Shouting Fire!: An Israeli conscientious objector...

Anyone who has visited the West Bank in the last 40 years has gone past a good number of Israel Defense Force (IDF) soldiers. Toting automatic rifles and dressed in combat fatigues, they are a constant presence at hundreds of checkpoints, controlling the flow of people throughout much of the occupied territory.

For Americans, after the guilty realization that your passport allows you to bypass a long line of Palestinians, what comes as a surprise is how young the Israeli soldier at the checkpoint is. If you think that he or she just graduated from high school, you’re probably right — conscription (three years for men, two years for women) is mandatory for most Jewish Israelis after 12th grade.

This fact didn’t stop Maya Wind, who spoke at SIPA on Tuesday, from refusing to enlist in the IDF when she graduated from high school last year. Continuing a small but stubborn tradition of Israeli conscientious objection, Wind and nine other shministim — a Hebrew word meaning “12th-graders” — sent a letter to their prime minister and defense minister explaining their refusal to enlist as a protest against the Israeli military occupation of Palestinian territory. They wrote, in part: More...

www.WhyWeRefuse.org

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