Netanyahu's Nephew Jailed over Refusal to Join 'Israeli Occupation Army'
Tuesday, December 10 2002
"Artzi hates war and would rather spend time in jail than serve in the army. But, he is not just any conscientious objector, he's the nephew .."
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM - The Israeli army sentenced Jonathan Ben Artzi to a 35-day prison term Sunday, December 8, for refusing to serve in the army, his sixth sentence since he was first jailed on August 8. He has since spent 126 days in prison, in what his father says is a record in Israel for a conscientious objector.
Artzi hates war and would rather spend time in jail than serve in the army. But, he is not just any conscientious objector, he's the nephew of Israel's ultra-nationalist foreign minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).
For the same reasons, the army handed a 28-day prison term to Uri Yaacobi, who has already spent 106 days behind bars.
Israelis are called to arms when they turn 18. Men serve for three years and women for 21 months, while ultra-Orthodox Jews are exempted on religious grounds.
"Yoni", 20, is the youngest son of the Ben Artzi family, who divide their time between occupied Jerusalem, France and the United States.
Before leaving Israel to work in New York, both his brother and his sister completed their compulsory military service in Israel.
"But they weren't very enthusiastic either," said the father, Matania Ben Artzi, who served 13 years in the army, first in an elite unit and then as a mathematician for military scientific research.
His wife Ofra was also in the army when they met, but she was the one who turned him into a pacifist. Jonathan has always been revolted by violence and everything related to the army, AFP said.
"His first real shock came when he was 12," his father recounted.
"We were visiting the Verdun battle field in France and the sight of those endless crosses and the ossuary with the remains of 150,000 unknown soldiers killed in World War I had a traumatic effect on him."
During his time in high school in occupied Jerusalem, he actively promoted issues linked to pacifism.
He enjoyed sports but refused to learn karate, and one day even gave up on a school outing because the bus had to drive through the Palestinian territories, where the army had imposed a curfew.
"Already back then, it was his way of protesting against the Israeli army's occupation of the Palestinian territories," his mother said.
It came as no surprise when at the age of 17, Jonathan refused to join up after receiving his first conscription call.
"He didn't even try to be exempted for medical reasons or anything else," his father said. "He demanded, in vain, the right to be a civilian conscript and even insisted on his pacifism to publicize his struggle."
Jonathan is slowly making a name for himself in Israel, where conscientious objectors are few and far between. The young man even went as far as dragging the army in front of the supreme court, although nothing came of it.
"In a country where the army is divine and sacred, he's more than a traitor," the father said, charging that "Israeli democracy is nothing more than a facade."
During a recent family diner, Netanyahu, who is married to the sister of Jonathan's father and leads the ultra-nationalist camp in the right-wing Likud party, briefly broached the sensitive issue: "Maybe you'll change your mind".
In his army years, the charismatic nationalist politician served in the elite Sayeret Matkal unit. His brother commanded the same unit when he was killed in a 1976 rescue mission on a hijacked plane in Entebbe, Uganda.
But his notorious uncle's gentle prodding did not shake Jonathan's determination. Quite the opposite.
A mathematics student in occupied Jerusalem, he has taken up law on the side. On Sunday he told his parents he intended to lodge an appeal over his jail sentence with the International Court of Justice in The Hague.