religious camp than a refusenik but he made the most attention-grabbing speech of the evening: "They duped us. When the soldiers get to the Territories they enter a terrible reality. We see people who are humiliated and frustrated, who are poor and sometimes hardly have anything to eat. Then you get your orders, which are meant to push them even further into that humiliation and poverty."

The army Chief of Staff, Lt.-Gen. Shaul Mofaz immediately reacted sharply when the petition was first published; "rebellion," was his judgement. When objectors talk about not wanting to participate in war crimes it jars with the army's favorite oxymoron, "purity of arms," in which most Israeli's still believe. So it may come as a shock to the government and the army brass that the latest polls consistently find that between 20 and 25 percent of the population sympathizes with the objectors.

Mofaz is well aware of the threat to the army's image and even its support among the population. He has reacted sharply, as have some commentators from both the left and the right. The army, however, paints the refuseniks as waging a political campaign. Mofaz said he is certain that the petitioners do not have a purely moral agenda: "If some of the officers have ideological motives and are trying to advance those by means of the IDF, it's much worse than refusing to serve. It's mutiny."

That is why the support from the radical Left, as it styles itself, and the demonstration on Feb. 9 must have posed some dilemmas for the activists of the Courage to Refuse petition. They had until then studiously avoided identifying themselves with any political direction, saying indeed that they objected to serve on moral and legal grounds. They don't talk to foreign journalists "because this is an internal matter," according to one of them.

They have even declined, thus far, to align themselves with the veteran organization of army objectors, Yesh Gvul, Hebrew for There is a Limit -- although it can also be translated as There is a Border.

That organization sprang up at the beginning of the 1982 Lebanon war, when Ariel Sharon was defense minister. Since then Yesh Gvul has assisted countless others who objected to serving in the Occupied Territories, particularly during the first intifada from 1987 until 1993, when some 2000 people opted out.

Both the Lebanon war and the first intifada ended in Israeli pullouts, which Yesh Gvul likes to take part of the credit for. "It is part of a cumulative effect that makes people realise that something has to change, along with demonstrations and other actions," said a spokesman. This time the peace camp is divided, though. The mainstream peace group Peace Now, the Israeli Labor Party and to its left the Meretz Party, all declined to join in the Feb. 9 rally and will hold one of their own next weekend instead.

Tamar Gozanksi, a member of parliament for Hadash, which includes the Communists, did attend the rally in Tel Aviv and commented on the divide within the peace camp: "Meretz and Peace Now may say something else but they refused to participate because of the rally's support for the soldiers' petition. They are in favor of serving."

The army can't summon much understanding for the refuseniks either. "Those who refuse to serve should be thrown in jail," said a brigade commander. That is the straightforward view taken by many who serve in the army. Most commanders prefer, though, to deal quietly with the issue and not create hundreds or thousands of refusenik martyrs. For every 10 objectors, estimates Yesh Gvul, one gets send to jail.

When asked about the way refuseniks are punished, Lt.-Col. Olivier Rafowicz, the army's foreign press spokesmen, said, "every case gets judged on its own merits." Rafowicz called their action "undemocratic" and insisted that "the army only carries out orders from the political echelon, which has been democratically elected."

The objectors reject the undemocratic label; they call the occupation itself undemocratic and say they have a duty to resist it. The army itself is deeply political, asserted Edan Landau a 34-year-old reserve Captain from Tel Aviv who refused to serve in the Territories last year but did not sign the petition. His objection was both moral and political, he explained: "to secure settlements and settlers is a political task."

He never wants to be part of that again and was prepared to go to jail last September when he was called up. His service record and the proximity of the Jewish holidays saved him from the jail sentence the army first wanted to impose, he thinks. Instead he served 10 days doing "boring jobs" at an army base in the country.

The army spokesman, Olivier Rafowicz had one last argument, which will weigh heaviest for most Israeli's: "If we didn't do what we are doing in the Occupied Territories we would have thousands of Israeli casualties from terrorist attacks, not hundreds."

The refuseniks have a sometimes overly simple answer to that: if there were no occupation there would not be terrorism either. Few Israelis are willing to bet their life on that. At the peace rally in Tel Aviv on Feb. 9, the religious refusenik, Yishai Rosen-Tzvi, did not offer an answer. While trying to skirt the politically loaded question of what to do he did make clear that continuing the occupation is no solution either: "The Occupation is a greenhouse for humiliation and anger. The army is creating a greenhouse for terrorism."