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The 5 Israeli Conscientious Objectors
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Matar, Kaminer, Bahat, Zameret & Maor
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Refuz.Org
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Monday, January 5, 2004
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The right of every Palestinian, as a human being, to democracy, is violated daily by Israeli military rule. In such circumstances, any oppressed people would fight for its independence – and that would be its prerogative.
-- from Matan Kaminer’s testimony in Court
The following are excerpts from the testimonies of “The 5 Israeli Conscientious Objectors “ who had been sentenced yesterday (Sunday, January 4, 2004) for another year in the Israeli military prisons for refusing to serve in the Palestinian Occupied Territories.
The five soldiers are: Haggai Matar, Matan Kaminer, Noam Bahat, Shimri Zameret, and Adam Maor.
To read the full testimonies and sign the petition for their freedom, visit the website:
www.refuz.org.il
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Haggai Matar
Haggai Matar |
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My next visit to the Occupied Territories was to the Salfit area in the West Bank, with the "Gush Shalom" movement. We came to meet a man who was unfortunate enough to have his lands "on the wrong side of the tracks" – they were inside the C zone (under full Israeli control), ending just a few meters from the B zone (the Palestinian-authority's jurisdiction). After having failed to gain a building-license from Israeli authorities, the land-owner had to build his house without a permit. The IDF came and demolished the house. The owner rebuilt, and the IDF re-demolished. We came there to help build the house the third time. A few months later I was to hear that this house too has been demolished…
Thousands of houses have been destroyed in the occupied territories since 1967 under the claim that they were built "illegally".
Later on that day we got to a demolished quarry not too far away from the newly-rebuilt house. The owner told us that for years he used to make bricks for some of the near-by Jewish settlements. Until one day, several "Shabac" (secret services) agents came and asked him to confirm that a certain individual in his village was a Hammas militant. He knew that the person in question was not a militant, and refused to cooperate. Three days later the bulldozers came and took down the quarry.
I was first incarcerated on 23.10.02. On 20.10.02, three days before that, I read the following story in Ha'aretz:
"Last night, the last six families – about 40 people – have left the village of Yannun, close to the settlement of Itamar. According to village residents, they have decided to leave the village following an endless line of harassments on the side of Itamar settlers… "Evidence given by one of the villagers goes as follows: 'When the olive-harvest season started, Itamar settlers started shooting in the air and towards village-houses. Gradually, raids became more frequent, with settlers coming late at night, braking windows and shooting into our houses… Harassments came to a peak as Itamar residents turned their drainage to flow towards the village… Last Thursday they had another raid, during which the power-generator that was used by the families was destroyed.'"
That night I got a call from Ta'ayush. I was told that the following morning activists would be leaving to Yannun in order to secure the villagers' return, and protect them from the settlers. I agreed to come along. By 9:00 the following morning, I was already on the dirt road leading to Yannun, with four other activists.
I don't know how to describe Yannun as it looked on the 21st of October 2002. I can only share a few dry details: A power-generator room, broken into and burnt. Three huge black water-tanks, the village's water source, upside-down, their contents spilled. Countless bullet-holes in the village's houses, their windows broken. But worse than these was the complete silence. An entire village – still, dead. Doors shut, and not a soul in sight. And even worse still were the signs of a recently lively community. Laundry cords, a cola bottle – half empty, etc. Touring the olive-groves, we saw two caravans on neighboring hills, and another structure, which I later learned was a chicken-coop. These were the extensions of the otherwise quite remote settlement of Itamar. I remember being speechless about the whole thing even then. We found a cat, and I suggested we call her "Galut" (meaning "exile"). The others felt I was too pessimistic, so we decided to call her "Shiva" ("a return").
Later, one of the families returned – A ten-year old boy, and a 16-year old, their mother and her sister. We managed with some rusty Arabic and mime. They wanted to take us on a tour of their groves. The ten-year old wouldn't come. He stayed at the doorstep, crying "Mustautinin…." He was afraid of the settlers. We strolled for a while, and reached a small brick-wall. I was about to walk over it, when the mother cried: "La! Mamnu’!" I learnt that a few weeks before an armed settler came and made it quite clear that no one is to cross this wall any longer, thought it was most defiantly their land. Since then, no one tried… Later we met one of the village elders, who told us about a settler called Avri who was there after the power-generator was burnt down. "I burnt your power-generator," said Avri, "And I sent the men who shot at your houses at night. And when all is over and done – I'll still be here, and you won't".
The village was dark at night. Only the surrounding settlement-caravans had light. We took turns at patrolling around the village all night. Nothing happened. During my shift, all I could think of was those people up in the caravans. What could they possibly be thinking? What are they doing here? What do they think of us?
I was due home in the morning. I had to pack and say my last goodbyes. A large group of activists came to the village during the night, and a few more came in the morning. They were planning on going to harvest olives with the villagers. At 9:00 a car left towards Akraba, and from there, back to Tel Aviv. It was wonderful to see a truck full of furniture, followed by a family on the return. In Akraba we met a UN force and representatives of the EU, who were on their way to Yannun. They heard that shots were fired from the settlement. We called our friends back in Yannun, and they confirmed it: while on their way to start the harvest, settlers started shooting at them. The Israeli police and the IDF didn't respond to the call for help.
The following day I went to prison. I knew this was the only thing to do.
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Matan Kaminer
Matan Kaminer |
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An occupation can be more or less cruel. Thus for example the Japanese occupation of China in the thirties was much more terrible than that going on in the Territories. Just as the existence of the occupation cannot justify atrocities on the part of the occupied, it cannot do so on the part of the occupier. These two kinds of atrocities, which can and should be prevented, are nevertheless directly derived from the existence of the occupation. Occupation turns people into things, whether "trump cards" or "drugged cockroaches" (as one Israeli general put it). It makes them invisible and unimportant. Even when the occupier recognizes certain rights they may have, these are always thrust aside when "considerations of security," which are really considerations of convenience, are present. Occupation is fertile soil for atrocity.
Soldiers of an occupying army are in an impossible situation. They are men of war, trained to deal with other men of war. They are not social workers, doctors, lawyers, judges or mayors, but they are many times given responsibilities which only such professionals should wield. As men of war, they use the tools known to them: the command, the emotional distance, the threat, the gun. When they become sadistic, this is not because of some basic evil which was in them beforehand, but because of their lack of freedom, as soldiers of occupation, to treat people as people. This is why they shout, beat, humiliate and murder. They get screwed up inside and go home. Now they are used to not treating people as people. They shout, beat, humiliate and vote for the National Union.
I did not decide to refuse in one day. I went through the first military tests, believing I would find a way to serve without participating directly in the dirty machine of occupation, and that if I had to refuse an immoral order I would know to do so and face the consequences, all within the framework of the army. But with time, with the worsening of the oppression in the Territories and the loss of the peace horizon during the Intifada, I began to understand that my conscience would never make it possible for me to participate, even indirectly, in the work of occupation.
I do not think there is any serious person in the world who could claim, from a moral standpoint, that one should never refuse an order. It is obvious that there are orders so immoral that one should not fulfill them, regardless of their legality. The only question is: what are these orders? That is a question of conscience.
All the arguments I have given here stood in my mind when I decided to refuse the order to join the army. I am well aware that the IDF does not make its own policy, that the occupation is a policy decided upon by the elected government of Israel. I protest any way I can against this government and any government of occupation; but that is not enough.
My conscience makes it impossible for me to pledge allegiance to a body, which carries out this heinous policy, and to carry out its orders.
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Noam Bahat
Noam Bahat |
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What is conscience? Conscience is that little voice in your head that tells you something you are doing or witnessing is wrong. The same voice that will tell you to do something even if it is against your personal interest. A conscientious person will follow his conscience and not his personal interest. But not all people are conscientious. Most people get used to fooling their conscience, they deaden it and make it stop working. I'm a conscientious person. I don't know why, perhaps because I was brought up this way or because I was born this way. I have always been and always will be a conscientious person, one who thinks about things too deeply. A person who, like me, follows his or her conscience, does things daily; he or she does not only refrain from doing things. Active not passive.
I became a member of the youth movement 'Bnei Hamoshavim' in my community. In my youth movement I first became acquainted with issues of equality, freedom, the environment, issues which shaped my world view and my beliefs.
In my third year as a counselor the Intifada began. From the viewpoint of a youth movement guide, an informal educator, I tried to understand and to explain to my charges the impossible. How could Israel hold all these people hostage? On one hand stands the Israeli consensus in which Israel is good and the Arabs are the enemy. On the other hand is the knowledge that for more than thirty years so many people are living under occupation. Living without freedom, liberty, with no freedom of movement, under great poverty. I vacillated in this contradiction between the values in which I believe and the society around me that continually violates these values one by one. I vacillated between the wish to contribute and to give three years of my life like everybody, and the knowledge that this so-called contribution actually only contributes to entrenching that contradiction, the contradiction between my values and the state, the army. I just could no longer believe that the country in which I live engenders this terrible injustice.
When I began my Year of Service I began to ponder a question which only became more significant as time went on. What am I, an 18-year-old kid with no ability to influence the system, supposed to do when the state of Israel, my state, my homeland, destroys the lives and rights of three million people. Every educator who aims to teach values should see as his or her purpose not only the explanation and justification of those values, but the teaching of critical thinking and the aspiration to make values into reality, and creation of conscientious human beings who follow their morals and values. Children are exposed to values and internalize them, but then comes the test of reality.
This sounds terrible when put bluntly, but this has been my experience with the people around me, this is the mood among the Israeli public, among the young people who are becoming soldiers. One can say clearly that this mood is strengthened by the army's reluctance to investigate abusive and even murderous soldiers and in this way signals that all is allowed. I cannot accept this treatment.
Every time an Israeli or Palestinian child is shot our conscience gets a bullet straight in the heart. After mistreating our conscience so awfully, it sits alone in its corner and sulks, because it wants to avoid the pain of hearing, the anxiety of seeing and the nightmare of knowing.
The final outcome, if we say it or not, is that the Palestinians have long since stopped being people in our view. This was so even for me, but once I began questioning the issue my conscience could no longer be silent. It could not help hearing any longer, but at once everything sounded clear and strong, as if someone was yelling in my ear, and my conscience heard what it could not take. My confusion grew and then came the final decision not to enlist at all.
As a man of conscience I could not take part in the army of oppression.
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Shimri Zameret
Shimri Zameret |
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I don’t have to look beyond the border in order to find the immoral results of the army’s actions. I just have to look at my family, my friends. I see how these actions just simply destroy their lives, my life, the Israeli society.
I’m very afraid of one moment. I pray that this moment will never come, but in my imagination it is very clear, with all the details:
I open the newspaper. There is an item about the death of a close friend. I scream in my heart: ‘your death is awful. Your death was not necessary. The government led to it when it led an unnecessary war’.
My friends from school are fighting now in the occupied territories. They are guarding Netzarim and Hebron. They risk their lives there for no reason. I refuse to go to the army, since I refuse to support a policy that will cause their deaths. I feel my going to the army is like killing them with my own hands.
65 years ago, my grandfather went from his kibbutz to save Jewish people in Europe. As in amok, he sent them in small boats to Palestine, in a time when it wasn’t legal. In his letters he explains this amok: he knew they were going to be killed there. At that time, and at all other times of his life, he dreamed and did things with the goal of creating a secure place for the Jewish people. He dreamed and did things in order to create a society of justice and equality – all the things that the Jewish people did not have in Europe.
Today, Israel chooses to be a conqueror, and has become everything but what my grandfather dreamt about. Israel is not a shelter to the Jewish people any more. Israel breaks human rights, and by this also risks the lives of its own citizens. My refusal gives me the right to stand in front of his grave, where his name, MY name, is engraved, and say to him: “I didn’t participate in these things.” I refuse, since I refuse to be a traitor to his dream.
I have friends whose families have no food. I can’t accept their hunger. I can’t accept a war that causes poverty and unemployment. Every war causes harm to economies and destroys people’s lives, but this war is avoidable. It is possible to leave the occupied territories tomorrow and by this, end this war. I refuse to participate in an avoidable war.
When I was in the prison, and before it, I met many soldiers who served in the occupied territories. They told about the roadblocks, about searches in the Arab homes. They told about beating ‘insolent’ Arabs. They told about shooting people for fun. My generation, the roadblock generation, goes to the occupied territories and comes back with new moral norms. It is a mistake to think that these norms will disappear inside the ‘green line’ (the old border). Does somebody assume that these soldiers wouldn’t think their girls are ‘insolent’?
I refuse to take part in this moral corruption.
Serving the army in today situation will help to make Israel a place which is insecure for my children to live. Serving the army in today situation will help to make Israel a place where my children won’t want to live. Serving the army in today situation will be a treachery upon my future and a treachery upon my children’s future.
I’m willing to pay the price for my choice to refuse. I’ve already been in prison for 11 months, and that’s only the beginning. I’m glad to pay this price.
My friends (especially the ones who really fight in the war) may be angry when I tell them all these things, but I will continue. I do it for you all. I do it because I love you.
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Adam Maor
Adam Maor |
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The evening I decided to refuse to serve in the Israeli army I was at my father's house and I watched my 1-year-old brother, Daniel, making his first steps. No words can describe my feelings at that moment but I remember picturing him immediately reading, writing and playing music and imagining the trips we would take together.
In the background the Israeli television reported the events of the week, it was Friday night, and I saw Palestinian children throwing stones at monstrous Israeli tanks and being shot at in return. Huge sophisticated military vehicles were busy destroying the infrastructure of what remained from the Palestinian cities, including schools and hospitals. Dozens of people were killed and injured every day.
That night I realized that joining the army means robbing these children of whatever I was dreaming for my brother. Even the most basic things without which we cannot imagine our daily life, are robbed from them: housing, food, entertainment, health and personal safety.
I could never say that I love my brother, I could never dream a happy childhood for him if I take part in a system that oppresses other children. Because in a place where young children are snatched out of their beds at night and are held prisoners in order to extract true or false confessions from their parents there is no room for childhood. And I will never take part in the creation of such a place.
But there is more to it. The events I told you about are but a small part of what I know, which is a small part of what is happening. Colonialism has always engendered protest, which has never stopped till the end of Occupation. Terror affects our lives in every possible domain and causes the deterioration of the Israeli society. The continuation and maintenance of the Occupation are the continuation and maintenance of terror. Time and again I have been deceived by Israeli leaders who promised us peace and did not keep their word. I am watching the downfall of the state of Israel and I don’t want to contribute to this downfall. I will not take part in the creation of a place where my brother can get hurt every time he steps out of his home.
I don’t know what the Israeli government is trying to achieve in its continuous refusal to end the occupation, or in persisting in committing the most horrible crimes against the Palestinian population. Is it the wish to create a voluntary transfer or to break the spirit of the Palestinian people and their aspirations for independence and freedom?
I do not know. All I know is that only evil can come out of these evil, corrupt and immoral actions. I cannot take part in it. I don’t remember how many times I have spoken to my young brother during my 5 months in jail, trying to explain to this 3 year old toddler what is prison and why I cannot come to see him. But when he grows up I will be able to tell him I did it all for him, thanks to him and that I had no other choice.
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