Overflow crowd hears draft resister say
Israel out of the occupied territories
March 12, in an electric meeting organized by Jewish Youth Against the Occupation, an overflow crowd of 400 packed into a meeting room at the University of Toronto. They were there to hear 19 year old Israeli, Matan Kaminer. A member of the youth wing of Hadash (Democratic Front for Peace and Equality in Israel), he is part of a movement in that country of draft-age youth and reservists who are refusing to be part of the military occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. His introduction was greeted by a thunderous ovation from a crowd that was Jewish, Muslim and (in the words of Max Silverman, one of the organizers) "none of the above. During the meeting, 150 people signed up to help build a movement against the occupation. Here, we reprint portions of Kaminer's speech.
I'm part of a group of draft-age "seniors who sent a letter, with 52 signatures, in September to Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon. It said that as people who are facing the draft — both young men and young women have to serve in the army in Israel — we were opposed to Israeli policy against the Palestinians, and to the occupation of the Palestinian territories — the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.
More than just expressing our disagreements, we went a step further and said that we would not serve this occupation. That means we would either not go to the occupied territories, or we would not enter the army altogether.
The Israeli army, whether you're inside the territories or not, is almost completely engaged in lengthening the occupation, glorifying militarism in Israeli society, or lengthening the occupation. I really had no desire to be part of that.
The refusenik movement
As a movement, refusal started in the Lebanon war. In the early 1980s, Israel invaded Lebanon, supposedly to strike at the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).
This war, which had very limited support in Israeli society, was met with a new phenomenon — refusal of mostly reserve soldiers, also some regular duty soldiers, who were refusing to go over the border into Lebanon, because they didn't believe in the war.
(Men in Israel, after finishing their regular service, have to go every year for reserve duty as well.)
My father was one of those refuseniks.
Those refuseniks were represented by an organization called Yesh Gvul, or there is a limit. The words "border" and "limit" are the same in Hebrew. It's a kind of a pun, and I think a very apt one in this case.
Yesh Gvul, after the retreat from Lebanon, went on to advocate refusal of service in the occupied territories as well.
During the first intifada, there was quite a large movement of refusal.
Since the Oslo Accords, there was quite a drop off in refusals. Most Israelis really thought we were moving towards peace, we were moving towards a settlement with the Palestinians, and that dissent was not needed as much.
Since the new intifada began in October 2000, refusal has been on the agenda again.
A few months after our letter was published, another letter, known as the officers' letter, was published by reservist soldiers. Not all were officers, but all were refusing to serve in the occupied territories.
They were 50 at the time, now they are over 300.
The officers' letter was a spark that led to the revitalization of the peace movement.
The peace movement has many different sections. Some are zionists, some are anti-zionists, some are not zionists. Some are for a one-state solution, others for a two-state solution, the possibilities are endless.
I think what we can organize around is the demand for immediate Israeli withdrawal from all the occupied territories.
That is the very basic humanitarian need here.
What is happening right now is there is blood being shed every day, both on the Palestinian side by Israel, and on the Israeli side by Palestinians who are driven in their frustration and rage to strike at innocent civilians.
The fastest way to stop that is full military withdrawal from the territories.
That is a first step.
As a first step it is not perfect. After we withdraw from the territories, it's not going to be a utopia. There isn't going to be a sudden Kingdom of Peace.
There are still going to be very big problems. Israel is still the rich first world country with the fourth largest military in the world, and Palestine is still a third world country that is very very poor, with very very low wage levels, and that will mean economic exploitation. That will go on even after we make peace, after a Palestinian state is created.
But people on both sides desperately need some breathing room, some respite from constant fear for their lives, so they can think rationally, and understand that they are not each other's real enemy.
Capitalism is the enemy
Who is the real enemy? The real enemy is the world order, the capitalist elites who rule the US, who rule Israel, who rule Palestine. They are each different elites, but they are all complicit.
Nation states that are controlled by capitalist classes, like to go to war because it opens new markets for them, new human resources, new natural resources.
But what is also a very important thing, when a people is at war, rational thinking tends to come to a halt.
When bombs are flying overhead, when missiles are flying overhead, or when I'm afraid to get on a bus, then I can't think straight.
And what I start to think is that people who look like me are my friends, and everybody else is my enemy.
This is very convenient for the elites, because they look the same as the people they control, so that's kind of a positive for them.
But in Israel, the new intifada has made the government very unstable. The extreme right wing government has left the government saying Sharon is not right enough. And labour is starting to make noises of dissent as well.
Basically, Sharon is afraid, that the moment there is quiet, the moment there is peace, people will see that the emperor is naked, that he doesn't have a solution. Retaliation after retaliation after retaliation doesn't bring us anything.
What can be done?
So what can we do? The first thing that we need is solidarity. And that means first of all with the Palestinian people, which is under occupation, which is suffering every day from slaughter, from starvation, from prevention of work, from education, and all the violations of human rights that are going on every day in the territories.
We also need to be in solidarity with the Israeli people.
I don't see any need for a comparison with the Palestinians, but Israelis are suffering as well. Israelis are dying, Israelis are also afraid to walk on the streets, to go to the mall, to get on a bus.
A third group is the refuseniks, like me and those reservists. You need to be in solidarity with them. I'm not in jail yet, thank god, but people tell me that the best thing in jail is to get postcards from people who support you.
It's important that Palestinians abroad and in Palestine know that they have allies on the Israeli side, to know that there are people on the Israeli side who don't want to demolish them, to destroy them.
This is a specific way of encouraging Palestinian peace forces that exist, but are operating under very difficult circumstances.
Any public gathering in the territories is legitimate for firing at, as far as the Israeli army is concerned. Even if you try to be non-violent, you will be faced with violence.
That section of the Palestinian people, which is the majority, which wants to live in peace, which wants to live and learn just like any other people, is absolutely under attack, and we have to encourage them.
We need to pressure the US government and other governments to end their military funding to Israel. I'm sure that there are things in the US that are needed more urgently than arms for Israel.
Another thing we have to start thinking about is to stop looking to the US government for solutions.
This new general who is coming from the US — we don't need more generals in the Middle East, what we need is less generals and more grass-roots activists for peace.
We have to try to connect the global dots, as I have tried to do here. The occupation is not an isolated phenomenon.
It's part of globalization
It's part of the continued rule of corporations, of big money, everywhere in the world.
In order to end the occupation, we need to end that as well. In order to end that, we need to end the occupation.
So start thinking about alternatives to capitalism, go demonstrate about that, make your voices heard, that peace and left go together.
We need to fight racism and we need to fight anti-semitism. Since September 11, Arabs and Muslims, especially Palestinians, have been under attack all over the world. We need to start putting a stop to that, and we need to be in solidarity with those people who are attacked.
On the other hand, we have to make clear that if we oppose Israeli government policy, it doesn't mean we oppose Israel and the Jewish people. Basically, you can take my word for it, ending the occupation is in the Jewish people's best interest.
There's no need to be equating Judaism with Zionism or with the state of Israel and Ariel Sharon.
Solidarity against the occupation
Most importantly, we need solidarit against the occupation. Unite Jewish people, Muslim people, and as Max says, none of the above to end the occupation.
That's the note I want to end on — unity. We don't have to agree on everything. We don't have to agree with what the ultimate solution to the Middle East conflict is.
But we can agree on a minimum programme, get the Israeli army out of the territories right away, and start opening a window for peace.
For more information
www.newprofile.org.il — movement for the demilitarization of Israeli society. www.seruv.org.il — web-site of the reservists who are refusing to serve. www.yesh-gvul.org — support for Israeli refuseniks.torontojyato@hotmail.com — to contact Jewish Youth Against the Occupation.