300 High School Seniors Refuse to Join IDF<\/b><\/p>\n
Have you heard about the Shministim<\/a>? In Israel, typical teenagers serve a while in the Israeli Defense Force after high school (there are some exemptions available). But recently some teens are refusing to serve, because they beleive that serving in the IDF supports an immoral occupation.<\/p>\n Seeking to make an example, the IDF is court-martialing six of the high-school conscientious objectors (five who are refusing to serve because they object to the occupation, and one who is refusing to serve because he’s a pacifist). As always, Aron’s Israel Peace Blog <\/a>has the info: a summary article, “The Saga of the Court Martials<\/a>“; an interview with Haggai Matar<\/a>, a co-founder of Shministim and one of the six boys on trial; and an interview with Haggai’s mother Anat Matar<\/a>, a philosophy lecturer at Tel Aviv University. I liked this quote from Ms. Matar:<\/p>\n Conscientious objectors have always been my heroes; even as a kid, I read The Hobbit<\/i> and thought that Bilbo’s refusal to fight at the end was the coolest thing I’d ever read. I hope the Israeli COs win their case.<\/p>\n If you’re interested in more information about the Shministim or about Israeli refuseniks in general, check out the Refuser Solidarity Network’s <\/a>website.<\/p>\n One IDF Policy for Girls, Another for Boys<\/b><\/p>\n One fascinating point the “Saga of the court martials” <\/a>brings up: a genuine case of anti-male sexism. The Israeli Defense Force has an official policy of not granting conscientious objector status to folks who oppose the occupation: this is the “pacifists yes, political refusers no” doctrine.<\/p>\n (In fact, whatever the official policy, the IDF in practice doesn’t grant CO status. “The army’s Conscience Committee, in theory charged with exempting CO’s, was in practice a dead-end, turning down virtually everybody who applied.”)<\/p>\n But, as the defense pointed out in court, the IDF does<\/i> grant CO status for “political refusers” – if the political refuser happens to be female. In effect, male applicants for CO status are being discriminated against. The court has not yet ruled on this question.<\/p>\n Likud leader accuses IDF of violating human rights<\/b><\/p>\n Interesting article in the Guardian<\/i>: <\/a>a Likud leader has accused the IDF leadership of looking the other way while the IDF abuses the human rights of Palestinians. The accusations are nothing new, but the source is interesting.<\/p>\n Although Israeli and foreign human rights groups have long documented evidence of systematic abuses by soldiers in the West Bank and Gaza – including murder, indiscriminate shooting, aiming at children, torture and use of human shields – such accusations have generally been dismissed by the authorities as driven by anti-Israeli motives.<\/p><\/div>\n Hopefully Mr. Eitan’s charges won’t be so easily dismissed.<\/p>\n Finding Love in the International Solidarity Movement<\/b><\/p>\n This cute story <\/a>(again from the Guardian<\/i>) describes how Adam Shapiro (nicknamed “the Jewish Taliban” by some disgusting people) and Huwaida Arraf (founder of the International Solidarity Movement) met, fell in love and married. Both of them were born in the US, and both of them have spent their lives fighting the Israeli occupation of Palestine.<\/p>\n As well as telling the story of their romance and marriage (which is pretty amusing – Arraf almost missed her own wedding because she was performing a hunger strike in an Israeli jail), the article gives an interesting picture of the life of a couple of very dedicated Americans opposed to the occupation.<\/p>\n An interesting cultural point from the article: Arraf’s father (a devout Catholic who at first didn’t approve of the marraige) apparently had difficulty understanding that Shapiro was Jewish but not Israeli. This is something I’ve read about elsewhere – many Palestinians learn to use the word “Jew” and “Israeli” interchangeably, referring not to religion but to Israeli citizenship..<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 300 High School Seniors Refuse to Join IDF Have you heard about the Shministim? In Israel, typical teenagers serve a while in the Israeli Defense Force after high school (there are some exemptions available). But recently some teens are refusing … Continue reading