Israeli Soldiers Refuse to Serve in West Bank, Gaza
By Lee Hockstader
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, January 28, 2002
JERUSALEM, Jan. 28 – More than 60 Israeli army reservists, half officers and all of them combat veterans, have publicly refused to continue serving in the West Bank and Gaza Strip on the grounds that Israeli occupation forces there are abusing and humiliating Palestinians.
"We will no longer fight beyond the Green Line for the purpose of occupying, deporting, destroying, blockading, killing, starving and humiliating an entire people," declared the petition signed by the reservists and published in Israel's best-selling daily newspaper, Yedioth Ahronoth.
Over the years there have been instances of eligible Israelis declining to serve in the army at all, or refusing to serve in certain places for reasons of conscience or politics. What makes the current case unusual is that so many combat reservists, both soldiers and officers, have come forward publicly at one time.
Moreover, the organizers of the petition – a pair of reserve lieutenants in their twenties who have served previous stints in the Israeli-occupied territories – say their goal is to collect 500 signatures in the coming weeks and launch a broad social campaign.
"We all have limits," reserve Lt. David Zonshein, 28, a software engineer and one of the two men who drafted the petition, told Yedioth. "You can be the best officer, always be first .‚.‚. and suddenly you are asked to do things that should not be asked of you – to shoot people, to stop ambulances, to destroy houses in which you don't know if there are people living."
Zonshein, who wrote the petition with reserve Lt. Yaniv Itzkovich, 26, a university teaching assistant, declined to speak with foreign correspondents. But along with several other signatories of the petition, they told Yedioth about incidents in which Israeli troops had opened fire on Palestinian children and other civilians who posed no apparent danger to their lives.
In a statement, the Israeli army said: "To serve in the Israeli Defense Forces is obligatory under the law and there is no place for reserve soldiers to choose what jobs they want and what jobs they don't want. The writers of the petition don't represent the soldiers and officers of the reserve who understand their mission and are working days and nights toward the security of the state of Israel and peace for its citizens."
Most Israeli men are required to serve as army reservists until they are 45 years old, typically spending a few weeks to a month or more each year away from their families and civilian jobs.
Raanan Gissin, spokesman for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, acknowledged that allegations of abuse by the army do happen and should be investigated, but he dismissed the petition and refusals to serve in the army as a "marginal phenomenon."
The petition "undermines the basic tenet of Israeli democracy," he said. "You can't have a government in which people can decide they'll .‚.‚. bomb this target but not that target. You abide by the rule of the majority and the majority has decided this is the government and this is its policy."
Since the current Palestinian armed uprising erupted in September 2000, more than 500 Israelis have refused to serve in the Israeli occupied territories, including pacifists and veterans, recruits and reservists, according to There's a Limit, an Israeli group that encourages such objectors.
Of that number, about 40 have been sentenced to prison terms that are generally brief, including 12 reserve officers. Others have been ignored or given army jobs inside Israel.
Ram Rahat, 45, a former combat soldier who refused to serve during Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982, said the current refusals mirror patterns that emerged in previous conflicts.
"This says that people who have gone through [army reserve duty] a couple of times, going through the territories and seeing the reality of what's going on there, are starting to get fed up with it," said Rahat, who is an accountant. "It's exactly what happened in the first intifada as well. As more and more people did reserve duty and came back for their second and third tours, there were more and more cases of refusal."