 Laurina's Palestine Travelogues | | | |
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| Page Views: 698 Last Visit to Palestine: 2002 | Soldiers are human too... by Laurina - last update: Sep 2, 2002 |
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<title>If nearly a hundred Israeli soldiers are admitting to the injustice in
the Occupied Palestinian Territories by refusing to serve there</title>
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<p align="center"><b><font size="5" face="Verdana" color="#669999">ISRAELIS REFUSE TO SERVE THE OCCUPATION</font></b></p>
<p><font face="Verdana" color="#660033">If nearly a hundred Israeli soldiers are admitting to the injustice in the Occupied Palestinian Territories by refusing to serve there AND are encouraging other soldiers to do the same, doesn’t that point to the immorality of the continuing occupation?
Israeli soldiers who have recently wrote a leaflet stating their stand. Palestinian children have been handing it to other Israeli soldiers. You can see the text below.
Some of them are refusing to serve an unjust occupation. Many of them must now serve 28-day jail
sentences and are considered a "threat to democracy". What about the threat to sanity and people's lives? On both sides? Doesn't that count?</font></p>
<p><font face="Verdana" color="#660033">I used to live in Ramallah and my Palestinian friends would tell me horror stories about the first intifada when Ramallah was under occupation by the Israeli army: 24-hour curfews, no access to schools, hospitals, kids shot in the back, young men taken from their homes in the middle of the night - taken away from their families and tortured. Funny, then there was no such thing as suicide attacks.</font></p>
<p><font face="Verdana" color="#660033">And now the unimaginable has happened, or what I thought was unimaginable: My former hometown is again invaded by an army. </font></p>
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<p align="center"><b><font face="Verdana" color="#0000FF">SOLDIER</font><font face="Verdana" color="#660033">
We all want to defend our country.
We’re all sick and tired of terrorism.
We all want peace.
But do our actions permit an end to the cycle of bloodshed?
Since 1967, Israel has ruled over 3.5 million Palestinians, running
their lives by means of a forcible occupation, with continual
violations of human rights.
The occupation regime has merely exacerbated Israel’s security
problems; at this time, it endangers the life of each one of its
citizens, yours included!
</font><font face="Verdana" color="#00FFFF">SOLDIER</font><font face="Verdana" color="#660033">,
it’s in your hands!
Ask yourself whether your actions in the course of your military
service enhance national security? Or do those actions merely fuel the
enmity and the acts of violence between us and our Palestinian
neighbours?
</font><font face="Verdana" color="#339933">YOU CAN STOP THE VIOLENCE</font><font face="Verdana" color="#660033">
</font><font face="Verdana" color="#0000FF">
</font><font face="Verdana" color="#CC00CC">SOLDIER: THE OCCUPATION
BREEDS TERRORISM</font><font face="Verdana" color="#660033">
When you take part in extra-judicial killings ("liquidation" in the
army’s terms);
When you take part in demolishing residential homes;
When you open fire at unarmed civilian population or residential
homes;
When you uproot orchards;
When you interdict food supplies or medical treatment?
</font><font face="Verdana" color="#0000FF">YOU ARE TAKING PART IN
ACTIONS DEFINED IN INTERNATIONAL CONVENTIONS (SUCH AS THE FOURTH
GENEVA CONVENTION) AND IN ISRAELI LAW, AS WAR CRIMES.</font><font face="Verdana" color="#660033">
As far back as 40 years ago, an Israeli court ruled that a soldier is
forbidden to obey a flagrantly illegal order.
Soldier, do you consider such war crimes justifiable?
Don’t acts of "liquidation" provoke suicide bombings?
Is it justifiable to demolish the homes and vandalise the property of
entire families?
Can one justify the killing of children, women, old people - or,
overall, of unarmed civilians?
What are the "security" grounds to justify starving entire villages
and depriving the sick of medical care?
Soldier: don’t these daily acts of repression, which are part of the
routine of the occupation, curfew and blockade, land confiscation,
preventing people from working or studying, the run-around and
humiliation at the roadblocks and the violent searches in Palestinian
homes, fuel hatred of us?
</font><font face="Verdana" color="#FF0000">END THE OCCUPATION? END
THE CYCLE OF BLOODSHED!
</font><font face="Verdana" color="#CC0000">SOLDIER: THE OCCUPATION
CAUSES LOSS OF LIFE</font><font face="Verdana" color="#660033">
Even the heads of the defence establishment concede that there is no
military solution to terrorism.
"All the preventative work we’ve done this past year is like trying to
empty out the sea with a teaspoon," a senior security official
admitted. ("Haaretz", 19.12.2001)
Ami Ayalon, former head of the Shabak security police, says: "An
ideology can’t be killed by killing leaders."
Soldier, is there a people anywhere in the world that will not resist
an occupation regime?
If you were in the Palestinians’ shoes, would you be willing to bow
your head to a foreign ruler?
Two years ago, we were convinced that the occupation of southern
Lebanon was vital for
our security. Twenty years ago, we were certain that our occupation of
the Sinai peninsula guaranteed our security.
But thanks to termination of our occupation of those areas, we have
avoided shedding the blood of our soldiers.
Since the onset of the current intifada, over a thousand Israelis and
Palestinians have been killed, most of them unarmed civilians taking
no part in the fighting. As long as we hold on to the occupied
Palestinian territories, we will continue to shed our own blood and
that of the Palestinians.
</font><font face="Verdana" color="#339933">END THE OCCUPATION, END
THE BLOODSHED!</font><font face="Verdana" color="#660033">
</font><font face="Verdana" color="#FF0066">SOLDIER: THE OCCUPATION
UNDERMINES OUR COUNTRY
</font><font face="Verdana" color="#660033">
We are all concerned for the wellbeing of the state of Israel. We all
want the state to invest more in education, social services, health,
and development of our infrastructure.
But to maintain the occupation, the state spends billions on upkeep of
the army in the territories, on settlements, on laying bypass roads
and all the rest.
The state is cutting back on civilian services to enlarge the military
budget.
The occupation, and the violence that it prompts, drag the economy
down into recession.
Investors are in flight, tourists stay away, entire sections of the
economy are in collapse.
Wouldn’t it be preferable to use the money to reinforce our social
structures?
Wouldn’t it be preferable to channel the funds to our crumbling health
and education systems?
Is it just to neglect the aged, the handicapped and the unemployed in
favour of further settlements?
</font><font face="Verdana" color="#0000FF">END THE OCCUPATION, PUBLIC
ALLOTMENTS TO THE DISADVANTAGED, NOT THE SETTLEMENTS!</font><font face="Verdana" color="#660033">
</font><font face="Verdana" color="#FF0000">SOLDIER, THE OCCUPATION
UNDERMINES THE ARMY</font><font face="Verdana" color="#660033">
The occupation is harmful to the army and its soldiers. Training is
called off because soldiers spend so much time on routine duty in the
territories, guarding settlements, protecting highways, and forays
into Palestinian towns and villages.
Soldiers are required to serve under inhuman conditions, like the four
soldiers of the armour corps who spent 234 uninterrupted hours in
their tank. In order to sustain the occupation, they weren’t even
allowed out to relieve themselves.
Military sources admit the occupation routine subjects soldiers to
exhaustion, and exhaustion leads to a decline in fitness and causes
accidents.
Wouldn’t it be better to dedicate the time to the country’s real
defence needs?
Ending the occupation will restore the army’s combat readiness.
Wouldn’t it be better to reduce the burden borne by reservists and
grant conscripts better conditions?
</font><font face="Verdana" color="#339933">END THE OCCUPATION, REDUCE
MILITARY SERVICE TO TWO YEARS!!
</font><font face="Verdana" color="#660033">
</font><font face="Verdana" color="#FF0066">CUT DOWN THE BURDEN OF
RESERVE DUTY!!</font><font face="Verdana" color="#660033">
</font><font face="Verdana" color="#3333CC">SOLDIER</font><font face="Verdana" color="#660033">
There are acts that decent people don’t commit, even if they’re given
orders! Decent people don’t demolish homes; they don’t kill children,
women and babies; they don’t starve the neighbouring people, and don’t
deny medical care to people just like you and me.
Such conduct weakens our country’s moral fibre.
These acts are actually harmful, even if we’re told they’re for
"security purposes". Every "liquidation" (killing) prompts a bombing.
The child you wounded today is tomorrow’s terrorist.
Anyone concerned for national security won’t do things that fuel
terrorism.
</font><font face="Verdana" color="#669999">SOLDIER, IT’S IN YOUR
HANDS</font><font face="Verdana" color="#660033">
We don’t have a surefire recipe. Make up your own mind, guided by your
conscience, your feelings, your convictions. We can?t take the
decision for you. We can only tell you that many, very many soldiers,
have said "NO !" to war crimes!
From the Lebanon war, right up to the present intifada, thousands of
soldiers, conscripts and reservists, have plucked up the courage to
say "NO!"
Anyone who decides to refuse, reaches that decision on his own. But
when
he does make up his mind, he will find us extending a helping hand,
offering advice, support and help.</font></b></div>
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<p><font face="Verdana" color="#669999"><i>"For those who gird on implement of
war,
And that includes us,
Whether in fact,
Or by an acquiescent slap on the back,
Are propelled,
Mumbling, necessity, or 'revenge',
Into the domain of war criminals."</i></font><font face="Verdana" color="#660033"><b>
</b></font><font face="Verdana" color="#669999"><i>--Nathan Alterman, 1948</i></font></p>
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 Comments for Laurina about Palestine | | | | |
SLLiew Fri Jan 9, 2009 18:59 UTC
Thanks for sharing your experience in Palestine. It is very educational. | mfas2000 Mon Jun 16, 2008 08:41 UTC
visit my newly formed Palestine page..regds | rob12c Tue Jun 10, 2008 10:53 UTC
hey loved your tips. really makes me want to visit palestine which i hope to do some day. | JohnniOmani Fri May 9, 2008 03:41 UTC
Amazing you certainly understand the people. I too lived in a tiny village in the Middle East (Oman for 3 yrs) and my experiences are unforgettable. Lovely people. Jz |
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