Blasphemy
21st April 2003, 15:58
WITH THE REFUSNIKS IN THE JAFFA MILITARY COURTHOUSE
by Gadi Algazi
Monday morning, April 14th. Five youngsters are in the Jaffa military courthouse: Hagai Matar, Shimri Tzameret, Adam Maor, Noam Bahat and Matan Kaminer. The accusation: Refusal. All five have already been jailed for short terms for repeated refusal to serve in the Israeli Defence Forces. Now they stand infront of a military courthouse, which can sentence them for 3 years. The decision to put them infront of that courthouse is strictly political: to punish, to teach a lesson, and to deter the others.
All five are sitting, smiling, on the bench. There is not enough room in the courthouse for all the people who have come in solidarity with them. The officer requests that everybody, except family members, leaves. We are all one family, says one of the parents. This is a public trial with public importance, and every citizen should be allowed to be here, says one of the others present. After a small argument we agree to leave, and move to another room. We sit and talk about freedom of conscience, democracy and politics.
This is just the first session of the trial, which will probably take long. The defense counsel, Dov Hinin, member of the Israeli Communist Party, attacks the legal platfrom which allows to judge these people in a military courthouse. The military courthouse can judge only soldiers, but these are not soldiers: these are citizens - human beings - who have refused to become soldiers.
All five have turned to the military conscience committee, who refused to discharge them. Your refusal is political, not conscientious, they were told. In the last eight years, the committee discharged only seven people who refused to serve. What kind of conscience is the committee looking for? How will these people get one which will appease the committee?
The military committee claims that the refusniks' claims are political, not conscientious. The defense counsel reads a letter, sent to the committee last year by a refusnik. For more than Thirty years, Israel has been taking the liberty of the Palestinian People. The Israeli Defence Forces is the tool of this policy. I will not take part in the occupation, the oppression and the humilitation of the Palestinians. I will not serve in the occupying military, reads the letter. Then, he reads the reply of the committee: The person is discharged of military service. This letter, says the counsel, was not written by a male refusnik, but by a female one - Hadas Goldman. Women is Israel are discharged from service due to conscientious reasons. This letter proves that refusal to serve in an occupying army, is also considered conscientious by the military. Do men have different conscience than women, asks the counsel. Do the conscientious claims of men should not be acknowledged as the women's. Embarrasment in the courthouse.
I look at the five of them: I know most of them from rallies and acts of protests in the territories. There were with us when we built the road in Dar AlHanon, in Mount Hebron in the public action againt Transfer, in Slafit, Haras, Dir Istia, Hirban Yanon... In every Jewish-Arab action of Taayush in the territories, one of the protestors comes to us and says that he has considered refusal. Now I know I must. Refusal is leaving the camps in which Sharon imprisons the Palestinian people and from the death traps he builds around both Israelis and Palestinians.
Refusal is freeing oneself, and so the punishment for it is imprisonment.
There are many varieties of refusal. There are those who refuse to serve in the territories, those who refuse to take part in actions of oppression against the Palestinians, and Those who refuse to serve at all. All these forms of refusal are acceptable, and all hold importance in our struggle. But these young people are closer to my heart than the rest.
Many of the Jewish citizens of Israel forget their political debt to the Palestinian citizens of Israel. Many of the democratic accomplishments in Israel - and the road towards real democratization is still long - were achieved thanks to the Palestinian Israelis. Refusal is another important contribution to the democratization of Israel, to turning its society to a civilians one, and to developing an anti-militaristic culture amongst both Israelis and Palestinians. We all owe much to the refusniks, and they need our solidarity. We need the refusniks - Jews, Druze and Bedouin - just as much as they need us.
*Dr. Gadi Algazi is a history professor, and one of the first conscientious objectors. Active in the Jewish-Arab organization Taayush.
Published in hebrew in the online leftists magazine the Left Bank (http://www.hagada.org.il/) and translated by me.
(Edited by Blasphemy at 6:00 pm on April 21, 2003)
by Gadi Algazi
Monday morning, April 14th. Five youngsters are in the Jaffa military courthouse: Hagai Matar, Shimri Tzameret, Adam Maor, Noam Bahat and Matan Kaminer. The accusation: Refusal. All five have already been jailed for short terms for repeated refusal to serve in the Israeli Defence Forces. Now they stand infront of a military courthouse, which can sentence them for 3 years. The decision to put them infront of that courthouse is strictly political: to punish, to teach a lesson, and to deter the others.
All five are sitting, smiling, on the bench. There is not enough room in the courthouse for all the people who have come in solidarity with them. The officer requests that everybody, except family members, leaves. We are all one family, says one of the parents. This is a public trial with public importance, and every citizen should be allowed to be here, says one of the others present. After a small argument we agree to leave, and move to another room. We sit and talk about freedom of conscience, democracy and politics.
This is just the first session of the trial, which will probably take long. The defense counsel, Dov Hinin, member of the Israeli Communist Party, attacks the legal platfrom which allows to judge these people in a military courthouse. The military courthouse can judge only soldiers, but these are not soldiers: these are citizens - human beings - who have refused to become soldiers.
All five have turned to the military conscience committee, who refused to discharge them. Your refusal is political, not conscientious, they were told. In the last eight years, the committee discharged only seven people who refused to serve. What kind of conscience is the committee looking for? How will these people get one which will appease the committee?
The military committee claims that the refusniks' claims are political, not conscientious. The defense counsel reads a letter, sent to the committee last year by a refusnik. For more than Thirty years, Israel has been taking the liberty of the Palestinian People. The Israeli Defence Forces is the tool of this policy. I will not take part in the occupation, the oppression and the humilitation of the Palestinians. I will not serve in the occupying military, reads the letter. Then, he reads the reply of the committee: The person is discharged of military service. This letter, says the counsel, was not written by a male refusnik, but by a female one - Hadas Goldman. Women is Israel are discharged from service due to conscientious reasons. This letter proves that refusal to serve in an occupying army, is also considered conscientious by the military. Do men have different conscience than women, asks the counsel. Do the conscientious claims of men should not be acknowledged as the women's. Embarrasment in the courthouse.
I look at the five of them: I know most of them from rallies and acts of protests in the territories. There were with us when we built the road in Dar AlHanon, in Mount Hebron in the public action againt Transfer, in Slafit, Haras, Dir Istia, Hirban Yanon... In every Jewish-Arab action of Taayush in the territories, one of the protestors comes to us and says that he has considered refusal. Now I know I must. Refusal is leaving the camps in which Sharon imprisons the Palestinian people and from the death traps he builds around both Israelis and Palestinians.
Refusal is freeing oneself, and so the punishment for it is imprisonment.
There are many varieties of refusal. There are those who refuse to serve in the territories, those who refuse to take part in actions of oppression against the Palestinians, and Those who refuse to serve at all. All these forms of refusal are acceptable, and all hold importance in our struggle. But these young people are closer to my heart than the rest.
Many of the Jewish citizens of Israel forget their political debt to the Palestinian citizens of Israel. Many of the democratic accomplishments in Israel - and the road towards real democratization is still long - were achieved thanks to the Palestinian Israelis. Refusal is another important contribution to the democratization of Israel, to turning its society to a civilians one, and to developing an anti-militaristic culture amongst both Israelis and Palestinians. We all owe much to the refusniks, and they need our solidarity. We need the refusniks - Jews, Druze and Bedouin - just as much as they need us.
*Dr. Gadi Algazi is a history professor, and one of the first conscientious objectors. Active in the Jewish-Arab organization Taayush.
Published in hebrew in the online leftists magazine the Left Bank (http://www.hagada.org.il/) and translated by me.
(Edited by Blasphemy at 6:00 pm on April 21, 2003)