(some of the 2010 shministim, right: Or Ben-David, currently in prison)

Want to support the Shministim? Organize a demo this January 9th!

If you would like to arrange such a demo, or if you know someone who will, please email shministim10 at gmail.com

More info here: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/event.php?eid=228763641008&ref=mf

(If you are in the San Francisco/Bay Area, please join Dialogues Against Militarism and friends this Saturday,  January 9th, at the Ferry Building Farmers’ Market — Embarcadero BART Station in SF — at 11 a.m. for a solidarity party for imprisoned war resisters. More info: clare at collectiveliberation.org)

After four prison terms, Israeli conscientious objector Mia Tamarin was finally discharged from the Israeli military.

She received a “profile 21″, a code used by the military of Israel to classify Israelis who are deemed to have physical or psychological disabilities making them permanently unfit for military service.

With her discharge from military service, the vicious cycle of imprisonment and refusal has now come to an end. Thank you to all who supported her.

Take action here: http://www.shministim.com/2009/12/34-days-in-prison-for-co-or-ben-david/

Full declaration of refusal:

To refuse means to say no! No to the military rule in the West Bank, no to the use of violence as a means of defence, no to patriarchy, no to violence against innocent people, no to abuse against soldiers, no to war and no to a society that claims to be democratic, but forces youths to carry weapons, kill and be killed.

The Israeli society takes the army for granted, considers it to be a necessity, and based on this it becomes legitimate, in the eyes of Israelis, for the military to do what it does, even when the actions themselves are less than acceptable.

Both societies in this conflict feed on lies, stereotypes and racism, and therefore both sides fear and refuse to meet. Most Israelis never met Palestinians, apart from the extremists they say on TV and in the papers. Most Palestinians never met Israelis, unless they were soldiers or settlers, in situations that were not very pleasant, to say the least. In this state of affairs, little wonder that it is so easy to find excuses for killing. The terrorists and the combat soldier make the same assumption – that the other people hates them and constantly tries to harm them, and so this person, as a member of that society, has the duty to assume responsibility and stop the other side (the terrorists, the demolishers of houses) or even hurt it (blow up somewhere in Israel, or besiege Palestinian villages) for his family, its safety and freedom, even if that means the he, the terrorist or the soldier or the freedom fighter, will be hurt.

Just as I hope that as a Palestinian who had lived all her life under occupation and had grown up in a violent society, I would not have chosen to become a terrorist, so, as an Israeli living under the constant threat of terror attacks and rockets, abductions (a political incarceration in an Israeli prison is also a kind of abduction in my view), I shall not choose to become a soldier.

I am not saying that soldiers or terrorists are acting out of some natural evilness. On the contrary, I believe they are acting out of misinformation and brainwashing.

Now, all these are not necessarily reasons to become a conscientious objector. Some Israelis choose for the same reasons to get discharged from the military in other ways. I could have done so, thus freeing my time for the struggle against all those things. And maybe, as most Israelis believe, I could have enlisted and become “the good soldier at the checkpoint”, to stop the violence and injustice “on the ground”, because that is the only way to really understand what the army is, that it is not just all occupation…

No! So many people have joined the army and said that they would be the ones to change it from within, but they ended up following the same orders, doing the same horrible things. Because when you are ordered to enter a house or to stop somebody at a checkpoint, it doesn’t matter that much whether you smile at him while doing this, or whether you avoid stepping on their bed with your mud-soiled boots. It’s the fact that you did it that matters. You stopped him from reaching his destination; you broke into his house in the middle of the night. And with all the social pressure and the brainwashing in the military you change. Everybody changes.

I do not want to belittle the importance of the fact that some soldiers do not hit, do not abuse. I appreciate that, but that is not the way it is supposed to be. I should be lauding a person’s understanding what is going on and refusing an order, not the fact that he was one of those laying a siege on a population, but smiling nicely at the person denied passage to hospital.

I haven’t always been the vegan, radical leftist, feminist, that I am today, but I was never the opposite from that either. It always seemed wrong to me to hate an entire people or to oppress an entire people. But, of course, I was also ignorant of what occupation means. Even as a young feminist, with my feeling of great personal responsibility towards society, I wanted back then to join the army and serve there for three years, to reach the units where women are not allowed to serve, to stop the terrorists trying to hurt me, my family and friends with my own hands. I have changed much since and understood that all these actions are not the ones that would make a change for the better; that to the contrary, they would only serve to further instill hatred, insensitivity and oppression in our society.

These changes I have undergone were really tough on me (and they still are). To say that the Israeli army may be doing some things that are wrong, to say that I am not a Zionist (to Israeli ears it is sometimes like saying I’m anti-Semitic) and to choose not to enlist – it was all a long process, in which I was guided by my optimism, belief in human goodness and the wish to know more and to change the way things are.

I would like to tell about a small but significant piece of this process, one that was a painful reality check for me. When I was just under 15 years of age, after having many arguments with friends about why the army is necessary, and is moral, I decided, mostly out of curiosity, to join a demonstration in the Occupied Territories.

The road there was tiresome. The soldiers stopped us at many point along the way and we had to walk through long bypass routes. When we were near the village where the demonstration was to be held, a strong smell of teargas blew in our direction from where the soldiers were.

When we reached the village at last, I saw none of the Palestinians was trying to harm me or hated me for being Jewish. We went out to demonstrate (ever so briefly). It was nice to feel the cooperation of people from both sides, who do want peace. It was a powerful experience of good will.

And then the soldiers came. I remember they started throwing stun grenades at us, and when we lifted our hands and asked them to stop, they started firing rubber-coated bullets. We went back, and at some point they retreated a bit as well. We then heard shots from afar, and were told that at the other side of the village the soldiers started firing live ammunition. I was in a state of anxiety, took the friend that came with me and went into one of the “houses of peace” in the place.

That village, Bil’in, became a sort of second home for me. After the time it took me to come to terms with it all, I started going to these demonstrations every week, and even staying over to sleep in peace houses there together with my friends – Israeli peace activists and Palestinians, people I learned to admire and love (as I love all human beings).

That day and that period significantly changed my worldview. To see a soldier who is supposed to protect me shoot in my direction and in the direction of my friends, who are not trying to hurt him, to get to know Palestinians, laugh with them, and to experience other things that I never thought or believed could make sense – all these made me believe that things can and should be different, that not all that I was told was true, that I have to look and check things for myself.

Not long before that “the second Intifada” broke out, and as an Israeli living in Jerusalem I remember it as a terrible experience: a new terror attack once in a couple of days, the fear of riding a bus or of going out with friends, fear for the soldiers, for my friends some of whom were victims of terror attacks, and fear for myself – I was too close to the scene of attacks too many times. That difficult time led me later to wonder why this is how things stand and made me understand that the other side also lives with all this frustration, fear and anger, and that it is very easy to choose hatred, and that this is precisely why one must not choose hatred and violence, to generate more hatred and pain.

So why do I refuse? I refuse because I want to make a difference. I want all those Palestinian youths who have lost hope to see that there are Israelis who care and who make a different choice. I want all those of my friends who became soldiers or who are about to become soldiers to see that things don’t have to be the way they are and that doing all those immoral things is not something to be taken for granted, that another way is possible, that you don’t have to suffer inside a military system that oppresses you (most soldiers suffer while they’re in the army). Maybe they too will open their eyes and their minds a bit more to what is going on around them (and I know that in the Israeli society it is very difficult to change your mind, to open your mind and to really listen). It is important for me that people see that I don’t just refuse for the sake of refusing, but that this is my means for making a difference.

And what matters to me most in my act of refusal is my family. My older brother served in the army as a combat soldier. My twin brother would be enlisting into a combat unit in a few months’ time (my other twin brother got exempted from military service by other means, and regretfully, even that my family does not accept). I want to show them, especially my parents, aunts and uncles and grandfather, that there is another way, that you don’t always have to fight and attack (and that an attack is no defence), that not all Arabs hate us, and that no, if I do not enlist the new Nazis won’t come to murder us all. I believe this step will make them open their eyes to a new possibility, or at least try some different options out.

So what – do you want nobody to join the army? — Of course I would have preferred a world without any army and without anyone having to enlist. But in Israel today there is no such option. Considering the situation into which Israel itself and the rest of the world have driven us, we do need an army. But we certainly do not need an occupying army or one that oppresses its own soldiers. And in the real world, there won’t come a day in which all Israelis suddenly decide together not to enlist. What may happen, and what I hope will happen, is that more people would decide to refuse to join the army, and that this would force the Israeli government and military to change their policy, both towards the Palestinian people and towards the Israeli soldiers themselves. And it is here, I believe, that the process which leads to this change begins.

So, why wouldn’t I join the army as a school teacher in uniform? Don’t I believe in education? — I love doing volunteer educational work with youths. This is what I want to do in life. But that is not the right way to do it.

Every day teenagers, and all other people living in Israel, see hundreds of soldiers in the street and are exposed to military presence – on buses, in advertisement, in songs on the radio, in the newspapers, in books and in schools. Everything in our lives revolves around the army, even what we wear. Every aspect of our lives has some military concept connected to it, and the basis of militarism is violence. Little wonder that our society is violent. Little wonder that those teenagers, who live in such a society day after day, are reared on militarist values and desire to become combat soldiers, or are familiar already in their first year of school with military terms, then beat each other up in school or stab one another at pubs or even commit rape.

An educational figure with a military appearance only serves to further instil all that into the minds of the young, to further entrench the notion that living in such a militarist society with all those militarist and violent values is a necessity.

I believe that an educator cannot at one and the same time tell children not to fight one another but also to justify all the wars the Israel has fought. I educate for peace, dialogue and for the proposition that there are no such situations in which the only choice is fighting, that there is always a peaceful solution if you think before you act, show some patience, and above all – consider the other to be equal to yourself.

This was a relatively brief letter, and it is clear to me that I did not even come close to conveying all that I wanted to say in it. It is also clear to me that it would be very easy to draw partial and incorrect conclusions from what I wrote. But I did not write this letter in order to convince; I was not trying to practice demagoguery or to insult anybody. I wrote what came to my mind and only a few things of what I felt is important for me to tell you and to explain to you, my friends.

I do hope that this letter leaves you with something that you can take from it in your own lives and that you do try to open your mind to it and to everything around you, to hear and listed to different things, even if it is sometimes hard (and it is hard).

Love to you and to those you love,
Or Ben-David

Full refusal statement:

“I object to oppression, whether it is commited by a hierarchical organisation, such as the military is, or whether it is commited by the human species against animals. The Israeli government and military conduct a policy of occupation and oppression against the Palestinian people since 1948. It began with the expusion of Palestinians from their homes in 1948, which continues to this day, and continued with the imposition of an oppressive military rule on Palestinians, with the restriction of the freedom of movement of all people, with roads for Israelis only, with administrative detentions, house demolitions, land thefts, etc. We must act in peaceful ways and refuse to take part in the crimes commited by the military. That is our true duty. All the things mentioned above stand agaist the basic values of freedom and justice in which I believe and for which I struggle. I therefore refuse to enlist to the Israeli military and indeed to any military force of any kind.”

For full information and recommended action, go to: http://www.shministim.com/2009/11/second-prison-term-for-conscientious-objector-or-ben-david/

For more info and suggested actions go to: http://www.shministim.com/2009/10/first-prison-term-for-or-ben-david/

Ashley Kriel: A global legacy for Social Justice A legacy for joint-struggle for freedom, equality and security for all in Israel-Palestine

6th Annual Ashley Kriel Memorial Lecture

University of the Western Cape – 6 October 2009

By Sahar Vardi, Yuval Ophir-Auron and Omer Goldman

Sahar

The Palestinian-Israeli conflict more and more occupies the world’s attention. We are part of a small movement working jointly with Palestinians for their freedom, and for equality for everyone regardless of race, religion, gender and nationality. We know that we have a lot to learn from history, and from struggles that came before us, including the struggle against Apartheid here in South Africa. Those struggles produced heroes, and also lost heroes, including young people like Ashley Kriel. We are here to pay a debt of gratitude to this generation that came before us and to tell you our story.

My great grandfather came to Palestine as it was then known from Baghdad in the 19th
century and settled in Hebron becoming its head Rabbi and became a part of a small Jewish Arabic speaking religious community that had no nationalist intentions. The majority of the country was Arab.

As a part of nationalism in Europe and the increase in anti-Semitism, secular Jews in Europe established the Zionist movement stating their intention to build a Jewish home in the land of Israel and in 1904 there was the first wave of Zionist immigration to Palestine-Israel.

As the Zionists declared their intention to create a homeland in Israel, the tension between the Jewish and the Arab communities grew. It took a turn for the worse after the British, under the newly appointed mandate, declared their support for the creation of a Jewish homeland.

The violence between both sides increased. One example which affected my family was an organized massacre performed by Arabs against the Jewish community in Hebron in 1929. 67 Jews were murdered and the whole community fled the city. While many of the Arabs of Hebron took part in the massacre, many others protected their Jewish neighbors including my great-grandparents who were protected by their neighbors.

After the holocaust in which the majority of the Jews in Europe were killed including the families of both Yuval and Omer, more and more Jewish refugees arrived in Israel, and the UN voted to partition Palestine in two 2 states – one Jewish and one Arab. The Partition plan offered 2/3 of the land to the Jewish minority that was only 1/3 of the population, and so the Arabs refused to accept this plan, and as the British left the country, a war began between the two people in 1948.

My grandfather fought in this war. It resulted in the creation of the state of Israel on the one hand, and over 700,000 Palestinians refugees and 530 Palestinian villages destroyed on the other. The same event is referred to by the Israelis as the War of Independence and by the Palestinians as the Nakba – the disaster.

In 1967 after 6 days of war Israel occupied the Golan Heights from Syria, the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan and the Gaza strip and Sinai from Egypt. The results of this war in which my other grandfather fought, brought us to the reality in which we live today.

The Golan Heights have been annexed to Israel. Sinai was returned to the Egyptians as a part of a peace agreement. East Jerusalem was also annexed to Israel, meaning Jerusalem became the unified capital of Israel, while its Palestinian residents received residency but not citizenship, and the West Bank and Gaza strip were put under military occupation.

From the beginning of this occupation Israel has supported and builds Jewish settlements on Palestinian land in the Occupied Territories [OT] against international law. Settlers in these settlements live under different laws than the Palestinians on whose land they live. Protecting these settlements and their settlers has been, on the one hand, a main cause for military presence in the OT, and on the other a source of frustration and a target for the Palestinians who chose violence as a form of resistance.

Today these settlements are home to around 500,000 settlers and are built on 10% of the WB (although the road networks and military presence require additional land).

While most settlers live in the settlements simply because it is cheaper, there is a strong group of ideological settlers who more than once have turned to violence against the Palestinian. The worst of such cases was an attack done by a Jewish settler – Baruch Goldstein – in Hebron in which 29 Palestinians were murdered in a mosque. A month after this attack Hamas – one of the main Palestinian parties – decided to officially embrace bombings as a form of resistance which led to dozens of such bombings in Israeli cities.

In 2003 the Israeli government decided to build a separation barrier (some of which is fence and some wall) preventing Palestinians from accessing Israel. This was done officially to prevent the terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians.

In reality the fence annexes almost 12% of the West Bank to Israel as it doesn’t only annex most of the settlements but also a lot of agricultural Palestinian land adjacent to settlements to allow their future growth.

The wall separates farmers from their land, it lies between people and hospitals, children and schools and families.

Another method of the Israeli army to control the Palestinian population, again, under the pretence of security, is checkpoints. Hundreds of them are scattered throughout the West Bank, some of which lie between Palestine and Israel or settlements, and most of which separate Palestinian villages and cities from each other.

Omer

The resistance to Israel started immediately after the end of the war of 1948 when
Palestinians tried to re-enter the new Israeli borders mostly to return to there lands, but also in some cases to attack Israeli soldiers or civilians resulting in over 450 Israeli citizens and soldiers dying between 1948 and 1967. After the occupation all through out the 1980s there was more of the same – attacks against both civilians and militants, preformed in turns by the Palestinians and the Israeli army and settlers.

As introducing Afrikaans to black schools in 1976 was the spark that set the fire from Soweto, the streets of Palestine were also on the verge of explosion ten years later towards the end of the 1980s – it was only a matter of time until the young generation took action.

The first real Palestinian popular uprising was called the Intifada that began in 1987; twenty years after Israel had occupied Gaza & the West Bank. Palestinian resistance became more and more visible, and more and more on mass levels including a successful non violent mass assembly during an Israeli attempt to arrest a number of Palestinians in the refugee camp of Balata, that resulted in a retreat of the Israeli forces with out performing the intended arrests.

A funeral of 4 Palestinians, who died when an Israeli truck driver crashed into their car, soon erupted in to a mass demonstration that included mostly burning tires and stone throwing towards the Israeli forces present at the place. The first five days of these demonstrations resulted in 17 Palestinian dead and over 100 wounded. As a result the Intifada spread quickly and soon affected all the occupied territories from Gaza to East Jerusalem. The Intifada consisted mainly of young and teenage Palestinians throwing stones at Israeli army patrols inside their villages and cities.

As a state of “emergency” was declared here in South Africa in order to crush the black resistance the Israeli minister of defense at the time gave his orders “Brake their hands and legs”, and from Soweto to Ramalla, bullets flew and the tear gas filled the streets attempting to suffocate the resistance. The young generation of fighters filled the streets of their own villages and townships, and some of them were armed, and like Ashley Kriel, ready to fight and die for their freedom.

Ashley who became politically involved from a young age was one of the faces of a
generation that refused to accept the unjust reality that the government forced on the people. Unfortunately Ashley like many others didn’t get to see the change he was fighting for becoming reality, but did leave a legacy of youth struggle behind him, a legacy we are here to honor.

It took nine more years and three big failed negotiations for the next and more violent uprising – the second Intifada. While the occupation became more and more violent and brutal, as Palestinians were banned from Israel except for the lucky few who held working permits, as Jewish settlements grew taking more and more Palestinian lands and the bodies piled up, suicide bombers were the new weapon. This followed mass demonstrations of October 2000 that resulted in 13 dead Palestinian-Israeli demonstrators who protested together with tens of thousands of Palestinians across the West bank, Gaza and inside Israel’s borders.

In the next 5 years of uprising over 1,000 Israelis were killed (approximately 70% of whom were civilians) and close to 4,500 Palestinians (approximately 50% of whom were civilians).

The building of the separation wall [fence] marked on the one hand the beginning of the end of the second Intifada, and on the other hand the dawn of a new non-violent and unarmed resistance against the separation wall.

Yuval

With the beginning of the construction of the fence Palestinian villages and neighborhoods started protesting and creating popular committees to organize protests.

Some of these villages invited Israeli activists to join this struggle which today is one of the main frontiers of resistance to the occupation.

My first time in such a demonstration was in a village in the West Bank called Nialin. Like many other villages the residents of Nialin are losing more than 40% of their agricultural land for the separation fence.

Together with Palestinian and Israeli comrades we approached the root of the fence
attempting to prevent the uprooting of hundred year old olive trees for the building of the fence. When we were coming closer to the bulldozers the soldiers started to use tear gas and rubber bullets and to arrest the people around me.

This experience, that repeated itself many times, made me realize that this army that I was brought up to believe was there to protect me, was actually attacking me, my comrades and everything I believe in. Since then 5 Palestinians from that village who were struggling for their rights have been killed in such demonstrations, and dozens more have been arrested.

This struggle against the wall, as any struggle, is made of normal people who want a normal life as free people. One of these people is Bassem Abu Rakhma, one of the leaders of the popular non violent struggle against the fence in the Palestinian village of Bili’in. Bassem chose to stick to the joint struggle with Israelis as a clear ideology saying that we are all brothers and sisters struggling the same struggle for freedom and equality. The same struggle that people all over the world have fought and gave their lives for.

Half a year ago during a non-violent demonstration in his village Bassem asked the soldiers to stop shooting when he saw an Israeli activist injured. Seconds later he was shot to his chest and died.

The brave struggle of normal people has become a threat to the occupation forces because it has broken the borders of nationality, and because armies around the world could never handle the power of a democratic unarmed struggle.

Omer

In 2006, at the beginning of the Second Lebanon War, me and my friends took a trip to Cyprus.

There, outside of Israel was the first time I actually heard criticism against the Israeli army and government, and even personally of me as an Israeli girl. My first instinct was to defend what I grew up with and thought was right. Only then I saw pictures in the news I had never seen before in the Israeli media. Those pictures made me realize how little I know about the reality an hour from my home.

As that war turned into another operation in vain and no one in the Israeli government admitted that, not only did I lose my faith in the “humanity” of this army, but I started questioning the ability of the Israeli army sent by the Israeli government to defend me.

I remember sitting on the curve, smoking a cigarette after a demo in Tel Aviv calling for Israeli leadership to resign, saying to my friend “im not going to take part in this, this government doesn’t represent me any more, there must be another way.”

The problem with the Israeli youth is that they are not exposed to the reality from a balanced point of view. 99% of Israeli teenagers never went to the West Bank to meet Palestinians, and their first interaction with them is when they are carrying a gun and wearing the army uniform.

The fact that we visited the WestB before we were supposed to join the army opened our eyes, and once our eyes were open we could see no other way.

When you refuse to serve your society with military service you reflect on all your friends and family, so there are many consequences when you use your democratic right to resist something you think is immoral, old friends become distant, and sometimes family show no support.

We feel that the basic understanding that real security comes from peace has been
forgotten.

The occupation is poisoning Israel from within. It creates an aggressive people, extreme nationalism, and leaves important values as solidarity and equality behind. That’s why taking a stand against it, as an Israeli is crucial for both Palestinians and Israelis as one.

But the law itself and the two years for women or three years for men of army service are only the tip of the iceberg of a highly militaristic state.

The service does not only consist of the two or three years as a teenager, but also of reservist service – every man and women until a certain age can be called up once a year or more in times of war to either train or for active military service. This makes a state in which every parent, teacher, employer and politician not only has been a soldier in his youth, but in many cases still acts as one on the average of once a year.

The care packages for soldiers every kinder-garden child has sent on the Jewish holidays, the memorial planks at the entrance to most schools commemorating all the former students of the school who died during their military service, the compulsory one week of military training most schools take 11th graders on, and the constance presence of army personal inside schools and classrooms are only a few examples of what makes the Israeli society to be militant and obedient in a scary way.

Sahar

The first refusers emerged right after the occupation in 1967 when a group of high school students wrote the first Shministim – 12th graders – letter saying that they will refuse to serve in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. This letter was followed by another in 1979 which resulted in several of the signers of the letter serving short prison terms and one sentenced for more than a year of imprisonment in a military prison.

In 1982, in the first Lebanon war more and more reservist soldiers began refusing and were sentenced to prison terms of about one month each, as that is the usual length of reservist service duty per year.

The End Conscription Campaign [ECC] in South Africa was formed in 1983 with the same
purpose and beliefs as the Israeli refusers movement – Both armies had conscription for the oppressor society – whites and Jews, while the main activity of these two armies was the oppression of the rest of the two societies – blacks in SA and Palestinians both in the occupied territories and in Israel. And so the two refusers movements are very similar, created by people of the oppressor side who oppose the violation of human rights, refuse to be a part of it, and are willing to pay a price not to be a part of it.

In our society, as it was in white South Africa, those who made this choice are seen as traitors.

In a way, the banning of the ECC in 1988 like the criminal investigations and interogations held as we speak against two anti-conscriptions movements in Israel “New Profile” & “Yesh Gvul” are proof of it’s success, and shows that the refusal to take part in a certain action speaks just as loudly as actions in some cases. It also shows that both these movements do in fact pose a risk to the Apartheid government at the time, and to the occupation today.

But while the ECC won its cause with the end of Apartheid, the occupation and the
conscription in Israel still stand and the government still tries to oppress anyone and everyone working to change this.

Another example is how the Israeli foreign ministry are targeting Breaking the Silence (Bts). BtS is a group of former soldiers who take testimonies from soldiers about the problematic things they have done on active duty. Since the publication of their important report on the attack on Gaza the Israeli government is pressuring countries like Holland and Spain to stop all cooperation with BtS.

Yuval

We came here to South Africa, a country that has known so much racism and suffering that many of you here have been victims of.

A society that beat the odds and managed to end Apartheid and yet has a long way ahead of it before this journey for justice is complete.

For us, this journey which South Africa has started is a journey we all must go through.

From the right for education in Soweto to the right for free travel in Bili’in, from the right for clean water in Khayelitsha to the right for housing in Gaza, all of these are a part of the same struggle, a joint struggle for equality and human rights for all of us.

As South Africans, blacks and whites as one, who received help in this struggle from people and communities around the world, we ask of you to be a part of our struggle, to take a stand of international solidarity supporting the joint struggle and resisting the occupation.

We believe that the international society has to understand that the only way to save the Palestinian and Israeli societies is to show the Israeli authorities that there is a price that they will have to pay for unjust policies.

There is a price to pay for the occupation. There is a price to pay for harming innocent people.

Like during Apartheid I believe this should be done by targeting the Israeli academic institutions and the economy, and focusing in particular on boycotting international companies who are involved in military activity or who have any connection with the development of the settlements.

The night before I came here to South Africa I wrote a letter to a friend in Israel who was imprisoned for barricading himself in a Palestinian house that the Israeli army wanted to demolish.

In preparing for this lecture, and in reading about the life of Ashley Kriel, a young man that took a stand and fought for what is right – equality among all – we thought it would be fitting to conclude with a few words from this letter:

“I know that in our struggle, like in the struggle they had in South Africa, and in other places around the world, there are people who, win or lose, have managed to rise up and shout and choose and love and believe and struggle.
This is our victory, this is our absolute freedom.”

Learn more about the Shministim of 2010 here: http://www.shministim.com/

Join the Shministim 2010 facebook group.

Read what Haaretz has to say about them:
12th graders tell Netanyahu: We refuse to serve in IDF (Haaretz, Oct 12, 2009)

If you read Hebrew, you an check out these additional news items:

שמיניסטים סרבנים 2009: “לא נשתתף בדיכוי”
Shministim refusers of 2009: We will not take part in the oppression (Ynet, Oct 12 2009)

מכתב השמיניסטים: “צה”ל הוא צבא הכיבוש”
The Shministim letter: The IDF is an occupation army (Walla, Oct 12, 2009)

ה88 בני נוער לנתניהו: מסרבים לקחת חלק במערכת הצבאית
88 young people to Netatanyahu: We refuse to serve in the IDF (Haaretz, Oct 12, 2009)

Are Israeli youth allowed to speak about their views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? Not always.

Some believe that the ideals of Israeli democracy and free speech stop at the border. Take the example of the young Israeli conscientious objectors — the Shministm — currently in speaking tours both in the United States and in South Africa.

Here’s Dan Klein, the North America campus director for StandWithUs, speaking to the JPost on the issue:

“I definitely understand that Israelis have the right not to agree with their government. That`s fine. Every citizen in a democracy has that right. But you take that up in your country. Once you take that abroad, what does that gain you?”

I do not understand the distinction he makes. Maybe Dan believes that news and information stop at the border, at any border. Or maybe he ignores the fact that the Shministim have already gathered a great deal of international attention while they were still in Israel: over 60,000 letters of support and counting, over 53,000 hits on their short film in Youtube, and a great deal of media attention in a good number of countries around the world.

Here’s Dan again,

“I definitely do not agree with what they`re trying to do because I think they`re misguided.”

Misguided? Now, that’s a bit patronizing, isn’t it? These young Israelis do not need ‘guidance.’ They have been smart enough to develop their own political analysis of the Israeli occupation (you can read their letter here) and brave enough to go to jail for their convictions.

The Shministim have been greeted with interest in many campuses throughout the United States (UC Berkeley, University of Arizona-Tucson, University of Southern California, Cornell University, Hunter College, Brown University, Clark University, Vassar College, and Brandeis University to name a few.)

Why the interest? Many people are past the StandWithUs propaganda, either you are with us or against us kind of thinking. The Shministim offer a view of the Israeli occupation that is both critical of the human rights abuses and compassionate towards Palestinians and Israelis. And they’ve been extraordinarily open to dialog with those that disagree with them. I’ve been to a number of their talks in the Bay Area. They opened each presentation inviting people to share their ideas — whether in agreement or disagreement — and they answered all questions with care and respect.

Not everyone sees it that way, of course. Jerusalem Post columnist Isi Leibler referred to them as ‘renegade Jews.’ He called them,

“non-Jewish Jews, many with no prior involvement in Jewish life, [who] exploited their Jewish origins or Israeli nationality to defame Israel.”

In hysterical terms, he starts by calling for their excommunication and ends by calling for their exorcism.

Lucky for them, they are not alone. Dr. Neve Gordon, Naomi Klein, Eve Ensler, and many others — including me! — join them in that grey space between the excommunicated Baruch Spinoza and the exorcised dybbuk.

Some South African Jews may be victims of Leibler’s hysteria. Reportedly, some Jews in Cape Town are concerned that a visit by three Shministim could fuel anti-Semitism.

Here’s National Vice Chairman of the South African Zionist Federation David Hirsch,

“They are speaking out to the greater South African population, that does not really know or understand the complex issues of the conflict in Israel.”

You see, only us Jews really understand it.

Hold the presses… not even Jews can be exposed to the Shministim heresy!

They have been refused a chance to give a talk in Cape Town’s largest Jewish day school. One talk. This says a lot about the level of dialog and openness in Jewish communities around the world to be able to talk about what is going on in Israel from all points of view.

The Sministim are coming to talk about the Israeli occupation, about its effects on Palestinians and Israelis, and about the nonviolent path they have chosen for themselves. In other words, the Shministim are coming to present a more complex picture of the situation, not a simpler one. This should have been a welcome development.

I leave you with Ilan Strauss, of Open Shuhada Street (one of the groups sponsoring the Shministim’s South Africa tour),

“…it is important that South Africans are exposed to these courageous, non-violent perspectives, which adhere to human rights for both parties and aim to ensure a just resolution to the ongoing violence.”

If you are in South Africa, you should go hear them yourself.