Ha'ir Friday, January 17, 2002

ISRAELI REVENGE FORCES

By Orit Shochat

[Translation Dorothy Naor]

Orit Shochat opposes the use of soldiers for evil, and calls for
conscientious objection to serving in the military.

'Who Is The Hero? The One Who Refuses To Serve.'

We are the strong one, we are the bad ones, we are the occupiers, we are
the settlers, we deny them livelihood, freedom of movement, health care,
food, water, land, houses, a state, life. He who is willing to serve in
an army which deprives civilians of all that, must be made of stone.

The commander of the infamous Unit 101 is now Prime Minister, and it is
he who dictates to the cabinet a policy of revenge operations, the style
of the 1950s. Those who voted for him for Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon,
the commander of the ruthless act committed by Israeli soldiers in Kfar
Kibiya, must be very pleased with their choice.

In October 1953, in the Jordanian village of Kibiya, the IDF* avenged
the killing of Susan Kenyas and her two children. Unit 101 under the
command of Ariel Sharon blew up 45 of the village's homes, killing 69
villagers: men, women, and children. The military insisted that the
soldiers presumed the houses empty when they blew them up. But
afterwards it was learned that the bodies of those killed were riddled
with bullets, and that grenades were thrown into the homes prior to
laying the explosives. Sharon's orders to his soldiers were
definitively clear: ``The objective--attack Kfar Kibiya, conquer, and
cause maximum harm to persons and property . . .'' Our prime
minister-commander of unit 101, praiseworthy for iniquity, continues to
design vengeful acts like those of the 1950s, but now as government
policy: when no terrorist attacks occur to revenge, the cabinet
fabricates excuses for revenge; when there is no excuse, it provokes;
when even provocation fails to work, we revenge the assumed intention to
murder Jews.

``This calm is artificial", says the Israeli government after a month of
cease-fire. "The Palestinians are abstaining from violence now because
they are building up their forces for the next terrorist attack.''
``Palestinian cessation of hostilities is never real cessation.'' Then,
to make sure that calm will not last, there is always an assassination
on hand to bring about the next terrorist attack. Then once again
innocent citizens are killed, and once again Sharon can say "we knew the
cease fire was a bluff." And once again the Chief-of-Staff foresees what
every kindergarten child by now anticipates: "a wave of terror is
expected."

Revenge has become a way of life here, a unifying agent, the basis of
the consensus, and a staple for IDF and Shin Beth* operations. The
strategy is to preclude at all costs a cease fire--to insist on 7 days
of quiet as a criterion for deliberations, yet to find even 70 days
insufficient. When four soldiers from the Bedouin unit were killed, the
IDF chose soldiers from that unit to help demolish the refugees' homes
in Rafah. If that is not revenge, in the most primitive sense of the
word, then what is `revenge'? Even soldiers from the unit described it
as ``revenge'' to a reporter from Yedioth Ahronoth. Parents of the
soldiers killed likewise interpreted the demolitions as an act of
retribution. And one of the bereaved parents begged the government to
abstain from revenge. But Sharon's and Ben Eliezer's ears are deaf to
defeatist words as those.

Were Sharon to reveal his true intentions to the public, he would not
remain a week in office. It is not by chance that he refuses interviews
and prefers instead to air but the briefest of statements and reactions.
Were Sharon to say, ``For me, the war of independence has not ended.
I'll pummel the Palestinians until not one will want an independent
state, until all will become docile and submissive''--were Sharon to
reveal this, he would be left with a handful of fanatics who have
followed him faithfully from the days of the assassinations and
sanitizations in Gaza during the 70s; the rest of the public would hide
from him. But Sharon is too clever to tell the truth. He knows how to
work deceit on a public tired of terror, on Barak's disappointed, on
young soldiers and eager officers, on unthinking patriots who can't
distinguish between what is good for Sharon and what is good for Israel.


In a radio interview, a paratroop officer in the reserves says,'' I saw
those houses with my own eyes just a month ago when I was on reserve
duty in Rafah, and they were empty,'' insisting that we can believe him,
because he is neither ``left wing'' nor ``right wing,'' being instead
apolitical. How much stupidity and naivety is concealed in that
officer's statement and in his pride towards his fellow reservists who
came when called up for their stint ``without deserting their
comrades''!

What does it mean ``the houses were empty''? And if they were empty,
does that signify that they were ownerless? Inside each, was there no
television set, bed, table, clothes belonging to someone who ran away
for a moment, a perpetual refugee that in a moment would return? The
bits of crumbling stone that house the refugees of 1948 (which they
enlarge whenever they have a little extra cash) are not, in the eyes of
that apolitical paratrooper, worthy of being called homes. Did this
apolitical paratrooper bother to ask himself where those who deserted
the homes a minute ago, an hour ago, a week ago went to? Did they not
run away from him? Could he imagine that they went to live in
penthouses in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, or anywhere?

But the brain-washed will challenge, ``why blame this officer? He was
merely carrying out his duty.'' Blame them indeed! Such apolitical
officers--who are neither right wing nor left wing, who do not avoid
call-ups to reserve duty, who are every prime minister's wet
dream--enable the government to pull off anything it wants. Their
pliant minds imbibe every assessment made by intelligence, every
unnecessary war, every insane objective, every fart ejected by the
experts and the advisors on terrorism.

Occupation? What Occupation?

An officer as this sees no further than the military target opposite
him. The overall picture is beyond his vision. ``Occupation? What
occupation?'' the officer pleads. ``Occupation is a political term,
but I was called up to make sure that arms would not be smuggled from
the Egyptian side of Rafah into the Palestinian side; if carrying this
out demands demolishing several tens of houses, we have no choice but to
do it. Pride glows in this officer for obeying the policies of his
elected government and for carrying out orders of his officers, who
never demand that he to do anything at odds with his conscience, for,
after all, he has no opinions, as he has said, and he trusts theirs. He
is certain that those on top know that it's essential to demolish
several rows of houses so as to protect the post he's stationed at, and
what could be more important than the post? His radio interview
concludes with his inviting `all those who talk about war crimes to
spend one night at my military post to see how tough it is.'

What makes it so tough? The fact that the IDF is there to protect the
settlements in the Rafah area. Instead, the government should dismantle
them, every last one of them and establish a tripartite
border--Israel-Palestine-Egypt. Fewer people live in all these
settlements together than do in a single neighborhood of the refugee
camp. Were the State of Israel to offer the refugees those charming
homes in the settlements of Rafiah-Yam, Morag, Gan-Or, B'dolach, Bnei
Atsmon, and Naveh Dekalim (where numerous empty houses exist), then,
possibly, Sharon could, as he wants, ``broaden the corridor'' till the
border.

As far as demolitions are concerned, our public image is at stake.
Therefore, from now on we'll demolish houses only one by one, or two by
two. After all, the international community--Americans and
Europeans--must see us in the right light! What Israelis see is
unimportant. The Israeli public is complacent. The IDF has demolished
hundreds of homes in Rafah and Khan Yunis the past months; yet not so
much as one bulldozer operator has registered an objection. Our
engineering corps wrecking-crew competes with the municipality of
Jerusalem's bulldozers, which demolish `illegal' homes in the Arab
districts. But the houses in Jerusalem are `illegal' in the same way
that the houses in Rafah are `empty.' Yet, who cares! Who presumes to
ask `when will we demolish the illegal homes of the settlers?'

The media pictures of the demolished homes in Rafah don't affect
Israelis, because most don't watch the news. They prefer instead some
soap, or a quiz on a British channel, or a rerun of some old Seinefeld
episode. The sole time that news draws attention is after a suicide
attack.

Now let us speak about the soldiers, most of whom helped elect the
commander of the Kibiya act to the office of prime minister. It is
therefore senseless to feel sorry for them. Most Israelis continue
dutifully to obey the compulsory enlistment act, and with patriotic zeal
join the armed forces to defend the occupation. They unquestioningly
accept the fact that the only reason that 2 million Palestinians live in
hell is that so that 200,000 settlers can live comfortably. They know,
if they have taken the trouble to find out, that the only thing that
prevents us from withdrawing from the Territories is the settlements.
Were it not for the settlements, we could end the occupation within a
week, exactly as in Lebanon. What enables continuing the occupation is
IDF soldiers serving in the military. And they help continue an
occupation that has become more cruel than ever since disillusion with
Oslo set in. Formerly, a civil administrator was responsible for the
well-being of the occupied population. But since Oslo, Israel acts as
though the Palestinians already have a state and that Arafat--locked up
in his residence in Ramallah--has taken over the responsibility for
their well-being. This is precisely how Sharon's reprisal government
wants us to see things, as if we have already withdrawn from the
Territories. And while the contrary is true, this belief allows us to
shirk off the moral responsibility towards the Palestinians to see to
their livelihood, freedom of movement, medical attention; we have
instead replaced our moral obligation towards them with the obligation
of blockading them at every step.

Not that when we had moral responsibility towards them, we carried it
out well, but at least we carried it out. Then, too, we brought water
to the settlements while drying up the Palestinian population's wells
and water holes, but at least we felt a sense of responsibility. Now,
contrarily, the head of the civil administration, major general Dov
Tsadaka, is busy handing out permits to uproot acres of olive trees, and
instead of seeing to the needs of the population, he now worries about
his own skin, concerned that by handing out these permits he might be
accused of committing a war crime.

It is Unwise to Enlist in the Paratroopers

So what should those do who didn't vote for Sharon? First of all, they
should claim to be leftists; that will increase the size of the
opposition. The term `leftist, In current Israeli political lingo,
refers to anyone who with no ifs, buts, or wherefores opposes the
occupation in the Territories. Differences in nuances don't count; they
only prevent perceiving the distinctions between good and bad, just and
unjust, allowable and prohibited, essential and unessential. Domination
over the Palestinians is absolute evil, not relative evil.

Every opponent of the occupation should ask himself just how long he
intends to keep on supporting it, and just how long he intends to keep
on wreaking vengeance on the Palestinians for the failure of the peace
negotiations with Barak. Justice is on the Palestinian side even if
they rejected Barak's offers, and is on their side even if they demanded
98% of the area and were not content with 95%. We are the stronger
side, the evil side, the oppressors, the settlers, we are those who deny
Palestinians the right to earn a wage, freedom of movement, medical aid,
food, water, land, homes, a state, life. He who without having been
drugged by the propaganda movies and words has clarified in his own mind
the actual situation, and is still willing to serve in an army that
denies the Palestinians all that, must be molded from especially callous
material.

While it is true that the State of Israel cannot survive without a
strong army, so long as a state employs soldiers for evil purposes--so
long as difference between a legitimate military act and an illegitimate
one contract into nothing, so long as soldiers at check points decide
who will give birth and who will die, so long as soldiers divide women
into two lines (in an atypical occurrence, says the apologetic!)
according to the soldiers' classification of them as attractive or ugly,
so long as border patrol soldiers (in also supposedly atypical
behavior!) wield clubs on Palestinian heads because the Palestinians
failed to sing agreeably in honor of the soldiers, so long as pilots
kill women and children (again atypical!) during an assassination in the
middle of a populous city, so long as other soldiers (in a customary
act) demolish tens of homes in refugee camps--then this situation, so
unjust and immoral, obliges young men and reservists staunchly to refuse
to enlist on grounds of conscience.

In a democracy every citizen is obliged to comply with the mandates of
the elected government, even if one disapproves its policies. But such
conformity is neither unconditional nor unrestricted. When a
government time and again makes decisions that consistently cause loss
of life--theirs and ours--when it assaults the very foundations of
morality, then it is the obligation of every citizen to refuse to
cooperate on grounds of conscience. The policies of Sharon-Ben
Eliezer-Mofaz-Peres constitute a sequence of immorality that is
unacceptable, that one cannot and must not consent to--a sequence full
of evil, lies, deceit, false propaganda, and measures that cause more
and more bloodshed. This was true also during the first intefada in the
`80s, but since then we have seen that things can be otherwise. Since
then we have gone a distance down a different path. The contention that
the conflict is unresolvable is malicious.

Our policy shapers can count on the acquiescence of most citizens to
even the most illogical and harmful policies. For the intellectually
and politically naive unquestioningly believe that the government's acts
and strategies have the best interests of the public in mind. Such
citizens prefer to leave the responsibility of running things to those
on top.

``Innocent citizens,'' the historian, Yigal Elam calls them in his book,
``The Executors.'' But they are not free from responsibility; in a
democracy, they are guiltier and more responsible than in nondemocratic
societies. They feel heroic when they enlist in the paratroops. But
the greater heroism in times as these consists of not enlisting in the
paratroops and of telling the world why, thereby foregoing friends,
admiration, the red beret of the paratroopers, the glow of being part of
the consensus, and to forgo all these so as to retain one's humanity.
True heroism in these times is going to jail for refusing to enlist on
grounds of conscience, and doing so loudly not silently, by the
hundreds not by the tens--not merely to avoid the draft by running off
to a psychologist to affirm misfitness or by running away abroad, but
for the purpose of hanging on to one's moral integrity. When the
occupation ends, then we shall return with pride to defend our borders.

*IDF = the military, i.e., Israeli Defense Force

* Shin Beth = General Security Services