JEWS AGAINST ISRAELI TERRORISM-2

Israeli Soldiers Refusing To Serve in Occupied Territory Following the 1967 war, Yeshayahu Leibowitz, one of Israel's leading intellectuals, warned that Israel must withdraw from the Occupied Territories in order to stop the bloodshed. He wrote that the only way to avert destruction from the Israelis might be for 500 soldiers stationed in the Occupied Territories to have the courage to say "we don't want to serve here" and to withdraw.6 In the days when the al-Aqsa Intifada (starting from September 2000) and the Israeli retaliation were growing more and more violent, a group of Israeli soldiers acted upon his proposal. In mid-January 2002, approximately 25 soldiers signed an open letter to the Israeli press reporting that they were refusing to serve in the Occupied Territories. This refusal was not without precedent, for during the 1982 invasion of Lebanon, a smaller group of soldiers had refused to serve in the Israeli army, saying that they did not want to be part of the genocide being perpetrated against Lebanese civilians. The actions of these soldiers, later called Yesh Gvul (There is a Limit), culminated with their imprisonment. Those soldiers who made their public statement in January 2002 did not face any punitive sanctions yet, and as of February 2002, their numbers had reached 250. Moreover, this time they received a great deal of support from peace groups, non-governmental organizations, religious leaders, and ordinary Israelis and Palestinians. In their statement, the soldiers contend that the Israeli army has acted brutally and mercilessly toward the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, that what is happening there violates human dignity, and that, furthermore, it has nothing to do with defending Israel. They continue: "We shall not continue to fight beyond the 1967 borders in order to dominate, expel, starve, and humiliate an entire people." In his statement to an Israeli newspaper, a signatory named Shuki Sadeh explains how he witnessed Israeli soldiers open fire on Palestinian children. He explains how he felt at the time: "What angered me at the time was that our soldiers said: 'Well, that's another Arab who has disappeared.' " Ariel Shatil, an artillery master sergeant recalled that while it is claimed that the Palestinians shoot first and Israelis just respond, in reality, "We would start shooting and they would fire back." In a brochure that they prepared to warn their colleagues who continued to serve in the region, the soldiers stated: When you take part in extrajudicial killings ("liquidation," in the army's terms), when you take part in demolishing residential homes, when you open fire at unarmed civilian population or residential homes, when you uproot orchards, when you interdict food supplies or medical treatment, you are taking part in actions defined in international conventions (such as the 4th Geneva Convention) and in Israeli law as war crimes.7 A soldier named Asaf Oron, who took a long time to decide not to serve, reports that he witnessed extremely brutal practices while serving in the region. He explains what he experienced and what he sees as the solution: Already on the bus ride to the Gaza strip, the soldiers were competing with each other: whose "heroic" tales of murderous beatings during the Intifada were better (in case you missed this point: the beatings were literally murderous: beating to death)... As time went by, as the level of insanity, hatred, and incitement kept rising, as the generals were turning the Israeli Defense Forces into a terror organization... And then I discovered that I was not alone we all believe in God... We believe that there is no room for the tribal code, that the tribal code simply camouflages idolatry, an idolatry of a type we should not cooperate with. Those who let such a form of idol worship take over will end up as burnt offerings themselves.8