"We Shall Not Continue To Fight…In Order To Dominate, Expel, Starve And Humiliate..."

<b>Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has said soldiers must carry out the decisions of an elected government, and he's described the petition as "the beginning of the end of democracy."</b>

Isn't this really more of the BEGINNING of democracy? Isn't democracy all about the allowance for dissenting opinion?

 

This is a difficult issue for me. I wholeheartedly agree with their stance, but I also am a strong believer in the virtues of military order for those in that life.

I guess, in a country where there is compulsory military service, I support their position a little bit more. In the US, however, where people enter the military with full knowledge, I'd have a real problem with soldiers refusing to prefom for policy-level reasons. When you join up, you sort of agree to assign yourself as an instrument of your government's will.

If these 'reservists' are conscripted, then I guess I support them. If they willfully joined up, however, they should realize that when they elected to enter the military, they gave up their right to control what kind of stuff they do, even if it is repugnant to them.

It's one thing to petition and for changes, but it's another to refuse duty.

 

i completely disagree, jeff. what good are democratic elections of representatives if their laws/regulations/etc can't be enforced due to the views of the minority that lost in the election? in our country, we call this mandate. there is deference to policy from those elected officials because the people elected the people who devised the policy. anything less is anarchy.

 

None of the Israelis actually want to reoccupy the territories, they simply have little choice as long as the Palestinians keep attacking them. They keep trying to pull out, but they keep getting sucked back in...

But these people are soldiers. You refuse orders such as "shoot that kid" and "torture that prisoner", you do not refuse deployment orders. These guys should all be thrown in the brig.

Military organizations are not democratic institutions, Jeff. There's a reason for that: democracy doesn't work on the battlefield. You follow orders if you want to live. When people start picking and choosing which orders they want to follow and which they don't, discipline breaks down. When discipline breaks down, people die. That's life in the military, like it or not.

Conscript or not, throw 'em in the brig.

 

"None of the Israelis actually want to reoccupy the territories, they simply have little choice as long as the Palestinians keep attacking them. They keep trying to pull out, but they keep getting sucked back in... "


Actually Treeman, I would disagree with you to some extent. It seems to me that Sharon is using the September 11th events to continue to bulldoze homes in the Occupied Territories to build new settlements for the multitude of Jews that keep coming from Russia and other foreign reigons.

Though some leaders may be bloodthirsty, the people seem to be beginning to speak out against the illegal, occupation that's goal seems to be to "expel, starve and humiliate" a populace.

Treeman,
You continually state that the Palestinians need to stop attacking Israeli's by means of suicide bombers, yet you don't feel that bulldozing houses and asassinating leaders will perpetuate and compound this problem? I believe both sides are at fault, but the power to truly act is in the side of the Israelis. If they pulled out of the Occupied territories tommorrow, I think there is a very good chance that violence will almost come to a halt.
But Sharon does not want that, he seems to have built this hatred inside of him and will not let it subside. He continually calls Palestinian's "Animals", and in his arrogance states that the US will do what they want the US to do. He seems to not flinch that Hague wants him indicted for war crimes similar to Slobodan Milosovic and former Nazi leaders. An ego of this fashion is perpetuating the problem and if Israeli's truly want peace, they need to get him out of power.

 

khan -- everytime there is a sniff of a peace process, another suicide bomber does his work. or someone shoots up a pizzeria. this has been pretty consistent.

 

<B>khan -- everytime there is a sniff of a peace process, another suicide bomber does his work. or someone shoots up a pizzeria. this has been pretty consistent.</B>

So you let the suicide bombers win? You don't do what you want to and know is right because a small minority doesn't like it?

What if, during the civil rights era, everytime the KKK went nuts, we decided to scale back the civil rights movement? Does that make any sense?

The suicide bombers do what they do because it gets the results the want: killing the peace process. Maybe if Israel ignored them on the diplomatic level (keep going after Hamas and company militarily), their methods would prove less effective. As it is, of course they are going to keep bombing things, because it achieves the exact aim they are looking for!

Maybe this won't work -- who knows. It probably won't in fact, especially if Arafat doesn't do his share in dealing with Hamas and company, but the current strategy certainly isn't working. The only thing its doing is getting more and more people killed.

 

Another reposting from the thread by Cohen entitled approx "Why isn't this reported in our country."

An ex intelligence head of Israel says just get our of the occupied territories. Forget the old bs of waiting till the last suicide bomber quits.

Cohen, as you know we are relatively close in our viewpoints.

A few days ago I posted the story below. Unfortuantely the press in this country is not as objective on this issue as the bbc.

-------------------------------------
Interview with Ami Ayalon, Former Head of Israeli Shin Bet
An unconditional withdrawal from the Territories is urgently needed


interview by Alain Cypel, Le Monde


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This interview with Ami Ayalon, the former head if Israeli's Shin Bet, appeared in Le Monde in December 22, 2001, and wsa translated from the original French. It also appears on the very important website, Mid-East Realities (MER)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


[Small, lean, dressed in jeans and an open shirt, Ayalon speaks calmly, but forcefully. Ami Ayalon headed the Insraeli Shin Bet (internal security) from 1996 to 2000 during the Prime Ministerships of Bibi Netanayahu and Ehud Barak]

Ami Ayalon: Israeli society, top to bottom, is sinking into confusion. There are no reference points. People mask this reality with swaggering slogans: "We will vanquish terrorism!". At a colloquium, the army chief of staff declares: "We are winning"; he evokes the "superiority of Tsahal"—the Israeli army—and his "feeling that the nation is finding its strength."

Then he adds "there are today more Palestinian terrorists than a year ago" and says there will be even more tomorrow! If we are winning, how come terrorists are multiplying?

In Israel, no one is in touch with reality. This is a consequence of a misperception of the peace process. "We have been generous and they refused!" is ridiculous, and everything that follows from this misperception is skewed. Moreover, our obsession with the Palestinians makes us forget to ask questions about ourselves. What do we want to be? Where are we going? No leader addresses these questions. Thus the confusion and general anxiety.

AC: The majority of leaders though are convinced that time works in favor of Israel.

AA: Since September 11, our leaders have been euphoric. With no more international pressures on Israel, they think, the way is open. This obscures the consequences of our holding onto the Palestinian Territories.

This is not only a moral matter. Our founders saw a state that provided a homeland for Jews and was a democracy. From both points of view, time plays against us! Demographically, it works in favor of the Palestinians. And politically in favor of Hamas and the settlers. But to fight against Hamas, we must evacuate the settlers, whose proximity to the Palestinians reinforces hatred.

Among the Palestinians, the weight of the Islamists is increasing, and also that of intellectuals who used to favor a two-state solution, but who now say: "Since the Israelis will never evacuate the settlements, well, then, there will be a binational state."

This is something I absolutely oppose. It would not be a Jewish state any more. And if it remained a Jewish state while dominating the Arab population, it would not be a democracy.

AC: Do you exclude the possibility of an Israeli victory, despite the power differential?

AA: We have had our "victory"! In 1967, we occupied all the Palestinian lands. Once "terrorism is vanquished," what shall we do? This is absurd. The Palestinians want self-rule. Whoever wants to "vanquish" them, then offer them bread and circuses, understands nothing. The Israeli army is stronger than ever, our secret services are excellent; then why is the problem not resolved? Reoccupying the Palestinian Authority lands, and killing Arafat, what would that change? Those who want victory want an unending war.

AC: Yet, since September 11, many think that Israel can change the regional situation in its favor.

AA: An illusion! September 11 has changed many paradigms in the U.S., but nothing basic in the Middle East. Whatever Arafat's errors, the Palestinian people will continue to exist. As long as the Palestinian question is not resolved, the region will not know stability. Only a Palestinian state will preserve the Jewish and democratic character of Israel.

We do need international political and financial help to resolve that problem and that of the refugees, because as long as the refugee problem persists, even if a Palestinian state exists, it will poison our relationship.

AC: But the Israelis are traumatized by the Palestinian demand for the return of refugees.

AA: Let us stop worrying about what our adversaries say and ask what we, ourselves, want. We do not want the return of the refugees. But we can refuse only if Israel acknowledges unambiguously its role in the suffering of the Palestinians and its obligation to help solve the problem. Israel must accept the principle of the right of return and the PLO must commit itself to not question the Jewish identity of our state.

AC: What do you think of the view put forth by the head of Mossad of Israel in the front line of the "third world war" against terrorism?

AA: Anyone who equals Arafat with Bin Laden understand neither Arafat nor Bin Laden. The latter is the guru of a very harmful sect, but one that is very marginal to Islam; it aims to bring chaos and cares nothing about the international community. But Arafat dreams of being accepted by the international community—since 1993, he has constantly made reference to it, demanding the application of the UN resolutions, while we, Israelis, refuse! If Bin Laden is killed, his sect may disappear with him. If we kill Arafat, the Palestinian people will continue to want its independence.

AC: Do you fear that the Palestinian Territories may become a quagmire?

AA: We say the Palestinians behave like "madmen," but it is not madness but a bottomless despair. As long as there was a peace process—the prospect of an end to the occupation—Arafat could maneuver, incite or repress violence to better negotiate. When there is no more peace process, the more terrorists one kills the more strength their camp gains.

Yasser Arafat neither prepared nor triggered the Intifada. The explosion was spontaneous, against Israel, as all hope for the end of occupation disappeared, and against the Palestinian authority, its corruption, its impotence. Arafat could not repress it. The peace process is what allowed Arafat to be seen as the head of a national liberation movement rather than a collaborator of Israel. Without it, he can fight neither against the Islamists nor against his own base. The Palestinians would end up hanging him in the public square.

AC: From Oslo to Camp David, did Israel miss a rare opportunity for peace?

AA: Yes. It is not all the Israelis' fault. The Palestinians, the international community, bear some responsibility, but we missed an extraordinary opportunity: the international situation was incredibly favorable after the fall of communism, the Gulf war, the emergence of globalization, all these phenomena led Israel to reexamine its own assumptions. Now, we are regressing.

AC: Do you favor a "unilateral separation" from the Palestinians?

AA: I do not like the word separation, it reminds me of South Africa. I favor unconditional withdrawal from the Territories—preferably in the context of an agreement, but not necessarily: what needs to be done, urgently, is to withdraw from the Territories. And a true withdrawal, which gives the Palestinians territorial continuity in a Transjordan linked to Gaza, open to Egypt and Jordan. If they proclaim their own state, Israel should be the first to recognize it and to propose state to state negotiations, without conditions, on the basis of the Clinton proposals, to resolve all pending problems.

 

This is an exciting development. It might be like the birth of US opposition to the Vietnam War. It could signal the beginning of the end of Sharonism and a purely military repressive strategy.

Madmax, mentioned the Civil Rights Movement. However, he had it backwards and twisted , these soldiers are like the civil rights demonstrators who said; "even though it is the law of the land to discriminate, we are not going to the back of the bus." Trying to equate these soldiers with the KKK is ridiculous.

What these courgeous Israeli troops are doing is civil disobedience that would make Ghandi, MartinLuther King and other practioners of non-violence proud. They may very well awake the conscience of the Israeli people.

 

Madmax, my apology. It was major , not you, who I believe got it wrong by equating those brave Israeli soldiers of conscience with the KKK.

 

didn't he equate suicide bombers with the KKK (stirring stuff up to kill the peace/rights movements)

 

It's the RIGHT to protest that I feel like needs to be protected. Societies are large. Just because there are dissenters to popular opinion doesn't mean that they are suddenly a threat to turn a society to anarchy.

However, saying that those who think differently from the mainstream should be punished for their thoughts is not democracy.

 

<B>didn't he equate suicide bombers with the KKK (stirring stuff up to kill the peace/rights movements)</B>

Yeah, that was the attempted analogy. Sorry for any confusion.

 

Major and Francis for Pres, you're right. How many times am I going to have to apologize in this thread.

In my defense I'm trying to do some actual work in between posting.

 

That is so false. Recently, their had been a cease fire. The cease fire ended when the Israelis assassinated a member of Hamas.

Problem is, whether Israel likes it or not, a cease fire means "don't attack." Most of these terrorists in Palestine view themselves as soldiers in a way, in the same sense as the Israeli army, just far less powerful... which necessitates guerilla warfare. If attacking a soldier in the Israeli army is illegitimate, then attacking a member of Hamas should be as well.

Otherwise, what the hell's the point of a cease fire?

Besides, the bulldozing of homes is absolutely despicable in every sense of the word. I challenge you to defend this.

 

February 1, 2002
Israeli Army Chief to Punish Conscientious Objectors
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

JERUSALEM (AP) -- Israel's army chief indicated tough action would be taken against a group of reserve soldiers and officers who refused to serve in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, saying Friday that their refusal is an incitement to rebellion.

Last week, 52 reservists from front-line combat units published a petition in Israeli newspapers declaring their refusal to serve in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The petition, appearing on the group's Web site, has since grown to 110.

The petition has set off the most intense debate yet in Israel about the military's actions in the West Bank and Gaza Strip during the past 16 months of fighting with the Palestinians. Some of those signing the petition said they were greatly troubled by orders given to them. One soldier said he was court-martialed after refusing to fire from a machine gun at a civilian area.

Ami Ayalon, former chief of Israel's Shin Bet security service, said Friday that while soldiers should not refuse to serve, they should decline to carry out orders they consider immoral.

``I'm worried about how few refusals (of orders) there are by soldiers in the army,'' Ayalon told Israel TV's Channel Two. ``To shoot a youth who is unarmed is a blatantly illegal order. The number of children who have been killed in the last year and a half worries me greatly. ... In each case, was there no other choice? Did we have to shoot in order to kill? That's a question that should worry us all.''

The armed forces chief, Lt. Gen. Shaul Mofaz, defended the army's performance. ``Few armies in the world can say that their soldiers ... are functioning on the ground with the moral and value level of the Israeli Defense Forces,'' he said.

Mofaz said senior officers among the conscientious objectors would face suspension and removal from their positions. ``If they are noncompliant at that point, we have ways to deal with them,'' he said.
``In my eyes, it's more than refusal to serve, it's incitement to rebellion,'' Mofaz told Channel Two. ``It's a grave, unprecedented act.''

The group says its aim is to sign up 500 reservists and to prod the government to withdraw troops from the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

``We are willing to serve in the (army) as a defense force but not as an occupation force,'' Amit Moshiach, a spokesman for the soldiers who signed the petition, told Israel Radio.

In a declaration published with the petition, the group said it is willing to carry out any mission in defense of the state -- but that Israel's presence in the West Bank and Gaza ``does not serve this purpose.''

The occupation is corrupting Israeli society and causing the army to lose its ``humane character,'' the statement said.
There have been relatively few conscientious objectors in Israel. The group that came forward last week was the largest since the current round of fighting began.

In the past five days, over 5,000 reserve combat soldiers have signed a counter-petition protesting the call not to serve in the West Bank and Gaza, said Nir Aboohdrahan, one of the organizers.

Most Israeli men do three years of compulsory army service, and are expected to do about a month of reserve duty per year until their mid-40s.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Israel-Military.html

 

The objectors are outnumbered 50 to 1. That is a very small minority. I wonder how many of the soldiers refusing to deploy have had family/friends killed by Hamas/IJ.

 

jeff -

i'm all for the ability to protest against the majority view...just not in the context of carrying out your duties in the military.

 

I'd say 1:50 have had family/friends killed by Hamas/Islamic Jehad