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Refuseniks

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Frank S.
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Refuseniks

Post by Frank S. »

http://www.spacewar.com/2003/031221221406.e5ur8g8r.html

Elite Israeli commandos refuse to serve in Palestinian territories

JERUSALEM (AFP) Dec 21, 2003
Fifteen members of the Israeli army's top commando unit have written to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon refusing to carry out missions in the Palestinian territories, private television reported here Sunday.
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Post by Sisyphus »

Frank

Good spot!

And your view on it is?
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Post by Frank S. »

The trend is worrisome in a way. First the report months ago of pilots refusing to continue carrying out retaliatory missions against Hamas in populated areas, resulting in Palestinian civilian casualties.

Then came four former heads of Shin-Bet openly criticizing Sharon's and Likud's policies.

Now commandos.

All publicly. I think it would take an awful lot for these men to come out publicly with their issues with policy, an awful lot. It is worrisome in part because of what is not said, what they know and don't reveal. But this may be besides the point.
It also does raise the issue of US-Israeli cooperation in Iraq and their (not-so) covert ops in Syria. Could this spill over into similar US units?
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Post by BenChug »

These boys should be sent to jail this sort of thing could get you shot during war time :o , it is not the place of soldiers to question the means of a democratically elected government as long as they are not doing anything where they can say "No, this is against the geneva convention a war crime.." that sort of thing. I agree with Frank seeing as this is a elite commando unit what have they 'seen?' which has been stated to make them feel this way.
If a man has nothing he is willing to die for then he isn't fit to live.
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Post by Cobalt »

Article here about Ometz Le'sarev (Courage to Refuse).

Many experienced and decorated soldiers are refusing to "fight beyond the 1967 borders in order to dominate, expel, starve and humiliate an entire people.''
- Cobalt

"It's always funny until someone gets hurt - then it's hilarious"
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Post by smamit »

Last night I was at a Hannukah party of my para reserve company with the wifes and girlfreinds,drinks ,dancing ,food and talk.
All of us have diffrent politacal veiws from left to right, no one has said they would refuse to serve. that would be letting your mate's down,and your unit,. I personly think we should pull back from the west bank and gaza, but No way in the world would I refuse to serve my unit, the army and the democarticly elicted goverment.
sorry about the spelling.
yours Adam
and for all of you a happy xmas and new year.
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Post by Ex-URNU-Student »

Sorry but some of what the Israelis do in the Occupied Territories are nothing short of war crimes. Give you an example, there was an incident a while back where the Israelis bombed an apartment block killing 14 people just to get a Hamas guy. Now if they wanted that one guy dead they could easily have done it another way, everyone knows they have Mossad agents and SF units that specialise in this sort of thing. But what do they do? They use an F16 to drop a huge bomb on the guys apartment block killing him and taking out 3 generations of the guys family at the same time. And then they have the cheek to say he was hiding behind them! Now that is an atrocity plain and simple, no wonder their pilots are refusing to carry out these attacks. Would you want that on your conscience? I sure as hell wouldnt. Whoever authorised that attack should be tried for war crimes. So if you would rather commit a war crime rather than "let down your mates" id say you need ur head examined.
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Post by Frank S. »

BenChug wrote: it is not the place of soldiers to question the means of a democratically elected government as long as they are not doing anything where they can say "No, this is against the geneva convention a war crime.." that sort of thing.
That sums it up for me.
So once again: it is not the place of soldiers to question the means of a democratically elected government.
Unless it can be very clearly demonstrated to me that they were tasked to commit war crimes and that their protest through established channels were ignored or otherwise dismissed, they are wrong.
You do not go to the news media to air your dissent when you wear the uniform.
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Post by Whitey »

Isn't bombing civilians a war crime under the Geneva Accords? I thought I'd be court-martialed if I as a Sgt. would have taken my squad into a populated area and took out non-combatants. Maybe in a democracy soldiers should think! Maybe soldiers who are there, who are being ordered to commit murder so the elitist can dine on surf and turf and joyride at the states expense should think twice before pulling the trigger, or releasing the bombs. I suggets you look at our own military resistance movement that took place in the US in the 1990's. American troops then decided in large groups, especially in Special Forces that the peace keeping missions were illegal, that our undeclared wars were illegal and that to squander Americans lives in places like Haiti, and Somalia were crap, that using US troops against our own people was wrong, so on.
Check it out. I remember amnesty formations where commanders told troops to turn over any literature they had over concearning opposition to these policies, where underground newspaper writers where being hunted down and eventually after they retired exposed themselves as members of the Green Berets, SEAL's and even our ultra loyal Marine Corps. The thing they don't realize is that soldiers are human beings, extensions of society, and killing civilians at home or abroad is not something the human mind can deal with easily. That the troops are more intellegent now and question missions when cross referrenced with the Constitution(They are supposed to uphold but not discuss). The Izzy story brings hope to me that the Izzy people and the Palestnians will make peace with eachother and their corrupt governments will surcumb to the will of their people who just want to live, have famalies and die of old age.
This is the American dream really, this Scar face value system we have now of greed, money and respect is poison, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness will prevail and if it takes the soldiers to ensure that, then great.
FTE, F@#K THE EMPIRE! Restore the Constitutional Republic and God bless those Izzies who refuse to make the situtation worse, maybe Jesus is making his rounds back through the area, changing souls.
America should just walk away from the area and let the sides figure out peace. They would eventually. Sooner with us gone. I've already said, bring all the Jews to New York, give it to them, we won't miss it. In 100 million years Africa will slam into Israel and there will be rugged mountians anyway, plate tectonics you know. New York will slide down to where Florida is, so see it is a good piece of land.
Let them call me a rebel and I welcome it, I feel no concern from it; but I should suffer the misery of demons were I to make a whore of my soul. (Thomas Paine)
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Post by Frank S. »

Five Israelis jailed for a year for refusing to serve in territories

TEL AVIV (AFP) Jan 04, 2004
A military tribunal sentenced five young Israelis Sunday to a year in prison for refusing to serve in the occupied Palestinian territories, one of those convicted said.
The five, all aged around 20, had been already been convicted on December 16 of insubordination after a court martial in Jaffa, near Tel Aviv, rejected their argument that they objected to serving on grounds of conscience and ruled that their motives were political.

Matan Kaminer, Noam Bahat, Shimri Tsameret, Adam Maor and Hagai Matar have already served 13 months on remand but they will now have to serve a further 12 months behind bars.

"We did not expect anything else from the tribunal of an army which occupies and oppresses a whole people and from a regime which has forgotten the meaning of democracy," Matar told AFP.

The group have been given until Wednesday to report to a military prison in northern Israel where they will serve their sentence.

Matar had earlier accused the Israeli army in a letter to Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz of being "an instrument of violence which violates human rights and international conventions."

All Israeli men aged over 18 have to serve three years national service.
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Post by Frank S. »

Israeli colonel protests troops' behaviour in Palestinian territories

JERUSALEM (AFP) Jan 04, 2004
A retired Israeli army colonel sent his officer's insignia back to chief of staff Moshe Yaalon on Sunday in protest at the behaviour of troops in the occupied territories.
Lieutenant Colonel Eitan Ronel said he had sent the leaf emblems to Yaalon "and explained to him in a letter that the army no longer respects the brave ethics as they had in the past".

"Children regularly fall victim to our bullets in the occupied Palestinian territories: this is both illegal and immoral," the former reservist officer told public radio.

"The blunders and the humiliations are becoming more and more serious and numerous as neither the orders nor the punishments are clearly formulated."

Ronel is the latest in a line of military refuseniks who have protested over Israeli tactics in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Thirteen soldiers from Israel's top commando unit wrote to Yaalon and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon late last month saying that they would no longer participate in a "rule of oppression" and the defence of Jewish settlements.
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Post by Ex-URNU-Student »

You cant exactly condemn all these refuseniks as a bunch of loony lefties can you? Their own servicemen are calling what they do war crimes.

Why the US continues to subdise the IDF war machine is astounding,

The "oh we're a democracy" argument is pathetic
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