From Occupied Palestine

Mazuz: Conscientious objection could be 'positive phenomenon'
YUVAL YOAZ, GIDEON ALON, and LILY GALILI
Ha'aretz, 11 May 2004

Attorney General Menachem Mazuz shocked the political establishment yesterday by expressing tentative, if qualified, support for conscientious objection, saying he understood what was potentially a "positive phenomenon."

Time for the soldiers to speak out
GIDEON LEVY
Ha'aretz, 2 May 2004

When will the soldiers at long last start talking? When will their consciences get the better of them? When will they sit at home and tell the truth about what they did in their army service in the territories? Recently there have been a few signs that this inevitable process, already very late in appearing, may be about to occur. If so, it could signal an important shift. The refuseniks made their contribution but apparently have exhausted their strength and their influence. Now, the talking soldiers' turn has come. Those who do not refuse to serve - indeed, they are ready to go on bearing the burden - but who at least will tell the unvarnished truth at home.

An Israeli pilot speaks out
YONATHAN SHAPIRA
CounterPunch, 23 January 2004

I am Yonathan, one of the initiators and signatories of the Israeli pilot's letter. Until some weeks ago I was a pilot and active leader in a squadron of "Blackhawk" helicopters in the air force. On the eve of last Yom Kippur I was called for an interview with the commander of the air force, wherein he told me that I was dismissed and that I was not a pilot anymore in the Israeli air force and all this because I announced that I will not agree to take part in obeying illegal and immoral orders.

13 Sayeret Matkal reservists join refusal to serve in territories
AMOS HAREL and MAZAL MUALEM
Haaretz, 22 December 2003

Thirteen reservist soldiers and officers in the elite Sayeret Matkal unit of the Israel Defense Forces on Sunday evening signed a letter declaring their refusal to serve in the territories.

The letter - signed by soldiers and officers - was delivered to the Prime Minister's Office, which refused to comment on the content of the letter.

'We are air force pilots, not mafia': Israel's F-16 and Black Hawk Refuseniks
CHRIS McGREAL
Guardian, 5 December 2003

For two months, a rebel group of Israeli Black Hawk helicopter and F-16 fighter pilots has been denounced as traitors for saying they will no longer bomb Palestinian cities.

Until now they have maintained a resolute silence on their motives, preferring to limit their criticism of Ariel Sharon's war to a letter signed by 27 reserve and active duty pilots refusing to carry out what they described as illegal orders, and denouncing the occupation as eating at the moral fabric of Israel.

27 pilots say will refuse to operate in territories
AMOS HAREL
Ha'aretz, 25 September 2003

A group of 27 active reserve duty pilots and retired pilots have sent a letter to Air Force Chief, Major General Dan Halutz, declaring that they refuse to participate in operations against Palestinians in the territories.

An Israeli refusenik replies to President Bush
SHAMAI LEIBOWITZ
Courage to Refuse, 27 June 2002

I am an Orthodox Jew and a criminal defense attorney in Tel Aviv. I am also a tank gunner in reserve duty, and part of a group of 1000 soldiers who have refused to serve in the occupied territories [editor's note: Shamai is adding up the numbers on the 'seruv', Yesh Gvul and New Profile lists; together they total well over 1000]. Many of them were imprisoned in military jails in the past few months.

Are we in a war? Do we have an enemy?
SLAVOJ ZIZEK
London Review of Books, 23 May 2002

When Donald Rumsfeld designated the imprisoned Taliban fighters 'unlawful combatants' (as opposed to 'regular' prisoners of war), he did not simply mean that their criminal terrorist activity placed them outside the law: when an American citizen commits a crime, even one as serious as murder, he remains a 'lawful criminal'. The distinction between criminals and non-criminals has no relation to that between 'lawful' citizens and the people referred to in France as the 'Sans Papiers'. Perhaps the category of homo sacer, brought back into use by Giorgio Agamben in Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life (1998), is more useful here. It designated, in ancient Roman law, someone who could be killed with impunity and whose death had, for the same reason, no sacrificial value. Today, as a term denoting exclusion, it can be seen to apply not only to terrorists, but also to those who are on the receiving end of humanitarian aid (Rwandans, Bosnians, Afghans), as well as to the Sans Papiers in France and the inhabitants of the favelas in Brazil or the African American ghettoes in the US.

The right not to fight
SUZANNE GOLDENBERG
Guardian, 7 September 2001

A year into the Palestinian uprising, a group of Israeli teenagers has directly challenged one of the guiding principles of the Jewish state - the notion of a citizen's army - by announcing their refusal to perform compulsory military service.