The
Guardian
In
recent months, 28 Israeli pilots and 13 members of an elite commando
unit have
joined the five refuseniks in protest against the army's conduct in the
occupied territories. Yet it is the courage of the five that is truly
astonishing because of the price they are prepared to pay for following
their
conscience.
The
teenagers, known as "the five", are Noam Bahat, Matan Kaminer, Adam
Maor, Haggai Matar and Shimri Tsameret. They were recently sentenced
each to a
year in prison, and the time they spent in detention pending trial will
not be
deducted. All refused to serve in the IDF because of the occupation and
all
were ready to do civilian service instead, but the offer was rejected.
In
defence of its draconian sentence, the court pointed out that the five
did not
refuse to serve as individuals, but rather as a group and with the
explicit
objective of bringing about a change in Israeli policy in the
territories. In
this respect, the court ruled, their actions strayed beyond the bounds
of
classic conscientious objection into the realm of civil disobedience.
In
support of this ruling, the court cited a letter signed by some of the
five
while still in high school.
The
letter, dated
A
year later a second letter to the prime minister, signed by 320 men and
women
aged 16 to 18, accused
The
letters, and attendant publicity, prompted a much tougher attitude
towards
conscientious objectors. Draft resisters were no longer released after
a few
months, but put on trial.
The
five presented themselves at their trial not as pacifists but as
conscientious
objectors and, specifically, as opponents of the occupation. They
insisted that
their conscience left them no choice but to refuse to enlist. The
verdict of
the three military judges was pronounced in a crowded courtroom in
The
judges found the accused guilty of "a very grave crime which
constitutes a
manifest and concrete danger to our existence and our survival". This
statement is highly revealing of the mindset of the judges. In the
first place,
it is suffused with sanctimonious self-righteousness, depicting
The
judges wrote in their ruling that the sentence was intended to serve as
a
warning to others, especially in the light of the spate of reservists
from
elite units refusing to serve. In other words, the judges hoped that
inflicting
such a savage sentence would silence criticism of the army and deter
other
Israelis. Their reasoning betrayed their provenance as little cogs in a
huge
and heartless bureaucratic-military machine.
O
utside the courtroom, in an impromptu press conference, the refuseniks
declared
that they were proud of their actions and that they could continue to
challenge
the occupation until it ends. "We are being punished for saying the
word
occupation. So here I say it again: occupation, occupation,
occupation,"
said Matan Kaminer. "They commit war crimes and they expect us to keep
silent," added Haggai Matar. "But we will not be silent. We will
speak out against the occupation even when we pay a price."
The
lucidity, wisdom and courage of these young Israelis are impressive by
any
standard. All are patriots who love their country and are anxious to
serve it,
but only in a constructive civilian capacity and only inside its
legitimate
borders. They have chosen the hard way to fight for their ideals when
an easy
way out was available to them. They are a beacon of honesty, decency
and sanity
in a society that has lost its soul as a result of a prolonged, brutal
occupation.
Ariel
Sharon's brand of Zionism can only lead to more violence and bloodshed,
but the
refuseniks hold out hope that
Supporters
of the five have prepared a petition to be sent to