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Info 20 from Friendship Village
- Subject: Info 20 from Friendship Village
- From: "Jonatan Peled" <peled_j at maabarot.org.il>
- Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2001 01:01:33 +0200
Info 20. From the burning Middle - East . . . Dear Friends ! Six weeks passed since my last "Info". Along these weeks I was abroad, then the Pesach and Easter holidays came - and still nothing changed in our region. The violent, bloody conflict between Israel and the Palestinian people is going on and nobody can see when and how it will finish. On the surface the two peoples entrench in their fears and hatred, but some underground streams can be felt in the Israeli public. Unfortunately opposition to occupation and oppression of the Palestinian people is expressed openly by just a minority in the Israeli Jewish public, but alienation of a growing part of its elite and leading strata, from the political leadership's policy is expressed more and more openly through evasion of more and more youngsters from military service and - lately - an outcry from within the hard core of the IDF "reservists" against absence of equality in distribution of this heavy burden among all the relevant population. When the late Yitzhak Rabin was asked, why did he change his mind so totally and accepted to negotiate with the Palestinians, his answer was, that he didn't believe any more in the ability of the Israeli people to live in a constant state of war. He prefered to negotiate for peace, when the Israeli society was still strong. I have no doubt, that if the IDF "reservists" would believe that the war was for the defence of our country, our homes, if the youngsters that try every way to abstain from drafting the Army would feel that the military service was a matter of survival - all of them would go, without any reservation, to defend the society. When the army is used on the first place for the oppression of another people, it is less and less conceived as something of positive value. When people feel that we go to unneccessary wars, they are less ready to risk their lives (or even their well being...). And if reserve service doesn't serve any more the security of the country, if it is conceived as a "job that has to be done" - than quite naturally they demand in return a higher payment. The real danger in this process is, that in the reality of our region the Army is - unfortunately - still neccessary. Periodical wars brake out from time to time between neighbours all over the Middle - East. The intellectual elites in the Arab world still boycot every idea of accepting Israel ; a non-arab, non-Moslem state in this area, so in the unfortunate political reality no country - first of all not Israel - can give up its army, as an instrument of self-defense. The conclusion is, that to use the IDF as an instrument for occupation and oppression of another nation, weekens the ability of the Israeli society to withstand real dangers for its survival, if and when they will come. In other words - the oppressive fighting against the Palestinian People, neccessarily weekens the Israeli society, therefore it may be dangerous for its future, if a real threaten will appear. In this Info three articles are presented to you: 1 - Two of them about the crisis in the IDF reser service 2 - An article of Prof. Baruch Kimmerling, about "The right to resist". Prof. Kimmerling is one of the most outstanding authority for Law in Israel. The articles can be found also on the webpages: http://friendshipvillage.homestead.com/ArticlesApril126Reservists.html ; http://friendshipvillage.homestead.com/Home.html ; On the http://friendshipvillage.homestead.com/Home.html you can find a lot of updated information about peace activities in Israel, in the U.S., even in Australia. All this in addition to relevant documents, articles - and description of the "Friendship Village" Project. Jonatan Peled Friendship Village Crisis in reserve duty Haaretz Editorial 9 April 2001 Israel's defense strategy assumes that the country will always find itself in a situation where few will have to face many and there will always be a shortage of resources. As such, it has consistently relied on calling up reservists. In addition to a small core of career officers (mostly in intelligence, air force and the navy), and the conscripts, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) rely on about 30 years of reserve duty for men, especially during periods of crisis. During the initial weeks of the violent confrontation which began in September 2000, the General Staff avoided calling up reservists. There were various reasons for this - security, economic and social. The IDF feared that calling up reserves on a massive scale would be interpreted in Arab states as Israel planning an offensive. From an economic point of view, the IDF was keen on sticking to its deal with the Finance Ministry, under which all funds saved from paying for reserve duty days would be transferred to the budget of the military. Also taken into account was the impact on Israeli society of reserve duty during a violent clash with Palestinian society: the longer the confrontation, and by extension, the greater demands for reserve duty time, the more Israeli society as a whole would be challenged. The concerns were realized as the confrontation lengthened and the call-up of reservists increased, so that field units would be able to rest and train. Reservists are being pulled from their homes, their businesses, their studies, for difficult and dangerous service; five reservists have already been killed. Plans to shorten reserve duty and use it for training purposes only, while canceling any call-ups of those 41 and older belonging to field units (except in the case of war), were shelved - as was the plan to shorten the period of service for conscripts. The call-up of reservists is not across the board, and therefore - contrary to other periods, such as on the eve of the Six-Day War - the Israeli economy will hold its own without pressuring the country's political and military leadership to put an end to the confrontation, either by agreement or war. However, in the absence of a general call-up lies the problem: the majority, who are not being called up, carry on with their lives and routines, and the minority who are being called up face hardships and dangers. This situation of inequality cannot continue for months and perhaps even years. The first bitter voices are already being heard, and these will grow louder - and may even adopt a political tone - if the public's elected representatives do not heed them. Addressing the issue of the reservists demands a two-pronged solution. The first part is a more equitable conscription system for mandatory service, and as an extension, during later years in the reserves. The distortion is all too painful when the Knesset and government representatives of those who avoid conscription pass legislation which only adds to the burden carried by those who serve. The second tangent, which is necessary, but in and of itself is insufficient, is softening the blow to the lives of reservists - financially, professionally and academically - and paying detailed attention to the problems which their service involves. Israeli society has adopted a nonchalant approach to those in uniform and in its service. The reserve duty crisis is nothing like the strike of the garbage collectors: Garbage accumulates in piles over a number of days, and then everything returns to normal. Ignoring reservists, compared to the favoritism which those avoiding conscription and their representatives receive in politics, is causing serious harm to Israeli society. If this is not fixed soon, the damage may turn out to be irreversible. Reservists of the IDF, unite! By Avirama Golanmailto:golan at haaretz.co.il Haaretz 22 April 2001 For more than four years the Forum of Battalion Commanders failed in its efforts to get the authorities to pay heed to their serious complaints about the reserve duty system in the Israel Defense Forces. Now, suddenly, everyone knows who the members of the forum are. In the past couple of months, nearly every politician in the country has been looking for a solution to the problems of the IDF's reservists. And this, thanks not to the battalion commanders but to the Wake-Up organization, which pulled the rug from under their feet. That's too bad, because the Forum of Battalion Commanders is a serious, responsible group which does not encourage shirking, whereas the struggle of the Wake-Up group is not exclusively focused on the collapse of the reserves system or with the inequality in the draft. Its members organized, under the glare of a smooth media campaign, in reaction to the recommendations of the commission headed by retired Supreme Court Justice Zvi Tal, which sought a solution for the army service of ultra-Orthodox men. Now they are riding the coattails of the security crisis, which has heightened the distress of the few who bear the heavy burden of army service. The evasion by the Haredim and the cynical support their attitude receives from their representatives in the Knesset is outrageous, but this is not the reason the complaints of the reservists have increased lately. The roots of the feeling of discrimination harbored by those who report for reserve duty run deep, but in an area which the Wake-Up group does not even try to reach. In the main, it is due to the ongoing failure of the IDF to impose order in the reserves system and its capitulation to the process of creeping evasion among broad - too broad - sections of the public. Everyone who does reserve duty is familiar with the phenomenon: he fails to report for duty once or twice, is summoned to a disciplinary hearing, gets a few reprimands and a few beseeching phone calls - and then he is bothered no more. Evasion in the course of active service is also well-known: the situation heats up, a few soldiers declare that they are unwilling to risk their lives and the company commander, who has been worn down by arguments, gives in. Let them go. Who's left? The suckers who believe that it is their obligation to do their duty. The result, says the Forum of Battalion Commanders, is the erosion of the moral foundation that enabled them to persuade soldiers to report for reserve duty. If only 30 percent of the reservists bear 80 percent of the burden of reserve service, and only one of every 22 men of reserve service age does more than 26 days a year in the reserves, and only one of every 10 men is called to service in combat units or combat-support units, then a combat reservist who is supposed to serve 30 to 42 days (the expectation for this year) has to be a true sucker indeed to leave his family and his occupation, not to mention to risk his life. But this is only the tip of the iceberg. The truly significant tension has for some time been apparent not between the reservists and the shirkers, but within the reserve units themselves, and its root cause is economic inequality. It is precisely when everyone is dressed in an identical uniform that the gap is very pronounced between those who arrive at the base in a luxury car, equipped with a mobile phone and a laptop computer, and maintains constant contact with home and darts out to restaurants in the area and for quick leaves - and those who make the trip to the base by bus and for whom it's not economically worthwhile to make a long trip home for a 48-hour leave. In many bases the phenomenon of selling guard duty for hundreds of shekels is rampant. In recent years reserve duty has become a matter for salaried people only: The motivation of the self-employed to evade reserve duty is too great. The crisis of reserve duty thus reflects the loss of solidarity and the vast disparities within the entire society, and because this is so, the attempt by the Wake-Up organization to come up with quick solutions is yet another manifestation of the problem itself. Instead of addressing the ills of society and the roots of the crisis, the members of this organization - who look like the youth movement of the Shinui party - prefer to represent the reservists as a sector with demands (including the threat of organized evasion) and to hang the entire problem on the dubious peg of hate of the ultra-Orthodox. Those who do reserve duty certainly deserve to be compensated, but the present crisis does not have one specific solution. As long as the IDF has not decided - despite the dramatic changes in the political-security situation - whether it is continuing to define itself as the people's army or is deploying differently as a small, professional force, as some of chiefs of staff thought was the case in the past, and as long as Israeli society has not defined its socio-economic order of priorities within the framework of a civil welfare state - until that happens, only the suckers, the extremists and the weak will continue to do reserve duty. The right to resist By Baruch Kimmerling Haaretz 27 March 2001 As difficult as it may be for us, it's important to make clear the political, legal and moral reality in its historical context: Since 1967, millions of Palestinians have been under a military occupation, without any civil rights with, and most lacking even the most basic human rights. The continuing circumstances of occupation and repression give them, by any measure, the right to resist that occupation with any means at their disposal and to rise up in violence against that occupation. This is a moral right inherent to natural law and international law.The problem is worsened by physical proximity, in which the two populations live next door to one another, and how that imposes itself on the form of fighting. Indiscriminate Palestinian terrorism against civilian populations in the heart of Israel is immoral, and has a boomerang effect. It increases anger and hatred in the Jewish community and blocks the possibility that an empathetic, rational view can be taken of rightful! Palestinian demands. The terrorism also serves as a political tool, consciously used by cynical politicians on the right, and lately by some leading army commanders, to torpedo any possibility of agreements between Israel and the Palestinians. Furthermore, steps initiated by the army and the settlers often result in the indiscriminate killing of Palestinians, which is equally unacceptable by any human measure. Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed and thousands wounded since the outbreak of the Al-Aqsa Intifada in late September. Israel now turns frequently to collective punishments - sieges and carving up of Palestinian territory - that are expressedly forbidden by international law and convention. And Israel uses personal terrorism against those it defines as field commanders of the Palestinian uprising. The Palestinian right to resist the occupation is strengthened by the Fourth Geneva Convention's ban on creating irreversible facts on the ground in occupied territories, and especially the ban on transferring populations from the occupying state to the territories it has conquered. Israel's claim that it is not an occupier - because there was no sovereignty over those lands since the British left in 1948, and the Palestinians rejected the 1948 partition plan - is at best, dodgy. According to the High Court of Justice, which is well aware of the Fourth Geneva Convention, all the settlements over the Green Line were built for "security" reasons, which is the loophole Israel found in international law to justify their construction. The second "legal" loophole used by Israel is that it does not expropriate private property, only establishing settlements on "state lands." Since 1967, more than 60 percent of the West Bank has been defined as "state lands," which in effect has meant selective, de facto annexation of the territories. This "legal" step was made possible because most of the land was not properly listed in the books - whether Ottoman, British or Jordanian. But all those governments recognized the traditional ownership of the territory's farmers. Israel made an unprecedented land grab in the 1980s, when it surveyed the entire territory, compared its findings to the tabu (land registration documents), and declared everything unlisted as state property - without allowing local inhabitants prove their ownership and record their holdings. Thus, the legality and morality of all the Jewish settlements and holdings in the territories is highly doubtful. Several phenomena have dulled Israel's political and more senses. Until the end of 1987, Palestinian resistance to the occupation was only a minor discord. Israeli society enjoyed the fruits of the "permanent temporary" occupation without paying any significant and immediate price for it. Under such circumstances it was easy to combine nationalist-religious messianism, Likud-style secular chauvinism, and the security-above-all ideology of Mapai and Ahdut Avoda to conquer Israel's political culture. Even today, most of the public simply does not know that every violent step taken against the Palestinians - let alone the aggregate of those steps - borders on war crimes, and cannot see the black flag of illegality flying over each of those steps. A state that regards itself as enlightened cannot behave like a terror-state, even if it suffers from terrorism. Statesmen, generals and simple citizens must see that black flag before it's too late and we are all stained with the blackest of the black
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