The Shministim: Why we refuse

Name: Yuval Ophir-Auron

Age: 20

Why I am one of the Shministim:

“I am convinced that it is no one but ourselves who determines that it is our fate to live by the sword. There is another way, which is not the way of war. This is the path of dialogue, of understanding, of concession, forgiveness, of peace.

I believe that a person should take responsibility and feel reconciled to the way he chooses. This is why I shall not join an army behind whose actions I cannot stand and whose behavior I cannot justify.”

First Sentence: 24th Nov. - 5th Dec. 2008 
Second Sentence:  7th - 14th December 2008

Yuval was in prison last year, for the second time, serving a 7 days sentence since the 7th of December 2008.

Full Declaration of Refusal:

“I would like to ask you to recognize that I have a conscientious problem with enlisting in the army. I believe that the Israeli army has lost its mission as the organization that defends the country’s citizens within its borders.

For 41 years now, Israel has been imposing an occupation of lands that are not its own. Lacking any moral justification or values, it rules over these lands by armed force. It is very clear that this occupation has not been dictated by fate: it is the outcome of nationalist policies that are aimed to expand the boundaries of the Jewish state into territories inhabited by another nation.

To maintain control over the Palestinian people and its land, Israel corrupts its own state machinery: those who are in charge of the legal system turn crime into legal action; those who have the mandate to judge release their sure grip on justice, and those with executive power find themselves forced to soil their hands as they obey orders.

A human being among other humans, I, Yuval, feel committed to some basic values without which we cannot exist. I have been studying and learning about the occupation these past years, I feel its pains and as I do so I am becoming familiar with the ills of humankind. What I see is that with every additional day when Palestinians are kept by force on their lands, my country manages to crush one more value, one more rule. What I see is a country guided by the inanity of its leaders, a country in thrall to an insatiable hunger for another street, another tree to cram into its shattered borders. I see with what ease our parents close their eyes to the atrocities that are being committed in our name. I see how we are all turning inwards, just so we may not have to hear the screams that are reaching us from the other side. All known human atrocities have been possible only because of blind obedience, silence, and an indifference to the fate of the other.

It is because of all this that I regard it my moral duty to refuse serving in the army. My conscience does not allow me to join an organization that demolishes, by fiat of the state, the homes of innocent people, kills children who are not part of the armed fighting, and which prevents sick people from getting due treatment. The army interferes with the freedom of movement, undermines human rights and robs people of their land because they are not Jews. Implementing government orders, the Israeli army brings oppression and terror upon three and a half million Palestinians.

With every day that passes, more people sink into this mire – these people are not bad, they are ordinary people, Jews and Palestinians who don’t resist evil and do bad things, things that are too bad. They have been told to do these things, things that are drenched in pain as well as things of whose evil they are unaware.

Today I know what they want me to do and in what they wish me to participate and I understand that I was not raised to do such things, things that I will not want to tell my children. Nobody should have to do such things.

I am convinced that it is no one but ourselves who determines that it is our fate to live by the sword. There is another way, which is not the way of war. This is the path of dialogue, of understanding, of concession, forgiveness, of peace.

I believe that a person should take responsibility and feel reconciled to the way he chooses. This is why I shall not join an army behind whose actions I cannot stand and whose behavior I cannot justify.”

Name: Omer Goldman

Age: 20

Location: Tel-Aviv

Why I am one of the Shministim:

“I believe in service to the society I am part of, and that is precisely why I refuse to take part in the war crimes committed by my country. Violence will not bring any kind of solution, and I shall not commit violence, come what may.”

First Sentence: 22nd Sept. - 10th Oct. 2008 (18 days)
Second Sentence: 12th - 24th Oct. 2008 (10 days)

Omer Goldman, has had to confront the values of her own family. She is the daughter of the former deputy head of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service and who is still considered one of the most powerful men in the Israeli security system. Omer, without her father’s permission visited a Palestinian town in the West Bank and at a check-point, alongside Palestinians, her supposed enemies, was fired upon by Israeli soldiers, “We were sitting by the roadside talking and soldiers came along and after a few seconds they received an order and fired gas grenades and rubber bullets at us. Then it struck me, to my astonishment, that the soldiers were following an order without thinking. For the first time in my life, an Israeli soldier raised his weapon and fired at me.”

Although, not surprisingly, her father does not support her decision to refuse, he still supports her as a daughter. “He and I have very similar characters. I, too, fight to the end for what I believe in. But we are opposites ideologically.”

In her declaration of refusal she stated:

“I refuse to enlist in the Israeli military. I shall not be part of an army that needlessly implements a violent policy and violates the most basic human rights on a daily basis.

Like most of my peers, I too have not dared to question the ethics of the Israeli military. But when I visited the Occupied Territories I realized I see a completely different reality, a violent, oppressive, extreme reality that must be ended.

I believe in service to the society I am part of, and that is precisely why I refuse to take part in the war crimes committed by my country. Violence will not bring any kind of solution, and I shall not commit violence, come what may. “

Name: Sahar Vardi

Age: 19

Location: Jerusalem

Why I am one of the Shministim:

“I realize that the soldier at the checkpoint is not responsible for the wretched policy of the oppressor towards civilians, I am unable to relieve that soldier of responsibility for his conduct … I mean the human responsibility of not causing another human being to suffer.”

First Sentence: 25th - 31st Aug. 2008 (6 days)

Second Sentence: 12th - 30th Oct. (18 days)

Third Sentence: 3rd - 21st Nov. 2008 (18 days)

Sahar was the third conscientious objector, and the first woman, to be imprisoned among this years group of high school seniors, who signed a collective declaration of refusal to serve in the Israeli army of occupation.

While she stresses the importance of resisting the occupation of Palestine as a motive for her refusal, Sahar’s conscientious objection is also rooted in a wider pacifist position.

During her sentence Sahar refused to wear a military uniform in prison, and subsequently spent the duration of her detention in solitary confinement. The Isolation Wards of military prisons in Israel are often the cite of various minor or less minor forms of abuse, so Sahar needs your support.

In a letter to the Minister of Defense, declaring her refusal to serve in the military, She wrote:

“I have been to the occupied Palestinian territory many times, and even though I realize that the soldier at the checkpoint is not responsible for the wretched policy of the oppressor towards civilians, I am unable to relieve that soldier of responsibility for his conduct … I mean the human responsibility of not causing another human being to suffer.

The bloody times in which I live (consisting of assassinations, aggression, bombings, shootings) results in increasing numbers of victims on both sides. It is a vicious circle that emanates from the fact that both sides elect to engage in violence. This choice I refuse to take part in.”

A peaceful demonstration was organized in support of Sahar before her first sentence in military prison on August 25, 2008. About 80 people joined the demonstration, and were met by a small counter-demonstration organized by a pro-military group. The pro-military group confronted the original protesters aggressively and head-butted one of the demonstrators and drove a motorcycle into the crowd.

Full declaration of refusal: I first set eyes on the occupation as a 12 year old girl. It was in a small Palestinian village south-west of Jerusalem inhabited by some 25 families most of whom well educated, constructers, PEO employees. They did not seem to be any different to me than most people I sow walking dawn the streets. The only visible difference was that they had green ID’s.

As a 12 year old who came to the village to replace the one inch water pipe pf the village to a 2 inch pipe, I did not understand the full meaning of the different colour of the ID, but I did understand the simple meaning: separation.

The fact that the road to the village from Jerusalem was blocked by the IDF, the fact that a fence separated the village from its neighboring village and the deferent IDs – all of these came to separate me from “them” and to prove beyond a doubt that we are not equal.

I brought up at school, and at home as well, on the so called obvious core values such as justice, freedom, human rights and equality, and here I fund out, before I even began junior high, that the state in which I live does not care fir these values, and not only does it not care for them, it violates them and suppresses millions of people so that I could enjoy the “freedom” they taught me everyone deserves.

Since I have visited the occupied territories countless times, and as much as I tried to convince myself that the soldier in the checkpoint is not to be blamed for the suppressing policy of Israel, I could not strip that soldier from his responsibly for his own actions. I don’t speak only of the political implications of guarding a settlement, or the legal implications of the murders we perform in the occupied territories. I speak of the human responsibly of every one of us not to harm our fellow man.

The clause in the Geneva Convention that speaks of freedom of thought, conscience and religion grants every person the right to act or refuse to act according to his or her conscience, but in my opinion in it is not a matter of right, but of obligation. It is our obligation as human beings not to hurt others, to protect their rights and to treat others like we would wish to be treated ourselves.

If this is our obligation, is it one our obligation to refuse to take part in any action that includes harming others, even one that we our abridged to perform by the law in our state? Do we not have the moral, human and even legal obligation to refuse to prevent people pf their freedom of movement, of housing, of occupation, and above all these the right to live?

For all of these I can not stand in a checkpoint and separate one race from another, one ID from another, and I can not bombard cities filled with men women and children even if it is done as a part of a war, and I can not punish millions if innocents for the crimes of few. This is not only because I refuse to be a pawn of politicians, but because I refuse to cause suffering. I refuse to act violently under orders or not.

Many will say that sometimes violence is needed to prevent greater violence, but to thee people I will address two questions: the first is if we are really trying to prevent more violence or are we only trying to prevent violence toward ourselves by the use of more violence? The second question is if it is possible to prevent suffering by implementing it? Does it not stand in contradiction of itself? Did the use of violence and “counter-violence” by the human race throughout history end violence? The blood cycle in which I live, that composed of bombings, and suicide attacks, and shootings and more and more victims on both sides is a cycle perpetuated by the choice of both sides to react violently, a choice I refuse to be a part of.