Challenge # 71  January - February 2002

Conscientious Refusal

Those Who Say "No!"

THE MILITARY police came to the house of conscientious refuser Ya'ir Hilu on December 23 and arrested him. They took him to the draft board, where he was tried and sentenced to 28 days in the brig. Ya'ir is one of 62 twelfth-graders who on August 18 sent a letter to the Prime Minister, explaining their refusal to serve in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and calling on others to follow their example. Instead of functioning as an army of defense, they claimed, the IDF is perpetrating terrorist actions against the Palestinian people. (The letter appears in our previous issue, Challenge #70.)

Ya'ir is the first of the 62 to be arrested. He is not surprised. Since the writing of the letter, he and his friends have been active in broadening the circle of refusers, turning a private struggle into a public campaign. The data show a growing trend among Israel's youth to avoid the army. Of the potential pool, 25% are not inducted at all. Among the rest, 20% do not complete their obligatory service (three years for men, two for women). Yet few among all these explain their avoidance as a refusal to take part in oppressing the Palestinians.

The letter of the twelfth-graders contains a political dimension. If they accepted the Oslo Accords, they would have no grounds for refusing to serve in Areas B and C, where Yasser Arafat has let the Israelis retain security control. But the new Intifada exposed the fraudulence of Oslo, which imposes a life of poverty and humiliation on the Palestinian side. In response to the uprising, most of Israel's upper middle class has swerved to the right, supporting the national-unity government in its attempts to crush the Intifada. Yet this is not the whole picture. The Intifada has also exploded the illusions of many on the Israeli left who believed that this one-sided agreement, Oslo, could normalize their country's relations with the Palestinians and the Arab world. 

In their letter to Sharon, the refusers go beyond the usual leftist head-wagging about the damage that the Occupation is causing Israel. They directly express their concern with the fate of the Palestinians. Such a stand is new and important in this country, reflecting true internationalism.
Apart from Israel's policies in the Territories, social gaps inside the country have become increasingly obvious in the last decade. Israel has tried to take on the role of spearhead for the globalization of the Middle East. This led, in the nineties, to the meteoric enrichment of business people and high-tech workers, while others lagged behind. The gap undermined Jewish solidarity, which had been the force behind nearly universal army service. According to the old ethos, one did not count as a full-fledged Israeli unless one served in the IDF. No longer is this the case. Avoidance of the army is popular today even among affluent youth, who prefer to pursue their personal interests.
Among the many contrary currents in Israeli society, the group of 62 twelfth-graders stands out because of the major question it raises about the moral basis of Israel's policies. When the 62 call the IDF's actions "terrorist", they challenge the nation's image of itself. Here, then, is a new and different generation. For years the youth of this country let the politicians speak for them. With this group, however, we have a first indication that "the times are a'changin'."
A great many Western countries recognize the legitimacy of conscientious refusal. Israel wants to belong to the West, so it finds itself in a dilemma. On the one hand, as a devotee of capitalist globalization, it seeks to develop a success-oriented individualism. On the other hand, it sticks to its old policies of state militarism. If the new movement continues to insist that Israel recognize conscientious refusal, the government will be forced to give up its ploy of classifying refusers as "freaks" or "medical exceptions".