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)

“An elderly women in the audience who identified herself to the speakers as a Holocaust survivor thanked Wind and Mishly for their presentation, saying, if other young people use the way you do, we would live in a much better world.” – The Brandeis Hoot

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.”

By Thomas Good – October 12, 2009

Shministim is a Hebrew word meaning twelfth graders — but it means much more than that in the context of Israeli society and the occupation of Palestine.

STUDENTS REFUSING TO SERVE THE OCCUPATION

Shministim was the name adopted by a group of high school seniors who, in 1970, sent a letter to then Prime Minister Golda Meir, explaining that they declined to serve in the Israeli Defense Force due to the IDF’s role in policing the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. In 1987, a second Shministim group was formed, again composed of high school students who refused to serve in occupied Palestine. In 2001, a third instance of the sarvanim — or refusenik — movement arose. Members of this third incarnation of the student group are currently touring the U.S. The tour was organized by Jewish Voice for Peace and is being aided by CodePINK.

On September 30, two Shministim refusers, Maya Wind and Netta Mishly, spoke at the Unitarian Church of Staten Island. The event was co-sponsored by the UCSI and Peace Action Staten Island.

The two young women began their presentation with a description of how conscription works in Israel. It is mandatory for all Jews and some non-Jews as well. Women serve two years, men, three. Draft dodging is very common. According to Wind, 40 percent of those required to serve elude the draft as a variety of loopholes exist. Orthodox Jews are exempted on religious grounds and married women are also not required to serve. Physical ailments are a third way out of military service and mental illness — real or invented — is “another popular one,” Wind said. Israel also grants conscientious objector status to some conscriptees, although potential COs must convince a panel that they are “universal pacifists” who will not fight under any circumstances. The last officially accepted category is “misfitting” which, according to Ms. Wind, includes “everything from smoking pot in high school to a rough socioeconomic background.”

But the Shministim do not fit into any of these categories. They are refuseniks with a political cause — “selective refusers” who reject Israeli policy towards Palestine and its peoples. Because they are not pacifists and cite a political reason for their refusal, they often become political prisoners of the Israeli military.

Maya Wind read a portion of a Shministim letter that was sent to the Israeli political leaders. The section mentioned several “defense methods” the Shministim find objectionable: “checkpoints, targeted killing (of Palestinians), roads for Jews only, sieges and war.” The conclusion of the statement summarized the Shministim position saying it was “impossible to be moral and serve the occupation.”

Netta Mishly
(Photo: Thomas Good / NLN)

BECOMING A POLITICAL PRISONER

Netta Mishly described the process of becoming a refusenik. Draftees receive orders to report to base. On arrival each conscript receives an order, in effect the order states you are now a soldier of the IDF. It is at this point the Shministim refuse. Having refused a direct order, the refuseniks are sent to military prison. When they are released, the Shministim return to base where they are again ordered to become soldiers. Additional refusals provoke additional jail time. This sequence can loop any number of times. It can be broken by the refusenik asking to see a psychiatrist — or being ordered to see one. If found mentally unfit, the refusenik is exempted from military service. In theory a conscript can be held in prison for ten years but according to Mishly no one has been held beyond two years.

THE REASON BEHIND THE REFUSAL

Maya Wind and Netta Mishly discussed the rationale for the Shministim refusal to serve the occupation in detail. The discussion began with a slideshow depicting the Israeli appropriation of Palestinian land, starting in 1947 and intensifying after the 1948 war. The war resulted in a large land grab that Israelis call independence and Palestinians call the Nakba (catastrophe). The 1947 partition scheme gave 30 percent of the population (Israelis) 55 percent of the land, Wind said. Since then the Israelis have made encroachment on the remaining lands a centerpiece of domestic and foreign policy. And integral to the encroachment and appropriation is the occupation.

Ms. Mishly described the “three elements of the occupation” in some detail: settlements, check points and “separation barriers” (the Wall).

“The settlements are in very strategic points.” she said.

The settlements are used to justify the army’s presence in Palestine. The settlers, the checkpoints that protect them, and the army personnel that garrison the checkpoints have been deployed for “purely economic reasons,” Mishly said. The system of checkpoints — and the time involved in negotiating them — keeps the cost of Palestinian produced goods high with the end result being that it is often cheaper for Palestinians to buy Israeli products than to purchase items produced by their own people. The Palestinians who pass through the checkpoints are used as a cheap labor pool by Israelis — and the checkpoints are used effectively to prevent organized resistance to economic exploitation.

The 260 checkpoints make it very difficult for Palestinians to move freely and this is by design, according to Wind and Mishly. Travel permits are required and membership in an organization the Israelis oppose can result in a permit being revoked. This can be devastating as Palestinians must funnel through checkpoints to go to school and hospital — as well to work.

The official rationale argues that checkpoints are for security and protect Israelis. Ms. Wind disagrees.

“The vast majority of checkpoints separate Palestinians from Palestinians more than they separate Palestinians from Israelis,” Wind said.

The checkpoint system is an aspect of military service the Shministim find particularly objectionable. Wind pointed out that having to wear 80 pounds of equipment, “in all weather,” while strip searching Palestinians who stand on line for hours makes for surly soldiers who are also scared for their own safety. This often results in IDF soldiers abusing Palestinians, Wind said. None of this furthers the peace process.

UP AGAINST THE WALL

Ms. Mishly discussed The Wall, the so-called separation barrier, which is located inside the West Bank — as opposed to encircling the territory. The fact that the Wall winds through Palestinian territory, rather than containing it — erected in areas where settlements are planned but not yet built — would seem to indicate that its purpose is not security but continued encroachment into Palestinian lands, in the form of settlements.

Maya Wind and Netta Mishly
(Photo: Thomas Good / NLN)

EXPANDING SETTLEMENTS

The settlements allow Jews seeking affordable housing — underwritten by government sponsored tax incentives — to acquire nicer homes with “better views” than they could find in Israel. But the settlements are not the only form of encroachment. Maya Wind has researched what she calls “the economy of occupation” and she has concluded that there are four core elements:

1) Economic exploitation of Palestinian natural resources and a cheap labor pool are hallmarks of the economy of the occupation, according to Wind. Palestinian laborers are underpaid (often less than the Israeli minimum wage), uninsured and compelled to work overtime without overtime compensation. Many natural resources are removed from Palestine, for example mud used in facial masks, and packaged and sold as Israeli products.

“Israel goes into the West Bank and extracts natural resources as if it owned them,” Ms. Wind said. The Israelis also dump toxic and other waste in the West Bank, she said.

2) Control of the indigenous population via military means has produced a security industry in Israel. Ms. Wind said that the economic importance of Israeli arms trafficking is a problem but the exportation of security methods and technology using “the occupation as a logo” is particularly offensive.

3) The corporations profiting from the Israeli economic exploitation of Palestinian workers and natural resources are not exclusively Israeli. Multinational corporations profiting at the expense of the Palestinians, encouraged by Israeli tax incentives, is well documented at whoprofits.org, Ms. Wind said.

4) Water. Water is a key natural resource in the Middle East and 80 percent of the water extracted from Palestine is redirected to Israeli settlements, producing serious shortages in the Occupied Territories.

IDEOLOGY AND ORDINARY ISRAELIS

To make the occupation palatable to ordinary Israelis and the rest of the world an ideological war is also underway, Wind said. She told the audience that the “victim mentality,” in part a result of the Holocaust and other examples of anti-semitism, is used to create a distrust of the world — a distrust that is “very harmful to the peace movement” in Israel.

The absence of a “Palestinian narrative” in Israeli discourse and textbooks is used to perpetuate the “empty land” myth, Wind said, alluding to the notion that Palestine was a vast empty expanse, a “land without people for a people without land” before the Israelis arrived. Wind compared the lack of a Palestinian narrative in Israel to the lack of a Native American narrative in U.S. society.

Additional ideological underpinnings of the occupation and exploitation include the notion that the IDF is “the most moral army in the world,” Wind said. She said that this romantic representation of the IDF is accompanied by the myth that the Israeli government wants peace but “there is no partner.” Wind rejects this idea, noting that wherever there are people, there is a partner for the peace process.

The formal presentation was followed by a question and answer session.

An audience member asked about Americans who serve in the IDF. Netta Mishly responded, saying that Americans generally serve only a year as they are “not that useful” due to the language barrier — most Americans who join the IDF do not speak Hebrew.

Commenting on a significant fact, often overlooked in discussions about the occupation, Mishly said that more and more settlers are army careerists, attaining higher and higher ranks and being in a position to influence IDF policy and perhaps Israeli politics. This also hinders the peace process.

Maya Wind
(Photo: Thomas Good / NLN)

SONS AND DAUGHTERS

The most poignant moment in the evening arrived when the two young women discussed the cost of being a Shministim.

Noting that the refuseniks are the smallest segment — approximately 200 people — of the peace movement in Israel, Mishly pointed out that they support each other because they are ostracized. Responding to a question about whether their families support them, Mishly said no.

“It hurts,” she said.

The lack of support for the political position taken by the Shministim does not, however, stop family members from supporting their children when their sons and daughters enter the prison system.

“They are still your parents,” Mishly said.

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.

Anyone who has visited the West Bank in the last 40 years has gone past a good number of Israel Defense Force (IDF) soldiers. Toting automatic rifles and dressed in combat fatigues, they are a constant presence at hundreds of checkpoints, controlling the flow of people throughout much of the occupied territory.

For Americans, after the guilty realization that your passport allows you to bypass a long line of Palestinians, what comes as a surprise is how young the Israeli soldier at the checkpoint is. If you think that he or she just graduated from high school, you’re probably right — conscription (three years for men, two years for women) is mandatory for most Jewish Israelis after 12th grade.

This fact didn’t stop Maya Wind, who spoke at SIPA on Tuesday, from refusing to enlist in the IDF when she graduated from high school last year. Continuing a small but stubborn tradition of Israeli conscientious objection, Wind and nine other shministim — a Hebrew word meaning “12th-graders” — sent a letter to their prime minister and defense minister explaining their refusal to enlist as a protest against the Israeli military occupation of Palestinian territory. They wrote, in part:

We oppose the actions taken in the name of the “defense” of the Israeli society (Checkpoints, targeted killing, apartheid roads — available for Jews only, curfews etc.) that serve the occupation and exploitation policy, annex more conquered territories to the State of Israel and tramples the rights of the Palestinian population in an aggressive manner.

The shministim were detained and jailed for several months and ultimately exempted from military service on “mental health” grounds.

Of course, conscientious objection can seem like a dangerous act in a state facing an external threat. In the US, for example, Socialist leader Charles Schenck was imprisoned for distributing pamphlets in favor of conscientious objection during World War I. The Supreme Court decision on his case gave us the world’s most overused metaphor on the dangers of free speech: that the law does not permit you to shout “Fire!” in a crowded theater.

Wind may be shouting “Fire!” but, as the saying goes, there may actually be a fire.

“There’s a real erosion right now in what I consider culture of democracy in Israel,” Wind said, describing militarism, Islamophobia and racism as growing societal ills.

Israeli political movements to criminalize the Palestinian commemoration of the Nakba — an Arabic word meaning “catastrophe” that refers to Israel’s founding — and to make Israeli citizenship dependent on “loyalty” to the state have met little protest, according to Wind. Security concerns dominate Israeli politics to the point that there is inadequate discussion of domestic issues, and there is almost no awareness of Palestinian perspectives on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, she said.

Wind is an eloquent “anti-occupation activist,” as she calls herself, and she has an impressive command of the details of Israel’s occupation and assimilation of Palestinian land beyond the “green line” of its internationally recognized pre-1967 borders. She is also remarkable because she is so young — at 19, she is roughly one-third the age of many of the gray-haired peace activists who showed up to support her.

But much of her SIPA audience was challenging. A former IDF officer asked whether she believed Israel could exist without the military occupation. Another person asked whether she was comfortable with the prospect of 4.5 million Palestinians exercising their “right of return” to Israel. Wind answered that she believes the occupation aggravates the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and prevents peace, and that she is not committed to the idea that Israel is a “Jewish” state — as a peace activist, she has made Palestinian friends, and she is not afraid to have Palestinian neighbors. Given the divided politics of the audience, there was a fair share of testy muttering, abortive outbreaks of applause and other tense group dynamics.

“Most of the time it’s not as civil as this,” Wind quipped.

Wind’s most compelling explanation of her beliefs came from her story of how, at 15, she decided to participate in a Palestinian-Israeli dialogue group and spoke with a woman whose father had been killed by the IDF.

“It was very clear to me that that was not self-defense,” Wind recalled. “I really started crying when I heard this story. … That was the first time that I made the connection between my personal actions and the greater context. … Slowly I became active in the West Bank as a peace activist, and then seeing what I saw there only strengthened this understanding. … The occupation was wrong and I could not serve, I could not.”

By Gabriel Schivone

Three Shministim — Yuval Ophir-Auron, Omer Goldman, and Sahar Vardi — are coming to South Africa!

Here’s the info we’ve got, courtesy of the South African End Conscription Campaign (ECC) and the Open Shuhada Street Campaign:

“Twenty five years ago the End Conscription Campaign (ECC), one of the movements connected to the United Democratic Front, began its campaign to end the conscription of white males into the South African Defence Force (SADF). It was composed of conscientious objectors who believed that the wars the SADF was fighting were immoral and instead preferred to go to jail rather than be conscripted. The ECC is celebrating its 25th Anniversary at the end of October. To highlight the fact that young people whose countries are involved in conflict are today taking a similar moral stand, the organisers have invited conscientious objectors from various countries, including Eritrea, the USA and Israel.

From 1 to 12 October 2009, three Israeli conscientious objectors who are members of the Shministim movement, translated as ‘twelfth graders’ in Hebrew, will be visiting South Africa as guests of the ECC and Open Shuhada Street (OSS), an organisation campaigning for a street in Hebron (Shuhadah Street) to be opened to Palestinians and Israelis. The Shministim, who have all been to prison for refusing to serve in the Israeli Defence Force, are being brought to South Africa because of the strong principled stand that they have taken and their willingness to accept the consequences of their beliefs.

The Shministim will be meeting with various members of South African society so that they can explain their stand as conscientious objectors, build international solidarity on the basis of equality and human rights for all, and learn from local activists about the struggles of the past and the present.

They will engage with a broad range of people including civil society, the general public, various faith communities, activists, and most importantly youth.”

If you want more info on Yuval, Omer, and Sahar, click here for their bios.

The Shministim will deliver the Ashley Kriel Memorial Lecture

The Shministim will be delivering the Ashley Kriel memorial lecture at the University of the Western Cape. This is a major honour and given in memory of the murdered 21 year old anti-apartheid activist who was a model for youth struggle and principled resistance. This lecture will be delivered to over 1000 people from all backgrounds.
See: http://www.ijr.org.za/pastevents/ashleykriel

The Shminstim will also appear in the Carte Blanche’ – TV show

The Shministim will be the focus of a report on South Africa’s most prominant investigative reporting TV show – Carte Blanche’.

If you have any further questions about the South Africa tour or would like to make contact with the Shministim there, please contact:

Laurie Nathan
End Conscription Campaign
076 524 2161
L.Nathan at lse.ac.uk

Ilan Strauss
Open Shuhada Street volunteer
083 473 2080
ilanstrauss at gmail.com

Daniel Mackintosh
Open Shuhada Street volunteer
072 200 0393
Daniel.mackintosh at gmail.com

These young women, more than any of the numerous speakers Sabeel has co-hosted, really seemed to speak to the Jews of various persuasions in the audience.  I saw Jewish acquaintances in the audience who have never come to anything we have offered on Palestine/Israel, including talks by Jewish or Israeli speakers.  There’s something very non-threatening about being lectured to by a couple of brilliant and sincere 19 yr olds who have risked so much. George Hudes, the founder of our local tiny JVP chapter, said that even one of his acquaintances who is on the AIPAC board had said he was impressed with Maya and Netta’s presentation.

All and all, it was a very well received event that brought some significant new blood into the movement for justice and peace in Palestine/Israel, and brought back some folks who had been very frustrated, burned out, or lone-rangering.  I’m feeling hopeful that this will carry over to the Hawaii Sabeel Conference in Feb, 2010.

Maya and Netta spent about an hour with a small group of Native Hawaiian charter school high school students,  and their teacher Laulani Teale,  some social work grad students from the university, and Darlene Rodrigues from AFSC, part of a group that had been touring UH for Peace Day.  It was what old timers here call an “aloha bath”.  The Shministim were greeted warmly, local style, with kisses and lei that the students had twisted out of ti leaves.  We all sat in a circle on a platform (no chairs) in the Sustainability Courtyard.  At first the students were a little shy, but soon they were talking about Hawaiian History, the Occupation in Hawaii, the Sovereignty Movement and ho’oponopono, a traditional Hawaiian process of reconciliation. Maya and Netta shared about what it was like to take a stand that so unacceptable in Israeli society, and a little about what it was like in prison.  I could see that everybody was learning from each other in this exchange. At the end, the students lined up and chanted a traditional Hawaiian chant of thanks to Maya and Netta and finished with group pictures and more hugs.