Why I won't serve Sharon
Shlomi Segall
Thursday July 04 2002
The Guardian
It is remarkable how easily one learns to live with occupation. When I
was born, the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories was
already three years old. When I became 18 the occupation was still in
full force, only by then the Palestinians had had enough of it. That
was the first intifada. I was there, along with many others, ready to
serve as the iron fist to crush the Palestinian resistance. Elsewhere
people our age contemplated going to university or travelling around
the world, but I and many young Israelis found ourselves in the narrow
alleys of Jebaliya and other refugee camps. We should have known
better, but almost without exception we didn't.
Nearly eight years later I was still serving in the occupied
territories, this time as a reserve soldier. I was manning a
roadblock, stopping Palestinians from entering Israel en route to
their low paid jobs in the Israeli "slave market". I remember talking
to a friend, trying to justify why I'd collaborated with a policy that
denied a Palestinian father the only means of bringing food to his
children.
No more. No more excuses. We members of Courage to Refuse, reserve
soldiers who have vowed not to serve in the occupied territories, will
not set foot beyond the 1967 line unless it is in civilian clothes and
as invited guests.
Ariel Sharon will tell you that Israel is fighting a war for its
survival against a bloodthirsty enemy. Not so. Sharon and his cronies
are fighting a colonial war to keep their pet settlement project in
place, to perpetuate the Israeli occupation and the subjugation of the
Palestinian territories. It is a one-sided war with a not-so-covert
purpose of destroying any hope of a Palestinian homeland and
independent national life.
Any suicide attack within Israel, deplorable as it is, is used by
Sharon as a pretext for inflicting ever-increasing misery on the 3.5
million inhabitants of Palestine. And if suicide attacks are not
forthcoming, you can count on Sharon to provoke them with his
so-called "targeted killings", which usually leave alleged terrorists
unharmed but often leave women and children dead.
In this so-called war, any pretext is used to inflict a second Nakba
(the catastrophe of 1948) on the Palestinians. Just look at the wanton
destruction of the Palestinian ministry of culture, the bureau of
statistics, the ministry of education; look at the destruction of such
national symbols as the Palestinian international airport and the
Voice of Palestine radio station, not to mention the shameful episode
of Arafat's virtual house arrest. All this is aimed not at some
terrorist infrastructure but at the basic foundations of a society
struggling to attain independence and develop its future from under
the Israeli army boot. This is something conscientious Israelis are no
longer willing to take part in.
Sharon's strength is in turning Israeli society into an obedient
herd. He did that remarkably well 20 years ago, leading us into
Lebanon. No more. Sharon should know that he cannot count on us to
fight his war any more.
True, today we don't have the 400,000 Israelis who swarmed the streets
in protest, sending Sharon home after the terrible massacre of Sabra
and Chatila. But when Sharon looks over his shoulder he no longer sees
an entire enlisted Israeli society mobilised behind him; he sees 467
combat soldiers and officers who are not willing to take part in this
colonial campaign and more than 80 conscientious objectors, jailed by
the state they so faithfully served.
In the refuseniks, Sharon sees dangerous determination, he sees the
unherding of the herd. And he is afraid. University lecturers who
support us are threatened with dismissal, artists who sympathise with
us are boycotted. Sharon and his generals won't admit it, but they are
afraid of us - the privates, the sergeants and the corporals.
Although Sharon and his government are the elected and legitimate
representatives of the state of Israel, he and his generals do not
represent the basic values that Israelis, Jews and Arabs, stand
for. So to criticise the current government of Israel is not to attack
the people of Israel, and it is definitely not anti-semitic. It is not
up to Sharon, the "hero" of such human catastrophes as Kibya (1953),
Sabra and Chatila (1982), and Jenin (2002), to tell anyone what it is
and is not to be Jewish.
By branding any criticism of the suffering he inflicts on the
Palestinians as anti-semitic, Sharon is enlisting something sacred for
the vile colonial and expansionist ends he pursues. People in Britain,
Jews and non-Jews alike, should not lend a hand to such a despicable
attempt to desecrate the memory of Jewish suffering, and to use it to
justify the oppression of another people.
Shlomi Segall is a reserve staff sergeant in the Israeli
paratroopers and a member of Courage to Refuse.
He will be speaking at Israel/ Palestine, a day of talks and debate at
the ICA on July 7.
Copyright Guardian Newspapers Limited
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : 11-07-02 MET DST