A true Israeli doesn't desert/occupy
When the government of Israel has to run advertising extolling the values of not deserting military service, we all may be welcome to speculate about the sustainability of the occupation.
With the spat of articles recently covering the increasing number of citizens “ineligible” for military service — be they hareidi or just anyone, now 1 in 4 — apparently the Israeli government is now running ads saying “A true Israeli doesn’t desert.”
— But I think the message is proved as missing the point when the reply is this parody sticker changing one letter so it now reads “A true Israeli doesn’t rule over [other people].” Ha! Hell yes.
It sounds like it’s the government of Israel that isn’t getting the message? And anybody got a picture of the real advertising?
To me, mishtamet does not mean to “desert,” and it certainly does not mean to refuse to serve in the territories. To me, it means dodging the draft, and finding a way not to serve in the army or national service. Would we prefer a system like we have in the United States, where the wealthy can always find a way out while people without the money/connections have to fight the wars? A draft that works properly is one of the most egalitarian things a society can have, and I do not see being anti-draft-dodging and anti-occupation as opposite ends of the spectrum.
Kun Fu Jew,
I take it that you support draft evasion.
A true adult dives into the world and does things she/he disagree with or finds morally wrong in order to perhaps make things a bit better.
I’m so jealous of the people who fortify themselves in the ivory tower, who say “hell ya” to those who refuse to serve in the territories–or who refuse to partake in uprooting settlements.
Kung Fu Jew, did you even serve in the army? If you did/do then kol hakovod.
But, if not, aren’t you a bit embarrassed that you sit back and lay judgment on those who are brave enough to serve? The people brave enough to make the terrible moral choices, and who live with what those chooses do to them and to the Palestinians?
Has it ever occurred to you to say “thank you” to those soldiers who serve in the territories, even though many–perhaps the majority–lose their control and committ wrong in that grey area in which we’ve existed since 1967?
Has you once thanked those soldiers who sit in Hebron or Jenin and who prevent that next young Palestinian from detonating a bomb in Jerusalem, even if that bombing is a result of the occupation?
Those truely brave adults must wrestle with the terrible choices that too many people on this web cite would never ponder making.
I served in the Israeli Army. I was a refusenik. My best friend from high school served. He did combat duty in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and Lebanon. Not that this is representative – but we both agree that my way was preferable. He believed that serving in the territories was the ‘right thing’ to do – and it completely demoralized him. Today, he lives in America and has no intention of returning to Israel, a place tainted by what it does. What it did. To him.
Jonthan, what’s missing from your analysis is the following: The Israeli Army is running a factory for despair and terror. It’s located in the Occupied Territories. It’s employees believe they are doing good, but the result of their work is poverty, misery, and terror. Certainly not ‘security’.
Were the territories a factory for producing security, then we would have it today! After all, those soldiers and officers have had more than 40 years to perfect the product. But since it isn’t, since it’s a vile, vicious, murderous lie, then refusing is a moral act. Leaving the country is a moral act. Draft dodging is a moral act. Lying through your teeth about mental problems is a moral act. Getting a doctor to exaggerate your physical condition is a moral act. Anything that gets you not only away from, but actively sabotages that factory’s work is a moral act.
And until you get that piece of the puzzle, you’ll be part of spreading confusion and misery.
The occupation is a lumbering, insane giant killing and maiming people. It must be killed itself, the sooner the better, no matter the cries of pain, no matter the horror of the bystanders, no matter what. It is the cancer killing Israel and eating away at the soul of our people. There is no honor in defending it, feeding it, propping it up, or shedding tears over having served it.
Heh. Got carried away there for a minute….
“Jonthan, what’s missing from your analysis is the following: The Israeli Army is running a factory for despair and terror. It’s located in the Occupied Territories. It’s employees believe they are doing good, but the result of their work is poverty, misery, and terror. Certainly not ’security’”
Did I say that there is not misery in the territoires? Most of the soldiers I know don’t think they are doing very much good in the territories–but it is not an accurate sample size. The soldiers I know make the decision to serve in the territories because the freely elected Israeli government sends them there and they support Zionism and the Western system of democracy, in which the minority must succumb to the majority’s will for the country to work. If a person like your friend finds that system morally intolerable and leaves, and thereafter criticizes it from the outside, then God bless him.
But I have no respect for people who refuse to serve but stay in Israel, those who allow others to go to the territories in their stead. Letting others go to the territories in your place is no different than stealing. It is no different than refusing to pay taxes because some of your payment might go to a cause with which you disagree. It is no different than disobeying an order to remove a Jewish family from a hilltop on the West Bank.
“Were the territories a factory for producing security, then we would have it today! After all, those soldiers and officers have had more than 40 years to perfect the product. But since it isn’t, since it’s a vile, vicious, murderous lie, then refusing is a moral act.”
You seem to imply that if there were no Israeli soldiers on the West Bank then there would be no bombers entering Israel. We have no way to test that theory today of course, but Hamas’s leadership is very explicit about their goals. I will take them for their word, so I deduce that soldiers sitting in Jenin and Hebron are indeed saving some lives.
Is it immoral to serve in the territories because were the “territories a factory for producing security, then we would have it today?”
Does this mean that during the first 3 days of the Yom Kippur War, Israeli soldiers should have refused to continue because of the battlefield losses?
The occupation is “the cancer killing Israel and eating away at the soul of our people.”
Ok, but what is the best way to affect change? Is it not through the elections and speaking with people?
“There is no honor in defending it, feeding it, propping it up, or shedding tears over having served it.”
There is honor in struggling to change Zionism from within. But that struggle requires a commitment to play by the rules. Leaving the country or going to jail are the proper alternatives.
Jonathan, you are not making much sense to me.
You say, “Ok, but what is the best way to affect change? Is it not through the elections and speaking with people?”
Maybe, but i am not sure. It sure hasn’t been the best way for the past 40 years…
Either way, why is refusing to serve like stealing? The fact that other soldiers choose to serve, is their own buisness.
THe strangest thing you say is, “The people brave enough to make the terrible moral choices”.
It is a brave thing to make terrible choices? so why be brave?!
very confusing….
If you believe in it , you should serve. If not, you shouldn’t. simple as that
The point of the Israeli government ad is that political opinions play no role in military service, and should not do so, and the army is the one thing that brings as much of Israeli society – from the far-left to the far-right together.
The new ad does the exact opposite.
I too served in the Israeli army. I too think the occupation is wrong and bad for Israel on multiple levels. I also think that the second ad is simply retarded, and dangerous for Israel.
“Either way, why is refusing to serve like stealing? The fact that other soldiers choose to serve, is their own buisness.”
Other soldiers choose to serve on their own?
Other soldiers serve because they receive a draft/miluim notice from the army, which receives its orders from the freely-elected government. A person who ignores such an order but stays in the country is requiring others to spend more of their life in uniform. If there are 100 hours to serve in a month and the army calls 100 soliders, but only 50 show up, then each of the soldiers who show up do twice the work; they have been robbed of time in their lives.
“It is a brave thing to make terrible choices? so why be brave?!”
If a person believes in Zionism it is brave to serve in the territories, regardless of their political views, because by serving they are saying that they are making a commitment to the Zionist movement, in spite of its flaws.
It is also brave to leave the country or go to jail if you can’t accept those flaws.
Staying in Israel while others do difficult things in your stead does not seem very honorable though.
Ok, I’ve said enough/too much.
i agree with you on one thing – not going to the military and refusing to accept consequences is problematic at least.
but i see no problem if you are willing to go to jail.
but how exactly is serving in the territories (when you think that it is flawed and immoral) zionism?! that’s just weird.
also, if i think it is immoral to serve, why should i care that people who decide to make that immoral choice are doing twice the work?
either way, i don’t think this is the point kung fu jew was making.
there is a very long distance between draft dodging and saying that you aren’t a true israeli if you don’t serve (concidering that over a third of the population doesn’t)
Jonathan, I don’t have time for my full thoughts, but in short I support the right of every person to refuse to do things they disagree with — including right-wing soldiers who refuse to pull settlers out of settlements. I couldn’t disagree with their misplaced reasons more, but nobody can ask them to do it if they don’t want. Only after that thought could I get into whether or not Israel is dosing itself too highly on militarism in general.
But my real point was “isn’t that sticker clever?”