Youngsters say ‘no’ to army

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3057770,00.html

A group of 250 highschoolers signs letter of refusal to be drafted “because of the occupation.”

<snip>

"A group of 250 highschoolers from across the country have signed a letter declaring they refuse to join the army because of their opposition to the occupation.

One of the youngsters, 18-year-old Eyal Barami, has been designated for combat service but says he does not intend to go ahead with the army’s plans.

“I am unwilling to serve the occupation and racism in the army, and I ask for an exemption,” he told Ynet.


“Every human being deserves basic rights - The right to life, equality, dignity, and freedom. Our moral and civilian obligation is to act for the protection of those rights, by refusing to take part in the occupation and oppression policy,” the student letter reads.


The youngsters, however, emphasize that they are interested in contributing to society in an alternative way, which does not entail hurting others."

I have advised my two sons, ages 25 and 21, to avoid military service until such time as Mr. Bush is removed from power and the US adopts a sane foreign policy not characterized by colonial wars, especially colonial wars justified by a pack of willful lies.

An older offspring of mine offered (unbidden) to help me
hide the youngest, if a draft is instituted.

If every kid could just ask themselves why they are being asked to hate.

Good news: The IDF is being saturated, by Israeli standards, by requests for conscientious objector status. Beyond the ability of the IDF bureaucracy and Courts to handle (source: two Peace Now Knesset candidates). ;)

Bad News: This is changing the political and sociological balance of the IDF - more Conservative. (Same thing happened in our military after Nixon ended the draft).:-(

I would advise my children against service until there is one, which I favor, but I suspect if there were one, that most Parents would have bitched to high heavens over the Iraq lies.

Are you talking about protesting the draft in the US or in Israel?

If you are talking about Israel -- the protests are in the civilian Court Rooms and in the Hearing Rooms of the IDF bureaucracy. I don't have cites -- just conversations with my cousin (a Peace Now candidate for the Knesset in the last election, a founder of the Kernels of Peace organization -- and mother of a successful conscientious objector claimant) and my wife's cousin (also a Peace Now candidate for the Knesset in the last election).

The issue has not hit the streets yet - in the form of massive marches or pitched battles with police.

BTW - the Reservists who have refused West Bank or Gaza duty is large and growing larger.

more right wing. It also means that most Americans are willing to live with wars like Viet Nam because their kids won't have to serve in it. I believe it was sanfu for the antivietnam war movement to focus on draft. I don't oppose draft resistence as a strategy to stop bad wars though. I am against the Iraq war but I am prodraft.

It wasn't clear to me that these kids in Israel opposed the draft. It just seemed they opposed the war.

Court Certified Conscientious Objector this week - but having been raised with her daughter (the Conscientious Objector's Mother), I think he is opposed to all wars.

! I just don't want to get into imperial wars anymore, and I think opposition to the draft undermines this objective.

1. I am in favor of "Universal National Service" - military, police, fire, EMT, airport baggage screening, whatever. With some minimal freedom of choice, but subject to the "needs of the government" at that time.

2. Universal - male, female, straight, gay; pacifist, conscientious objector.

3. No student deferments or delays.

4. I was a draft motivated volunteer--

a. with the appropriate stickers on my car and desk.
<>

b. with the appropriate criminal charges--
Title 10, United States Code, Section 888.

ART. 88. CONTEMPT TOWARD OFFICIALS

Any commissioned officer who uses contemptuous words against the President, the Vice President, Congress, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of a military department, the Secretary of Transportation, or the Governor or legislature of any State, Territory, Commonwealth, or possession in which he is on duty or present shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.

c. and the appropriate defense to beat the charges--
Title 10, United States Code, Section 938.

ART. 138. COMPLAINTS OF WRONGS

Any member of the armed forces who believes himself wronged by his commanding officer, and who, upon due application to that commanding officer, is refused redress, may complain to any superior commissioned officer, who shall foreword the complaint to the office exercising court- martial jurisdiction over the officer against whom it is made. The officer exercising general court-martial jurisdiction shall examine into the complaint and take proper measures for redressing the wrong complained of; and he shall, as soon as possible, send to the Secretary concerned a true statement of that complaint, with the proceedings thereon.

---This is how officers "frag" other officers - especially their commanding officer

And I support the draft because it exposes Bushie chicken hawks to the war-- and keeps the military from being too monolithic. It's my experience that when the military comes from too narrow a segment of society -- it becomes its own "society" and that society is a "society apart." And that is not the way a free society defends itself.

I also think that the National Guard should not be part of the "Universal Service" - but should be available voluntary and after completion of "national service" - and should be the Governor's natural disaster response -- earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, blizzards, general alarm fires and forest fires, (urban and wilderness) search and rescue, searching for missing people, etc. It should be available for "overseas wars only after each and every one of an Act of Congress, a request by the President, approval by the Governor, and approval by the State Legislature.

The smaller the proportion of ordinary Israeli's in the IDF the higher that of religious nuts.

Two shocking manifestos were published this week. Both call for comment.

(snip)

The second manifesto declares that the Halakha (Jewish religious law) commands the killing of innocent Palestinian civilians if this helps to save Jews. It is signed by the heads of the "Arrangement Yeshivot", the West Bank settlement rabbis and other religious leaders. They were later joined by one of the two chief rabbis (the Sephardic one).

(snip)

The second manifesto is far more dangerous. A religious doctrine that calls for the killing of civilians in the name of God is very serious. Such a decree signed by the rabbis of the "Arrangement Yeshivot" is tenfold worse.

(snip)

In order to understand this, one has to know that these Yeshivot are in fact military units. They constitute a unique phenomenon in the Israeli army: whole units formed on an ideological-political basis, obeying their own leaders.

http://www.redress.btinternet.co.uk/uavnery100.htm

As to the B'alTshuvahWingNuts' Manifesto.

There was a Rabbi in my family who had pages and pages of personal notes which were concordances between Marx and Scripture. He maintained you could not be a religious person unless you were also (to use US political vernacular) a "Faith Based Communist." (In addition to being an Orthodox Rabbi - he was also a Communist)

that rabbi's connected to IDF will say anything so it doesn't matter that they claim killing Palestinian is a Jewish duty????

How exactly does one be a faith based communist? how does one believe to contradictory theories at once?

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I receive a PM saying the EXACT same thing - even the insult about buying into "Xenophobic supra-patriotism of Attorney General John Palmer and Director J. Edgar Hoover and Senator Joseph McCarthy."

yet it wasn't from you?? do you loan out your brain to other posters? or is it just an extraordinary coincidence that you both use the exact same expressions and make the exact same (wrong) conclusions??

I'm sure that the PM was not copied from your post as the sender is constantly banging on about his knowledge so it would seem odd that he channels you isn't it??

My reading of Pre-WW1 History and 19th Century history was that it was "Stalinism" that was "Godless" and "atheistic" --- not pure Marxist Communism or the various philosophers.

I'd suggest you read it again then

As you said ""The smaller the proportion of ordinary Israeli's in the IDF the higher that of religious nuts" - and we see it in our all volunteer military here.

there's still hope in the world !

I think this is an encouraging story. I'm against the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza as well as most of the settlements. And I happen to believe that in the spirit of "only Nixon could go to China", the best chance for peace is if someone like an Ariel Sharon makes the deal. The Israeli left is going to be on board in any case, but the rest of the country needs to feel like the country's security is being minded. So I am very pleased these days with the direction shift being led by Sharon.

But that's not why I wanted to respond to this post.

For the folks on this board who regularly portray Israel in the worst light, this post should also be a reminder of two other points -

1. Israel is a country of free speech. In many not-so-free countries, a story like this would result in the arrest of the reporter and the closure of the media outlet.

2. In other counties, those signing this petition would be rounded up and thrown in jail (or worse).

In other countries in a state of war and under a constant threat, these types of freedoms would have been tossed aside.

high school students in israel have a history of protesting the army service during certain periods...this is no different.....but as far as the "refusniks" goes, soldiers who have refused service etc are not really growing, the number remains around 500.

the news rarly reports on the refusniks nor has the high school students letter made much of a splash....neither represent the center-left/center/ nor center-right-which is the vast majority these days.

combat units remain all volunteer, and have more than they need, Those who want to get out of the draf do so relativly easily these days....

and consequently the army is moving more to the conservative side...which is never good as a large powerful organization with a single political viewpoint is not good for the country.

the real "refusal problem" involves the religous ones...the ones who wont be a part of the evacuation-I personally hope the IDF throws them out....

(Hebrew link) 82% of youths between 16-18 would enlist even if military service wasn't compulsory.

...the ones who wont be a part of the evacuation-I personally hope the IDF throws them out...."


http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/552376.html

IDF issues first direct orders regarding refuseniks

<snip>

"The Israel Defense Forces has for the first time issued direct orders regarding officers and soldiers who refuse to evacuate settlements under the disengagement plan, Army Radio said Tuesday.

Head of the Personnel Directorate Major General Elazar Stern sent out a letter to senior commanders in the IDF, stating explicitly how to deal with refuseniks.

According to Stern's letter, a soldier who announces he intends to refuse orders will be given the chance to renounce his refusal and report to his officers that he has changed his stance. Soldiers who fail to do so will lose their position in the army.

Any soldier who directly refuses orders or calls for others to refuse risks being ousted from a commanding position, and may be stripped of his ranks under the new orders."

is a group of Israeli soldiers who refuse to serve in the occupied
territories. They have a great deal of courage, facing not only
court-martial and imprisonment, but often rejection by their
families and friends.

To support these troops does not mean that you are against Israel,
but it does mean you are against the continuing occupation of
Palestinian territories, and support those who have the "courage
to refuse".

http://www.seruv.org.il/English/default.asp

hate to burst the bubble, but the combat soldiers among them, for the most part dont face imprisonment, realisticlt nor do they "risk" rejection of neither families nor friends...

for the most part they are combat soldiers whom we all respect who have decided to act upon their conscience without harming anyone. (those who are not combat soldiers are a different story....)

Its traditional within the iDF to quietly let them protest and sometimes kick them out of their units (sometimes not)....but thats about it....

hate to burst the "IDF is a monster bubble" but its actually quite tolerant

You posted

"They have a great deal of courage, facing not only
court-martial and imprisonment, but often rejection by their
families and friends."

Not too sure.

1. "facing not only court-martial and imprisonment"
The court martial is an "Administrative Hearing" to determine general military unsuitability, conscientious objector status, etc. My cousin went through it.

2. "often rejection by their families and friends"
Not in my family - but we're a bunch of Lefties - even by NYC and San Francisco and Israeli standards. My cousin's Israeli family and his friends took him out partying after he got out of the army.