Refuseniks Nominated for Nobel Peace Prize
Haaretz reports:
The Courage to Refuse movement and one of its founders, Israel Defense Forces reserve Captain David Zonshein, have been nominated for the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize.
[…] “Our candidacy is a victory for those who love Israel, and a victory for Zionist values and the Israeli spirit, which have championed an uncompromising battle defending the State of Israel alongside protecting human life, human rights and honor,” Zonshein said.
The refuseniks definitely deserve the prize, though I am not sure Arafat, Peres or Rabin would make that great a company.
I hope you’re being sarcastic. The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades also wishes that IDF soldiers do no serve. These pathetic shits do not deserve one ounce of sympathy they deserve to be tried and shot as traitors in a time of war.
http://www.maarivintl.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=article&articleID=11198
I won’t go as far as Lou, but the nomination is a horrible slight against Israel, and an embarrassment of the Norwegian Nobel Committee. Why don’t they nominate Rachel Corrie, or Sheik Yassin? The soldiers are an internal political matter, and the Nobel Committee has no right to interfere with the internal politics of a nation. They could equally nominate Kerry for the prize, or perhaps in a comment against Vladimir Putin, they could nominate one of the Jewish oil Oligarchs, who might in the end be worse then Putin. What if they had announced the nominations before the democratic primaries, and supported Howard Dean? The Nobel committee is a group of Norwegians, and only Norwegians. If you object to the fact that members of the IMF and the World Bank weld enormous power, yet are unelected and therefore unaccountable to the world’s people, then a similar objection should be raised against the Norwegian Nobel Committee.
Nobel himself worried about what is now occurring with the Prize, “Nobel may also have feared that the highly political nature of the Peace Prize would make it a tool in power politics and thereby reduce its significance as an instrument for peace.â€
Nobel would be turning in his grave. The committee should stay out of internal politics.
the peace prize has been going down il for years, or did it always suck and we just now started to notice?
counterpoint for you asaf: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/481677.html
Well, if Arafat could get the prize, I guess there’s nothing preventing them…
OTOH, Israeli and Palestinian thieves, smugglers and dealers would probably be better nominees
a response to the article posted by mo:
mo, first of all you must recognize a few different kinds of refusal. this article is indeed directed toward the selective refusers, courage to refuse, who refuse to serve only beyond the green line.
“The obligation to obey the order of the king was laid down in the halakha, and in ancient times a king was entitled to execute anyone who rebelled against the kingdom – though this sanction does not exist in a democratic structure, of course. That power is no longer granted to the army in a democratic society, but the obligation to obey draws from it.”
WTF? the army’s absolute demand for obedience is inherently undemocratic, though I will not deny that this is one of the only instituions in which heirarchy and absolute authority is the only possible way for its existence. since i am not a pacifist and I do believe in the need of self defence, a problem lies ahead of me: how do I reconcile autonomy with the need for self defence which demands direct authority over me? more precisely, when is it my duty to obey for the sake of self defence and when is my duty to refuse?
the article you posted is doing a very bad job answering these questions, since it talks about about obedience in the most general terms: “If there is no obedience to orders, the army is thrust into a terrible situation of mortal danger. When orders are not obeyed, the army is torn to shreds, and the idea of gathering force and using it is no longer within the realm of possibility.”
of course, the question we must all ask is – what army? the Nazi army? well i am sure we’ll all support tearing the Nazi army into shreads. Refusing is sometimes a necessity not only for the autonomy of the refuser but also for the autonomy of other opressed people. since the most explicit form of autonomy is the right to life, i must look at my decision to serve in particular army only if i am convinced that this principle will indeed manifest itself. it rarely does, unfortunately.
The article legitimizes serving in the Nazi army by making general statements about obedience. fuck that.
and therefore… since i believe that the danger that lies in obedience to the military is greater than the danger in refusing, i do support the universal right of any person to refuse to serve in any army. this is based on the belief that when a man will feel that he must protect himself, he will obey authority. such a feeling does not garantuee that a war is indeed legitimate. but the absence of the feeling many times garantees it is not.
as a libertarian, mo, i would assume you support that no?
Bullshit. I think Norway might be in need of some terror. They just dont get it.
How can you award a prize to deserters?
They should be arrested or shot. Period.
Your opinion as a soldier doesnt matter in the least. If you are a soldier you follow orders. If you don’t follow the orders, you get punished.
Fucking Norway.
“Your opinion as a soldier doesnt matter in the least. If you are a soldier you follow orders. If you don’t follow the orders, you get punished.”
any soldier? any army?!
Yes. That’s why there is a chain of command in place. In Israel its even more important, because if we don’t continue to have the most organised and sophisticated army in the middle east, we will be crushed.
“Yes. That’s why there is a chain of command in place.”
just because something IS, doesnt mean it SHOULd be.
SO let me repeat the argument I have made. If you believe that obedience to the military is absolute (i.e. is beyond the democratic right for autonomy, in any single case, any time andwhere), then you are basically saying that nazi soldiers had to obey their commanders.
Only when they had to remove Jews.
Asaf, stop being so naive.
The reasons you have for respecting refusiniks are entirely different from the reasons the nobel committee wants to honor them
Your respect for refusnik comes from young idealism, however misguided it may be. At least it is sincere. The nobel committee’s motives are far more sinister. They are considering honoring a refusnik, simply because they view refusniks as causing harm to israel, and by bringing more attention to it, it will only serve to harm and embarrass israel more.
Ill ask you young fellow, if saddam or osama bin laden would offer you an award for being a refusnik, would you feel honored and accept it? of course not (i hope), you would denounce such an honor for the sham that it is. The nobel’s motives are no different- harming israel.
how has his refusal to serve helped bring peace?
Do you know how easy it is to nominate someone for the Nobel Prize? A nomination means nothing. Look at who can nominate here: http://nobelprize.org/peace/nomination/nominators.html
The draft dodgers definitely deserve the prize. Abandoning their country in time of war, in pursuit of selfish ‘me’ activities, while their fellow Israeli teenagers sacrifice three years, get inscripted and do their national duty.