Moriel Rothman is an Israeli draftee who is refusing to serve. His blogpost about being summoned to an IDF office is here. Below is a sizeable excerpt. Go to his site to read the ending…
I arrive. Before arriving, I do a lot of meditating and some praying and generally try to get myself in a place in which I am calm and filled with love even for those who don’t love me.
I go upstairs. I am calm. I am called into the room. Across from me sits the Samla”g* (a high-up in the draft office). The conversation goes something like this:
“Hello.”
“Hello.”
“We see that you were born in Israel, and then lived here when you were seventeen. And that you made ‘Aliyah’ last September. Is that right?”
“Well… immigrated, yeah.” (Probably best not to argue semantics here, I decide. One struggle at a time).
“And why don’t you want to serve in the army?”
“Because I am opposed to violence.”
”So are we. The IDF is not an organization that supports violence. We are defending our country’s borders.”
Breathe, Rothman. Breathe.
“I think the argument of whether the army is defensive or not is a different argument. But armies, all armies, are meant to use violence, to hurt and kill other people, and that is something I am not willing to take part in.”
“Why did you come here, then? Why didn’t you stay in America? You knew that you’d get drafted, right?”
“I want to be here. I care about what happens here, and the people living here. And anyway, the US has its army also.”
”But how can you live here and let other people defend you?”
“What I hear you asking is: How can I move to this country knowing that other people will be using the same violence I am opposed to, is that right?”
“Again: the army is not violent. The IDF is defensive.”
“It’s important for me to say that I am not telling others what to do, here. I myself am not willing to wear a uniform or hold a weapon, but I do claim to know what goes into someone else’s decision to do so… I don’t see myself as more moral or better. Maybe I’ll go a bit deeper into my philosophy here?”
“That’d be great, because so far, you haven’t convinced me.”
“OK, so, um… in life, there’s no way to know that what we believe is absolutely right, right?”
“Definitely.”
“As such, I think that with that knowledge of… unknowledge, the knowing that we don’t know what is Right or True, I believe in a path in which I can be assured that I am not going to erase from the world those people who might be right, or partially right, or together with whom I could find right.”
“We don’t erase people from the world.”
“If a bomb is dropped, whether its “defensive” or not, people are being erased from the world…”
“…”
“…”
“So, as of right now, you are going to be drafted in three weeks. If we don’t let you out on Conscience, what are you going to do?”
“I will not go to the army.”
“But it’s the law- would you be willing to break the law? To commit a crime?”
“I would rather break the law than join a system based on violence. Yes.”
“Isn’t that violence, though? Breaking the law?”
“No, I don’t think it is. Martin Luther King taught that when a law is unjust, and violates a one’s ethical principles, especially those which are based on nonviolence, the law should not be obeyed. And I also don’t think an act can be violent without a human victim who is hurt physically.”
apologies if this has already been posted elsewhere, but speaking of ‘erasure’, this is just brilliant, absolutely brilliant.
The triumphalists were out in full force to sing the praises of the Ilan Ramon Youth Physics Center at Ben Gurion University, which supplied many of the Israeli competitors for an international student physics competition, First Step to Nobel Prize in Physics, recently held in Poland. However, the achievement has been marred by overtly racist comments from the Ramon Center academic coördinator:
“We succeeded in showing the world the potential of the Jewish mind,” said Professor Victor Malamud, the head of the Ilan Ramon Youth Physics Center at Ben Gurion University, which works with students who wish to enter physics competitions.
Israel won first, second, third, and fourth prizes and the Israeli media is rightfully proud of the accomplishment. Yisrael HaYom conveniently named the first and third place winners, but not those awarded second place. Haaretz too “disappeared” the two second place winners, who happen to have been Israeli Palestinians. This Hebrew language article recounts the meeting with Pres. Shimon Peres. Not only does it omit the names of the Israeli Palestinian winners, it erroneously awards their second place prize to an Israeli Jewish student. It’s almost as if the non-Jews were air brushed out of the picture both literally and figuratively.
http://www.richardsilverstein.com/2012/10/03/israeli-palestinian-physics-prize-winners-disappeared-by-israeli-media/
Isn’t it sweet-young, liberal mind against the oppressive machine of violence?
But here is the problem-while he exercises his battle on conciseness and claims the high moral grounds, someone else might die while defending him and his precious freedoms.
It goes to the core of American and Israeli “liberal” and “universalism” Jews and non-Jews alike, who scream about the abuse of power and violence, while enjoying the fruits of it in their everyday lives, provided by the services of some others, perhaps less “enlightened” and more “brainwashed”.
If you chose the non-violent path it doesn’t mean that you cannot serve your country and your community-there are plenty of options within the IDF for that.
Self-promoting narcissism and claim for the moral superiority is just as deplorable, as the urge to kill.
sorry you did make Aliya.you do not like people there, you like jews.the officer is right your place is in the US.if you were serious you would have joined the ISM like Rachel Corrie.She cared about the people there.You try to camouflage yourself and put veneer on your bad conscience of being an ethnic cleanser.So pack up and go home:the US
”So are we. The IDF is not an organization that supports violence. We are defending our country’s borders.”
Israel has borders? Wow. Israel must be a country then. Any chance of us having a look at the map that defines these borders? I know France is a country and I know it’s borders. I know China is a country and I know it’s borders – along with the areas in dispute with neighboring countries. So, come on Israel, show us what ya got. Show us a map illustrating the borders Israel is defending now.
There’s sort of an insane logic to that interview.
If Zionism is lies, then it would follow that at the heart of Zionism, everything would be very deceitful.
And sure enough — so many of that IDF officer’s statements are the most breathtaking lies.