We are called Shministim, which is Hebrew means "twelfth graders". In our final year of high school we, along with about 100 others, signed a letter declaring our refusal to be conscripted into the Israeli Defence Force. For this we have been labeled as traitors by our government, attacked in the street and in the media, and imprisoned repeatedly, sometimes in solitary confinement.
We have also received support from friends, and from people around the world. One such example is the invitation to attend the 25th anniversary celebrations of the End Conscription Campaign (ECC) in South Africa. The ECC campaigned in the 1980s against the system of conscripting white men into the apartheid defence force. To mark the celebration objectors from Israel, Eritrea and the United States have been invited to visit South Africa and speak at public events.
Like the members of the ECC, we refuse to use violence to enforce oppression.
We are also determined to struggle peacefully for an end to the dispossession of Palestinians, and to assert non-violence, and international solidarity, as the means for fundamentally changing the political reality. Harm to any civilians and force other than in self-defense are wrong.
Some work hard to prevent change. The SA Jewish Board of Deputies issued a statement calling us irrational, and saying comparisons between the Shministim and the ECC are "entirely fallacious".
Those who led the ECC feel differently. Laurie Nathan, the ECC national organiser in 1985/6, explains:
"There are compelling similarities between the stands taken by South African objectors in the past and Israeli objectors today. In both cases young people refuse to render military service on grounds of conscience, objecting to involvement in a defence force that maintains an illegal occupation, defies international law, resorts to excessive force and pays insufficient attention to the safety of civilians."
"In both cases the objectors are vilified and imprisoned by their government, which accuses them of ignoring or supporting terrorism. And in both cases the response of the objectors is to call for the rights and dignity of all people - black and white, Jew and Muslim, Israeli and Palestinian - to be respected and honoured."
David Bruce who was sentenced to six years imprisonment in 1988 for his refusal says as follows:
"The SA Jewish Board of Deputies is guilty of a selective representation of the facts and selective morality. As was the case in South Africa where the apartheid military was involved upholding the apartheid system, the role of the Israeli military has much more to do with the occupation of the Palestinian territory, and perpetuating the existence of the settlements on this territory, than it has to do with defending Israel against any foreign threat.
The Board's statement is part of a syndrome in terms of which Palestinian misery and oppression is legitimised because many in Israel, and supporters of Israel such as the SAJBD, are not willing to pay the political price of confronting the problem which is posed by these settlements. That the Board is now trying to discredit these objectors, who are informed by the real experiences of conscripts in Israel/Palestine, is part of this syndrome."
We are well aware that compared to Bruce and others, the few months we have been incarcerated in Israel is mild. But the fact that Israel maintains a relatively gentle approach towards its Jewish citizens, even dissenting ones, is not the point; its brutal attitude towards Palestinians is.
As we think and act we know that our sacrifices, difficult as they have been, are nothing compared to the danger faced by young Palestinian activists, or the 8000 Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails.
Our refusal is not a shirking of responsibility. We believe in service to our society. We are therefore active on a daily basis, and our refusal is part of this activism.
As we stated in our refusal letter:
"Our refusal comes first and foremost as a protest against the separation, control, oppression and killing policy held by the state of Israel in the occupied territories, as we understand that this will never lead to peace, and is contradictory to the basic values a society that pretends to be democratic should have."
"We oppose the actions taken in the name of the "defense" of Israeli society including checkpoint, targeted killing, apartheid roads available for Jews only, curfews, and the annexation of more conquered territories. These actions serve as a band-aid covering a bleeding wound, and as a limited and temporary solution that will accelerate and aggravate the conflict further."
We believe in peace and coexistence and while we are here to draw people's attention to harsh and depressing realities, we are also determined not to allow the present despair to overwhelm any chance for justice and reconciliation. As we argue in our letter, "In a place where there are humans, there is someone to talk to."
Our purpose is to challenge every citizen who wonders if the military's policy in the occupied territories in conducive to the progression of the peace process to discover the truth, and to stand up against every action which he finds irrational and illegal.
Sahar Vardi, Omer Goldman and Yuval Ophir-Auron are part of the Shministim group in Israel. For more about their South African schedule visit the group on Facebook.
[The reply to this article by David Sacks of the SAJBD can be found here - Ed.]
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