| http://www.utoronto.ca/csus/pm/manifest.htm
[Asaf Oron, a Sergeant Major in the Giv'ati Brigade, is one of the original� 53 Israeli soldiers who signed the "Fighters' Letter" declaring that from �now on they will refuse to serve in the Occupied territories.� He is signer� #8 and one of the first in the list to include a statement� explaining his �action.� My sense is that his statement comes as close as possible to being� the refuseniks' manifesto, given the loose structure of the group and their� insistence on independent, individual responsibility.� Below is my �translation of Oron's statement.� Read it, and you will no longer be �surprised by the amazing response to the soldiers' initiative (251 signers �as of February 17, 2002).--Ami Kronfeld] � Asaf Oron's statement On February 5, 1985, I got up, left my home, went to the Compulsory Service� Center on Rashi Street in Jerusalem, said goodbye to my parents, boarded the� rickety old bus going to the Military Absorption Station and turned into a soldier. � Exactly seventeen years later, I find myself in a head to head confrontation� with the army, while the public at large is jeering and mocking me from the� sidelines.� Right wingers see me as a traitor who is dodging the holy war �that's just around the corner.� The political center shakes a finger at me �self-righteously� and lectures me about undermining democracy and �politicizing the army.� And the left? The square, establishment, "moderate"� left that only yesterday was courting my vote now turns its back on me as �well.� Everyone blabbers about what is and what is not legitimate, exposing� in the process the depth of� their ignorance of political theory and their �inability to distinguish a real democracy from a third world regime in the �style of Juan Peron. � Almost no one asks the main question: why would a regular guy get up one �morning in the middle of life, work, the kids and decide he's not playing �the game anymore?� And how come he is not alone but there are fifty. I beg �your pardon, a hundred. beg your pardon again, now almost two hundred �regular, run of the mill guys like him who've done the same thing? � Our parents' generation lets out a sigh: we've embarrassed them yet again. �But isn't it all your fault?� What did you raise us on? Universal ethics and� universal justice, on the one hand: peace, liberty and equality to all. And� on the other hand: "the Arabs want to throw us into the sea,"� "They are all� crafty and primitive.� You can't trust them." � On the one hand, the songs of John Lennon, Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, Bob �Marely, Pink Floyd.� Songs of peace and love and against militarism and war. On the other hand, songs about a sweetheart riding the tank after sunset in the field: "The tank is yours and you are ours." [allusions to popular Israeli songs - AK].� I was raised on two value systems: one was the ethical� code and the other the tribal code, and I na�vely believed that the two �could coexist. � This is the way I was when I was drafted.� Not enthusiastic, but as if �embarking on a sacred mission of courage and sacrifice for the benefit of �society.� But when, instead of a sacred mission,� a 19 year old finds �himself performing the sacrilege of violating human beings' dignity and �freedom, he doesn't dare ask - even himself - if it's OK or not.� He simply acts like everyone else and tries to blend in.� As it is, he's got enough �problems, and boy is the weekend far off. � You get used to it in a hurry, and many even learn to like it.� Where else �can you go out on patrol - that is, walk the streets like a king, harass and� humiliate pedestrians to your heart's content, and get into mischief with �your buddies - and at the same time feel like a big hero defending your �country?� The Gaza Exploits became heroic tales, a source of pride for Giv' ati, then a relatively new brigade suffering from low self esteem. � For a long time, I could not relate to the whole "heroism" thing.� But when, as a sergeant, I found myself in charge, something cracked inside me. �Without thinking, I turned into the perfect occupation enforcer.� I settled� accounts with "upstarts"� who didn't show enough respect.� I tore up the �personal documents of men my father's age.� I hit, harassed, served as a bad example -� all in the city of Kalkilia, barely three miles from grandma and grandpa's home-sweet-home.� No.� I was no "aberration." I was exactly the �norm. � Having completed my compulsory service, I was discharged, and then the first Intifada began (how many more await us?)� Ofer, a comrade in arms who �remained in the service has become a hero: the hero of the second Giv'ati �trial.� He commanded� a company that dragged a detained Palestinian �demonstrator into a dark orange grove and beat him to death.� As the verdict stated, Ofer was found to have been the leader in charge of the whole �business.� He spent two months in jail and was demoted - I think that was �the most severe sentence given an Israeli soldier through the entire first �Intifada, in which about a thousand Palestinians were killed.� Ofer's �battalion commander testified that there was a order from the higher �echelons to use beatings as a legitimate method of punishment,� thereby �implicating himself.��� On the other hand, Efi Itam, the brigade commander,� who had been seen beating Arabs on numerous occasions, denied that he ever� gave such an order and consequently was never indicted.� Today he lectures �us on moral conduct on his way to a new life in politics. (In the current �Intifada, incidentally, the vast majority of incidents involving Palestinian� deaths are not even investigated. No one even bothers.) � And in the meantime, I was becoming more of a civilian.� A copy of The �Yellow Wind [a book on life in the Occupied Territories by the Israeli �writer David Grossman, available in English -AK] which had just come out, �crossed my path.� I read it, and suddenly it hit me.� I finally understood �what I had done over there.� What I had been over there. � I began to see that they had cheated me: They raised me to believe there �was� someone up there taking care of things.� Someone who knows stuff that is �beyond me, the little guy.� And that even if sometimes politicians let us �down,� the "military echelon" is always on guard, day and night, keeping us safe,� each and every one of their decisions the result of sacred necessity. Yes, they cheated us, the soldiers of the Intifadas, exactly as they had �cheated the generation that was beaten to a pulp in the War of Attrition and in the Yom Kippur War, exactly as they had cheated the generation that sank deep into the Lebanese mud during the Lebanon invasions.� And our parents' �generation continues to be silent. � Worse still, I understood that I was raised on two contradictory value �systems.� I think most� people discover even at an earlier age they must �choose between two value systems: an abstract, demanding one that is no fun� at all and that is very difficult to verify, and another which calls to you� from every corner - determining who is up and who is down, who is king and �who - pariah, who is one of us and who is our enemy.� Contrary to basic �common sense,� I picked the first.� Because in this country the �cost-effective analysis comparing one system to another is so lopsided, I �can't blame those who choose the second. � I picked the first road, and found myself volunteering in a small, �smoke-filled office in East Jerusalem, digging up files about deaths, �brutality, bureaucratic viciousness or simply daily harassments.� I felt I �was atoning, to some extent, for my actions during my days with the Giv'ati brigade.� But it also felt as if I was trying to empty the ocean out with a teaspoon. � Out of the blue, I was called up for the very first time for reserve duty in the Occupied Territories.� Hysterically, I contacted my company commander. �He calmed me down: We will be staying at an outpost overlooking the Jordan �river.� No contacts with� the local population is expected.� And that indeed was what I did, but some of my friends provided security for the Damia �Bridge terminal [where Palestinians cross from Jordan to Israel and vice �versa - AK].� This was in the days preceding the Gulf War and a large number of Palestinian refugees were flowing from Kuwait to the Occupied Territories (from the frying pan into the fire).� The reserve soldiers - mostly right �wingers - cringed when they saw the female consscripts stationed in the �terminal happily ripping open down-comforters and babies' coats to make sure� they didn't contain explosives. I too cringed when I heard their stories, �but I was also hopeful: reserve soldiers are human after all, whatever their� political views. � Such hopes were dashed three years later, when I spent three weeks with a �celebrated reconnaissance company in the confiscated ruins of a villa at the outskirts of the Abasans (if you don't know where this is, it's your �problem).� This is where it became clear to me that� the same humane reserve soldier could also be an ugly, wretched macho undergoing a total regression back to his days as a young conscript.� Already on the bus ride to the Gaza strip, the soldiers were competing with each other: whose "heroic" tales of murderous beatings during the Intifada were better (in case you missed this point: the beatings were literally murderous:� beating to death).� Going on patrol duty with these guys once was all that I could take.� I went up to �the placement officer and requested to be given guard duty only. Placement officers like people like me: most soldiers can't tolerate staying inside �the base longer than a couple of hours. � Thus began the nausea and shame routine, a routine that lasted three tours �of reserve duty in the Occupied Territories: 1993, 1995, and 1997.� The �"pale-gray" refusal routine.� For several weeks at a time I would turn into a hidden "prisoner of conscience," guarding an outpost or a godforsaken �transmitter on top of� some mountain, a recluse.� I was ashamed to tell most of my friends why I chose to serve this way.� I didn't have the energy to �hear them get on my case for being such a "wishy washy" softy.� I was also �ashamed of myself: This was the easy way out.� In short, I was ashamed all �over.� I did "save my own soul."� I was not directly engaged in �rongdoing� -� only made it possible for others to do so while I kept guard. Why didn't I refuse outright?� I don't know.� It was partly the pressure to conform, partly the political process that gave us a glimmer of hope that �the whole occupation business would be over soon.� More than anything, it �was my curiosity to see actually what was going on over there. � And precisely because I knew so well, first hand, from years of experience �what was going on over there, what reality was like over there, I had no �trouble seeing, through the fog of war and the curtain of lies, what has �been taking place over there since the very first days of the second �Intifada.� For years, the army had been feeding on lines like "We were too �nice in the first Intifada," and "If we had only killed a hundred in the �very first days, everything would have been different."� Now the army was �given� license to do things its way.� I knew full well that [former Prime �Minister] Ehud Barak was giving the army free hand, and that [current Chief of Staff] Shaul Mofaz was taking full advantage of this to maximize the �bloodshed. � By then, I had two little kids, boys, and I knew from experience that no �one - not a single person in the entire world - will ever make sure that my� sons won't have to serve in the Occupied Territories when they reach 18. No one, that is, except me.� And no one but me will have to look them in the �eye when they're all grown up and tell them where dad was when all that �happened.� It was clear to me:� this time I was not going. � Initially, this was a quiet decision, still a little shy, something like "I am just a bit weird, can't go and can't talk about it too much either." But as time went by, as the level of insanity, hatred, and incitement kept �rising, as the generals were turning the Israeli Defense Forces into a �terror organization, the decision was turning into an outcry: "If you can't see that this is one big crime leading us to the brink of annihilation, then something is terribly wrong with you!" � And then I discovered that I was not alone.� Like discovering life on �another planet. � The truth is that I understand why everyone is mad at us.� We spoiled the �neat little order of things.� The holy Status Quo states that the Right �holds the exclusive rights to celebrate the blood and ask for more.� The �role of the Left, on the other hand, is to wail while sitting in their �armchairs sipping wine and waiting for the Messiah to come and with a single wave of his magic wand make the Right disappear along with the settlers, the Arabs, the weather, and the entire Middle East.� That's how the world is �supposed to work.� So why are you causing such a disturbance?� What's your �problem?� Bad boys! � Woe to you, dear establishment left!� You haven't been paying attention! �That Messiah has been here already.� He waved his magic wand, saw things �aren't that simple, was abandoned in the midst of battle, lost altitude, and finally was assassinated, with the rest of us (yes, me too)� watching from �the comfort of our armchairs.� Forget it.� A messiah doesn't come around �twice!� There is no such thing as a free lunch. � Don't you really see what we are doing,� why it is that we stepped out of �line?� Don't you get the difference between a low key, personal refusal and an organized, public one? (and make no mistake about it, the private refusal is the easier choice.)� You really don't get it?� So let me spell it out for you. � First, we declare our commitment to the first value system.� The one that is� elusive, abstract, and not profitable.� We believe in the moral code �generally known as God (and my atheist friends who also signed this letter �would have to forgive me - we all believe in God, the true one, not that of the Rabbis and the Ayatollahs).� We believe that there is no room for the �tribal code, that the tribal code simply camouflages idolatry, an idolatry �of a type we should not cooperate with.�� Those who let such a form of idol worship take over will end up as burnt offerings themselves. � Second, we (as well as some other groups who are even more despised and �harassed) are putting our bodies on the line, in the attempt to prevent the� next war.� The most unnecessary, most idiotic, cruel and immoral war in the� history of Israel. � We are the Chinese young man standing in front of the tank.�� And you?� If �you are nowhere to be seen, you are probably inside the tank, advising the �driver. � Asaf Oron |
