Support The Following

[elena_m]

"Why would a regular guy like me get up one morning in the middle of life, work, the kids, and decide he's not playing the game anymore?"
(Assaf Oron, Sergeant First Class, Infantry, Israel Defense Forces)


Why would this Israeli reservist, who has fought to defend his country, risk arrest and imprisonment, loss of income, damage to family, abandonment by friends?
Because, says Assaf and almost 500 other reservists, "We shall not continue to fight beyond the 1967 borders in order to dominate, expel, starve and humiliate an entire people." And by speaking out, by having the courage to refuse, these brave reservists have launched a debate throughout Israel and re-energized the Israeli peace movement. They are making a difference, but they need our help to increase their impact and numbers.

The Courage to Refuse Support Campaign
http://www.couragetorefuse.org/default.asp
Join our campaign to build support and visibility for the growing numbers of Israeli reservists and conscripts who refuse to fight a "War of the Settlements" in the occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Help us purchase ads in US and Israeli media announcing our support; host refusers in your community so that they can tell their story directly and powerfully; provide tangible support to the families of imprisoned refusers.

To see the Refuseniks http://www.seruv.org.il/defaulteng.asp

[elena_m]

In today's Globe and Mail

PRINT EDITION
http://www.globeandmail.ca/servlet/GIS.Servlets.HTMLTemplate?tf=tgam/common/FullStory.html&cf=tgam/common/FullStory.cfg&configFileLoc=tgam/config&vg=BigAdVariableGenerator&date=20020509&dateOffset=&hub=international&title=International&cache_key=international&current_row=6&start_row=6&num_rows=1
Root of terrorism is occupation, Israeli soldier says
By JEFF SALLOT


Thursday, May 9, 2002 – Page A18


OTTAWA -- Like most Israelis of military age, Elad Lahav says he is ready to defend his country, never more so than now, just after a suicide bomber killed young Israelis in his hometown.

But he is also among a small number of Israeli soldiers who have refused to serve in occupied Palestinian territory.

An army reserve staff sergeant, the 27-year-old spent four weeks in a military prison camp as punishment for refusing to join his infantry unit in March when it was called up and ordered to Hebron, a Palestinian city in the occupied West Bank.

"I agree we have to fight terrorism. I'm not naive," Staff Sergeant Lahav said yesterday.

But the root of terrorism, he believes, is the Israeli occupation, which has humiliated Palestinians and driven them to despair.

Staff Sgt. Lahav was visiting friends in Toronto Tuesday when the news came that a suicide bomber killed 15 and wounded many more in his hometown, Rishon Lezion, one of the oldest Jewish communities in what later became Israel.

Rishon Lezion means "first to Zion," a tribute to the 10 original Jewish farmers from Russia who settled there in 1882 on land purchased from Arabs.

The modern history has been troubled. When Staff Sgt. Lahav was a teenager in 1990, a Jewish extremist killed seven Arab workers in the city.

A computer programmer in civilian life, Staff Sgt. Lahav said his experiences as a soldier convinced him the only path to lasting peace is for Israel to pull out of occupied Palestinian territory.

As a young draftee in 1993, he served in Israel's so-called security zone in southern Lebanon in what he said was a "stupid war." Four of his friends and a cousin were killed fighting it.

Nevertheless, Staff Sgt. Lahav served willingly. It was just after the Oslo agreements had launched a peace process that raised the spirits of Israelis and Palestinians alike.

"I could convince myself that this was a transition period" and soon the Palestinians and Israelis would live in their own states in peace, he said.

Staff Sgt. Lahav changed his view after being called up again last year for service in the occupied West Bank. His unit was assigned to a checkpoint on the road between Ramallah and Jericho, and to protect a Jewish settlement built in an area Israel occupied after the 1967 war.

"What we were doing had nothing to do with the security of Israel," he said.

The military is simply guarding small Israeli settlements that never should have been established in occupied territory in the first place, he said.

He was embarrassed to stop families on the road for searches.

[L@mplighterM]

What exactly do you want support for? A Court Marshal?
All right I’ll support that unconditionally.

[victot]

i dunnooo...
i sorta see what they are saying... i don't think i like israel being in the west bank...

[takeo]

thanks for the interesting post and links, i will give it to my friends as well.

[maco]

Originally posted by elena_m
"Why would a regular guy like me get up one morning in the middle of life, work, the kids, and decide he's not playing the game anymore?"
(Assaf Oron, Sergeant First Class, Infantry, Israel Defense Forces)


Why would this Israeli reservist, who has fought to defend his country, risk arrest and imprisonment, loss of income, damage to family, abandonment by friends?
Because, says Assaf and almost 500 other reservists, "We shall not continue to fight beyond the 1967 borders in order to dominate, expel, starve and humiliate an entire people." And by speaking out, by having the courage to refuse, these brave reservists have launched a debate throughout Israel and re-energized the Israeli peace movement. They are making a difference, but they need our help to increase their impact and numbers.

The Courage to Refuse Support Campaign
http://www.couragetorefuse.org/default.asp
Join our campaign to build support and visibility for the growing numbers of Israeli reservists and conscripts who refuse to fight a "War of the Settlements" in the occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Help us purchase ads in US and Israeli media announcing our support; host refusers in your community so that they can tell their story directly and powerfully; provide tangible support to the families of imprisoned refusers.

To see the Refuseniks http://www.seruv.org.il/defaulteng.asp

You know something? People like you make me sad. I am now 18 and it is my time to serve. I will go because partly I want revenge because partly because My sister and I were two of the injured people in a suicide bombing at the end of March. I want revenge because they keep on taking the lives of all these innocent people just out having fun like they should be allowed to. It's not fun being afraid to go out wondering if I will come back or I will see my family again. You people who refuse to go fight for your own country need to be locked up in a prison and never be let out. I hope that happens, and the ones who did fight for our country can live in a peacefull world, it's the only way.

Kim

[takeo]

take your revenge, kill as many innocent palestinians as possible and you will be responsible for even more bloodshet and israeli and palestinian lost lifes. Give your life for the crazy colonisers, go on!!!

[maco]

Originally posted by takeo
take your revenge, kill as many innocent palestinians as possible and you will be responsible for even more bloodshet and israeli and palestinian lost lifes. Give your life for the crazy colonisers, go on!!!

I was going to respond, then I saw your location. That explains your response.

Kim

[Belgium@EU]

What kind of racist comment is that. because he lives in Europe, you're not going to respond. Get of your Israel-high-horse and respond to the world, instead of condemning other people of being anti-semitic.

[thrud]

Originally posted by maco


I was going to respond, then I saw your location. That explains your response.

Kim

Kim, I want to teach you a great saying:

Revenge is a dish best served cold.

This is so true. Cool down. Do not talk of revenge and wait. When the opportunity is given, it will be right before you eyes to wreak more havoc than murder. There is no better thing than to sit a wait calmly for your enemy to slip up, then to help him fall harder because of his own stupidity.

[Mediocrates]

http://www.nationalreview.com/derbyshire/derbyshire050902.asp

It's titled "Why don't I care about the Palestinians?"

An article by John Derbyshire that I think frames pretty well how millions of us feel about it.

Here are the three core paragraphs which should probably be carved into stone somewhere:

"What a world! You can only read a certain amount of this stuff before you start to avert your eyes. What on earth can anyone hope to do about all this? All the simple explanations for the horrors that stain a large part of our planet have been used up. We now know that it's not the fault of colonialism, or neo-colonialism, or capitalism, or socialism. It's just the way these places are. They can't handle modernity, for some cultural reason we don't understand and can't do anything about

That's the context in which I see the Palestinians. The Palestinians are Arabs; and the Arabs, whatever their medieval achievements (as best I can understand, they were mainly achievements of transmission — "Arabic" numerals, for example, came from India) are politically hopeless. Who can dispute this? Look at the last 50-odd years, since the colonial powers left. What have the Arabs accomplished? What have they built? Where in the Arab world is there a trace or a spark of democracy? Of constitutionalism? Of laws independent of the ruler's whim? Of free inquiry? Of open public debate? Where in your house is there any article stamped "Made in Syria?" Arabs can be individually very charming and capable, and perform very well in free societies like the U.S.A. There are at least two recent Nobel prizes with Arab names attached. Collectively, though, as nations, the Arabs are no-hopers.

All of this applies to the Palestinians. I spent some of my formative years in Hong Kong, a barren piece of rock with zero natural resources, under foreign occupation, chock-full of refugees from the Mao tyranny. The people there weren't lounging in UNRWA camps or making suicide runs at the governor's mansion. They were trading, building, speculating, manufacturing, working — with the result that Hong Kong is now a glittering modern city filled with well-dressed, well-educated, well-fed people, proud of what they have accomplished together, and with a higher standard of living than Britain herself. If, following the Oslo accords — or for that matter, in the 20 years of Jordanian occupation — the Palestinians had taken that route, had set aside their fantasies of revenge and massacre, and concentrated on building up something worth having, I might have respect for them. As it is, I don't.

[takeo]

The example of Hong Kong is a bad one, Hong Kong was the last occupied part of China, and for this reason it was a kind of free-trade zone between china and the west, for this reason it got wealthy. palestine is completely occupied, and the British didn't impose racist laws or curfews among the chinese, they didn't expropriate them to build British settlements.

Also the Arab civilisation inspired renaissance in Europe via italy and Spain and the break-trough of Western civilisation. Most Arab countries have reached more than what they had after years of colonisation, please visit one and you will think different, and the reason why won't find any syrian products in the US has a name, it"s called "israel"... (by the way we have Syrian honey and pesticides in france ;) )
The reason of this madness is clear too, if you would only bother to visit a palestinian refugee-camp for some days and experience yourself how it is to live under occupation and in exile, you will understand better too.

[takeo]

With Neighbors Like These
Posted by Jennifer Loewenstein

(Rafah Refugee Camp, Gaza, 2 May 2002) -- "They raise their children to hate." That's what we're told about the Palestinians. Watch the TV news. Listen to the radio. Pick up the dramatic US news magazines. Ask the intellectuals and the political pundits. Palestinian mothers willingly sacrifice their own children to the cause. In school, the teachers reinforce the hatred the children learn at home. How can there be peace in Israel/Palestine if they hate the Jews, the Israelis, and the Zionists so much? How can the lily-white live with such neighbors?

Iyad is four years old. His father doesn't allow him to play outside. In the streets of Rafah there is too much danger he'll be shot by Israeli soldiers -- like six-year-old Samiah Najih Hussan who dared walk home from school along the border road with her schoolmates. A bullet lodged in her brain and she died shortly thereafter. That was April 6th, 2002. Do you know how many children have died in similar circumstances since then? No. You don't. Because the news doesn't report it, just like it didn't report the death of 11-month-old Huda who died in her bedroom in the middle of the night on May 1st, 2002 when a tank shell blew apart the concrete walls of her home. By the time I got there the next day, all that was left of her was a ring of blood on the floor.

Ramzi laughs cynically after mimicking the poisonous claims of the western media.

--We raise our children to hate, don't you know?

He says this sarcastically, but gloom soon overtakes him.

--What am I suppose to say when Iyad asks me why he can't play outside? What am I supposed to tell him when he asks me why there are people shooting guns at us? Why tanks roll into our neighborhoods and fire at anything moving? Why airplanes and tanks destroy our city buildings and his friends‚ houses? What am I supposed to tell him when he wakes up at night because the war is just outside our door? How can I explain to my son why I am home from work for the fifth day in a row? Sixteen hours at the checkpoint on Saturday, 12 on Sunday, 13 on Monday, 10 on Tuesday, and then the rumors that it would soon open just stopped circulating. Don't make me laugh by asking me why. There is no why. There is only that I am not earning money to feed and clothe my family. I sit in my room and watch TV. I am restless and bored and humiliated. My sister is 7 months pregnant and she can't return to her husband in the Nuseirat refugee camp 20 minutes north of here. That's the price she's paying for daring to visit my wife and me. She was so sick in the taxicab at the checkpoint and I couldn't do anything to help her. We came back here after 8pm and she went to sleep on the floor.

Some of the camp children come by to see me. Luna and Ahmad, Assiel, Hudiah, and Riham crowd around me in Ramzi's home. They want to see what's in my handbag and touch my light, uncovered hair. They've brought me gifts to take back with me to America: a child's notebook with cartoon animals on it, a pencil drawing of a boat, a plastic flower. Riham wants to give me the bright headband that keeps her hair from her eyes. They ask me questions about America and show me how much English they've learned. Do I have to leave? I kiss Assiel on both cheeks to say good-bye and the others hang their heads until I do them the same honor, and then they smile with pride.

Assiel‚s grandmother begs to see the ajnabiyah, the foreign woman, before I leave. This 72-year-old peasant woman holds her hands out to me and kisses my face four times. She lives in a single room with a water closet in the corner and an electric burner for coffee and tea.

--This is not my real home, she says after our greetings.

--We had orchards and fields and a house in a village near Ashkelon. All our food came from our own land. I remember; I was 18. Her voice trails off.

--Then the Zionist soldiers forced us to leave. For 54 years they have been eating our oranges and living on our land and look at how we are living here.

So what do you tell Iyad when he asks his constant questions? I ask Ramzi later that evening.

--That they took our land and they don't want us here; that it is dangerous for him to go too close to their tanks and watch-towers. That they are waiting for us to leave but that we will stay. What else can I tell him? Shall I pretend it's not really happening? Shall I tell him lies? As it is, he doesn't understand and the tears come into his eyes whenever I have to leave. Do you know what this does to me?

Iyad and his friends throw a mini-basketball into a mini-basketball hoop stuck to the wall in the windowless room of their cramped, three-room home all day. And his father brings home chips for him and his friends and his little sister: luxury treats for being such good children. His father hugs Iyad close in his big arms at night until they both fall asleep. The image will not leave me: The terrorist man and the terrorist boy.

--Do you like Sharon? Do you like George Bush?

Each of the older children asks me this question sooner or later before I leave, waiting with huge eyes for my response.

Shall I tell them they're men of peace?