@ couragetorefuse.orgThe Refuseniks: Israel's Soldiers of Conscience.
Courage to Refuse was founded following the publication of The Combatants Letter in 2002, by a group of 50 combat officers and soldiers. The initiators of the letter, Captain David Zonshein and Lieutenant Yaniv Itzkovits, officers in an elite unit, have served for four years in compulsory service, and another eight years as reserve soldiers, including long periods of active combat both in Lebanon and in the occupied territories.
During their reserve service in Gaza, in the midst of the second Intifada, the two realised that the missions confided to them as commanders in the IDF had in fact nothing to do with the defence of the State of Israel, but were rather intended to expand the colonies at the price of oppressing the local Palestinian population. Many of the commands issued to them were, in fact, harmful to the strategic interests of Israel.
Like all soldiers of the IDF, David and Yaniv were prepared to fight in order to protect their families back home. In January 2002 it became apparent to them that fighting in Gaza and in the West Bank would achieve the opposite result: by obeying orders they would not be protecting the lives of their dear ones. Although only young officers at the time, David and Yaniv understood what is today widely acknowledged by Israel's most decorated generals (including the current IDF Chief of Staff): The Occupation poses a threat to the security of Israel.
Finally, it was the unbearable pain and suffering inflicted upon millions of innocent civilians in the name of the "settlements" that had lead them to draft one of the most shocking documents ever written about the IDF. Over the years, their statement came to be known as The Combatant's Letter:
Courage to Refuse was founded following the publication of The Combatants Letter in 2002, by a group of 50 combat officers and soldiers. The initiators of the letter, Captain David Zonshein and Lieutenant Yaniv Itzkovits, officers in an elite unit, have served for four years in compulsory service, and another eight years as reserve soldiers, including long periods of active combat both in Lebanon and in the occupied territories.
During their reserve service in Gaza, in the midst of the second Intifada, the two realised that the missions confided to them as commanders in the IDF had in fact nothing to do with the defence of the State of Israel, but were rather intended to expand the colonies at the price of oppressing the local Palestinian population. Many of the commands issued to them were, in fact, harmful to the strategic interests of Israel.
Like all soldiers of the IDF, David and Yaniv were prepared to fight in order to protect their families back home. In January 2002 it became apparent to them that fighting in Gaza and in the West Bank would achieve the opposite result: by obeying orders they would not be protecting the lives of their dear ones. Although only young officers at the time, David and Yaniv understood what is today widely acknowledged by Israel's most decorated generals (including the current IDF Chief of Staff): The Occupation poses a threat to the security of Israel.
Finally, it was the unbearable pain and suffering inflicted upon millions of innocent civilians in the name of the "settlements" that had lead them to draft one of the most shocking documents ever written about the IDF. Over the years, their statement came to be known as The Combatant's Letter:
* We, reserve combat officers and soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces, who were raised upon the principles of Zionism, self-sacrifice and giving to the people of Israel and to the State of Israel, who have always served in the front lines, and who were the first to carry out any mission in order to protect the State of Israel and strengthen it.* We, combat officers and soldiers who have served the State of Israel for long weeks every year, in spite of the dear cost to our personal lives, have been on reserve duty in the Occupied Territories, and were issued commands and directives that had nothing to do with the security of our country, and that had the sole purpose of perpetuating our control over the Palestinian people.
* We, whose eyes have seen the bloody toll this Occupation exacts from both sides,
* We, who sensed how the commands issued to us in the Occupied Territories destroy all the values that we were raised upon,
* We, who understand now that the price of Occupation is the loss of IDF’s human character and the corruption of the entire Israeli society,
* We, who know that the Territories are not a part of Israel, and that all settlements are bound to be evacuated,* We hereby declare that we shall not continue to fight this War of the Settlements.
* We shall not continue to fight beyond the 1967 borders in order to dominate, expel, starve and humiliate an entire people.
* We hereby declare that we shall continue serving the Israel Defense Force in any mission that serves Israel’s defense.
The missions of occupation and oppression do not serve this purpose – and we shall take no part in them.
To date, 628 combatants from all units of the IDF and from all sectors of the Israeli society have signed the letter and have joined Courage to Refuse. The members of the movement, often called "refuseniks", continue to do their reserve duty wherever and whenever they are summoned, but refuse to serve in the occupied territories. They are not considering their personal benefit, but rather Israel’s safety and its moral character. Over 280 Members of Courage to Refuse have in fact been court martialed and jailed for periods of up to 35 days as a result of their refusal.It was the selflessness and determination of the members of Courage to Refuse that won a warm place for the movement in the hearts of many Israelis. Their act of self- sacrifice, their willingness to serve prison terms in order to voice their cry of distress opened the eyes of many who have been morally blinded by fears and pain of war and terrorism.
By and by, well-known public figures expressed their support to the members of Courage to Refuse. Hundreds of University Professors have signed support petitions, and the word SERUV (the Hebrew word designating refusal), which a few years ago was synonymous with treason, has won its place in the Israeli political discourse as a legitimate and sound act of civil awareness.
Sami Michael, the reputed author and the acting chairman of the Israeli Association for Human Rights has gone as far as saying that refusing the occupation is, in fact, not only an act of morality, but is also the purest form of patriotism practiced in Israel today.
According to a survey conducted by Yaffee Center for Strategic Studies, over 25% of all Israelis sympathize with our struggle and acknowledge our civil right and moral duty to refuse to serve the occupation. Courage to Refuse accepts new signatories every week. Its members, beyond refusing to serve in the occupied territories, take part in many demonstrations, cultural events and other activities of public education aimed to end the occupation and bring peace to Israel.
I’ve been to the Gaza Strip twice.The first time, I was called there in emergency during my infantry officers’ course, in 1994. The second time was three months ago.
In 1994, the night after the massacre perpetrated by Baruch Goldstein in Hebron (Goldstein murdered over 30 innocent Palestinians), my course battalion was called up to Gaza. The goal – to repress the riots following the massacre. On the night we arrived, the local battalion we came to assist had killed over 15 Palestinians.
In the morning we went out to patrol, in order to enforce the curfew on the neighborhood of Sheikh Radwan. We passed by the mourning sheds erected near the homes of the dead from the night before. Near each shed, a riot broke out.
The instructions were clear – as a new company, we had to summon the veteran company to stop the riot. Within 2 minutes, 3 jeeps arrived driving full speed and accelerating into the crowds. They were shooting in the air, and then (as Territories veteran say in black humor) into the air (of the lungs).
The belief that justice is on our side, and the total faith in our commanders, had blinded us all.
The second time was 3 months ago. Between these two times, I’ve been to the West Bank many times, and there is not enough room here to tell all I’ve seen there. Yet, the Gaza Strip seems to me like a different planet.
Everything beyond the Checkpoints appears as a terrible scene out of a horror movie.
Military entry into Gaza is done only using bulletproof vehicles. Soldiers don flak suits and helmets, and practice a bomb ambush drill before entering. Lebanon once again, but an improved version.
Whoever is familiar with the region between the Kisufim Checkpoint and Gush Katif (the largest settlement bloc in the Gaza Strip, home to a few thousand settlers among a Palestinian population of one million), is in for a surprise. You learn for the first time the meaning of ‘exposure’. The built area on both sides of the road to the Gush has been razed to the ground, and looks like a desert. Now you begin to understand what lurks behind this clean word.
You arrive to the outpost, a huge mass of concrete. Many watch posts.
We man the posts after a long debriefing.
I’m at “the Pillbox” – a reinforced concrete cylinder, erected to safeguard the soldiers managing the junction. The soldiers’ job is to direct traffic at the junction using a stoplight.
The rules are simple – due to alerts in the region, there is no simultaneous movement of Jews and Arabs on the same road.
Therefore, Jewish traffic must be enables whenever it exists. When there is no such traffic, the soldier may allow the waiting Palestinians to cross the junction. Those soldiers with some historical knowledge ask questions. I ask myself as well.
But – I’m in the army, I’m an officer, I carry out orders. Is it legal to discriminate on the basis of blood? Is it illegal?
Is it “manifestly” illegal, and as such should be disobeyed? Of what color is the flag above the command to discriminate between fair skin and dark skin?
The Pillbox has clear laws. 200 meters from the post, near the eucalyptus grove, one is not allowed to leave the vehicle.
Whoever does go out, receives ‘warning shots’ – 50 meters from the legs. A few months ago a ‘terrorist’ stormed the post, and now everyone takes extra precaution. The lines are long, and sometimes people wait many hours. Whoever leaves the vehicle, runs back inside to the sound of bullets whistling by. In the vehicles are women, children, elderly people.
The Palestinians must not cross the junction on a red light. There is a Black Flag hanging over passage in red light. There are no ticket or fines. Rather, there is an immediate price. A Palestinian vehicle entering the junction at a time when an Israeli vehicle is there, must be stopped by all means.
There are good reasons for the Junction Laws. 4 months ago there was an ‘event’ here. 7 months ago there was another ‘event’ in another junction.
I want to see the commander, entrusted by a Hebrew Mother with Her Son, look her straight in the eye and tell her: for Your Son, I stopped dozens of ambulances hurrying to the hospital with patients. I shot at dozens of “outlaws” going out for a breath of fresh air in a 4 hour line, so that you would know that an officer like me must as his duty, torture a civilian population in order to return Your Son to you alive and well. I want to see the commander who would dare endanger his soldier, and then talk.
And thus, day after day, hour after hour.
In the Gaza Strip, the bulldozers work around the clock. Not a day goes by without seeing a bulldozer taking down an orchard, tearing apart a greenhouse, flattening a house. In most cases, you don’t know who gave the command. Who is responsible and why. But there is always a reason.
From that house someone shot. Behind that tree someone hid. In the orchard, someone prepared. The gun’s range is 300 meters. The machine gun, 600. The mortar, one kilometer. How far will exposal go? IDF bulldozers are digesting the Gaza Strip, meter by meter.
For the common man, Gaza is a remote story. Don’t want know, don’t want to hear. The TV broadcasts a one-sided story. It broadcasts what the viewer wants to know. They are bad, we are good, there is a war, everything’s Kosher. Crimes? Conscientious taboos? Quiet. We are shooting.
While in Gaza, you cannot be moral. It is simply impossible. Whoever thinks differently, please go there and see for yourself.
We are now at a position, that I wish to God we can still return from. The deeds begin to remind one of the forgotten past.
And there is always a justification, and there is always a reason.
Until, in a moment of quiet, after the last volley of shots, after the morning exposal and the night ambush, you stop to think for a moment. You are alone. Without your girlfriend, without your friends, without your parents, with no one – just you.
You stop to think, what is it you’re fighting for if you’ve already lost the moral basis for fighting.
If you can carry out almost everything. So much so, that it is not clear anymore where the red line crosses – if there is such a line at all – and whether this red line does not keep moving away as you get close to it.
After all, this is war, everything is allowed.
Again and again I ask myself, how come among so many senior officers fully familiar with the situation, there is not a single one who gets up and shouts. Not one who gets up, takes off his uniform and says – in THIS, I will not take part.
I guess I’m naive.
After all, this is war, everything is allowed.
March 2002.
"It is I who Refuses" – A Personal LetterIt is I, who was born to parents who with Zionist passion left their homeland at the age of 20 and immigrated on their own, without their families, to Israel.
It is I who as a child learned to know and love the landscape of my country by foot, with great joy and passion.
It is I, who as a teenager looked for and finally found a Kibbutz where I was able to work during the summer as a volunteer doing farming, just to taste the traditional Zionist dream.
It is I who volunteered to the paratroopers unit.
It is I who volunteered for the combatant officer's school in order to contribute more to my country.
It is I who have learned there what it means to be an officer, what are the responsibilities, what is "civil courage", what is self-sacrifice, what is setting a personal example.
It is I who learned and absorbed there, that an officer is not only a company or platoon commander, but first of all a person. A thinking, serious, responsible, caring person, who is able to make good judgments.
It is I who learned there that the character and responsibility as an Israeli officer are not supposed to suddenly disappear when you exit the gate of your army base or when you are released from the army, but rather continue to accompany us in our civilian life.
It is I who still proudly wears, at the age of 28, the graduation gift I received at the officers school, a watch with the logo saying I am an "officer 24-hours a day".
It is I who educated tens of cadets – with deep belief - these very same values.
It is I, who towards my release from regular army, gave up the pleasant position of assistant company commander of basic training, in order to stay with my old company of field fighters, and go with them to Lebanon.
It is I, who together with my platoon, prevented with our very hands deaths of IDF soldiers and residents of northern Israel, and we were proud to do that.
It is I, who in continuation with all the things mentioned above, refuse now to serve in the Occupied Territories.
It is I, who refuse to continue the routine of closing my eyes, my ears and my heart to what is happening to my Palestinian neighbors.
It is I, who know from personal experience, that there is no way to serve in the Occupied Territories without hurting and humiliating a population of thousands of Palestinians, without thereby encouraging Palestinian terrorist actions.
It is I, who feel great pain looking at how my country is damaging its moral strength and those values which I was raised on, and I refuse to keep quiet.
It is I who refuse to close my eyes to what is clear, that the Occupation and the settlements are an unnecessary and dangerous adventure, that has continued 35 years too long, and that each additional moment that the Occupation continues lessens the chances we will ever live here in peace with our neighbors.
It is I who want to live in this country, and to raise children here.
It is I who refuse to believe that there is no other choice, that refuses to accept the reality of the Occupation as something obvious.
It is I who understand that after 35 years of blindness to the reality of the Occupation, to the expansion of settlements and their infrastructure, and the oppression of two uprisings - this adventure has already become a matter of inertia, inertia that politicians in our days don’t have the power or courage to stop, no matter how much of the population actually want it to be stopped.
It is I who understand that in this terrible gap between the public’s wishes and our leaders' policies in the Occupied Territories, occupation will probably continue for a long time, certainly as long as we -- the small percent that continues to proudly serve one month of reserve duty each year -- continue to loyally serve as tools of its implementation and imposition, in definite contradiction with our conscience.
It is I who understand that the call against active participation in the Occupation of the Territories and the protection of the settlements should come from us, those who serve the country and the army in a loyal manner for many years, those who are also with their finger on the trigger, those who determine who shall live and who shall die, who should pass the checkpoint and who should not, who will lose his day’s wages and who will not.
Therefore, It is I, and it is us, that are now taking responsibility, demonstrating the same civil courage mentioned above, sacrificing our names, reputation and positions and exposing ourselves to (false) claims about dodging and destroying democracy. It’s us who now lead and mark the way for our friends, who lye on the barbed wire fence to allow others the way to hope and change.
It is us who refuse to remain passive or pessimistic, who refuse to let blind and near-sighted leaders lead us to a dead end full of blood and with no hope or future.
It is us who refuse to continue to support with our own hands the political use of the army – and all for the benefit of such a small sect of the citizens.
It is us who refuse to do stay indifferent to the non taking of responsibility and lack of courage of our leaders.
It is us who refuse to serve in the Occupied Territories, It is us the Zionists, It is us who care.
It is us who will bring a change.
Itai Swirski.
March 2002.
We are constantly being accused of "refusing before an illegal order is even given". Not that I agree with it, I think that there is a shared responsibility concerning every citizen for what the Israeli army and settlers are doing in the occupied territories. I'm proud however to hold the distinction of being one of those who showed up to reserve duty in the occupied territories and refusing the illegal order as it was given. The only sad thing that shows the deep corruption of the occupation is that I was the only person in my platoon who thought that firing nightly in the direction of a civilian town is an illegal order.Courage To Refuse
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