Info 20 from Friendship Village

["Jonatan Peled" <peled_j at maabarot.org.il>]

Info 20.


         From the burning Middle - East . . .


Dear Friends !

Six weeks passed since my last "Info". Along these weeks I was abroad, then
the Pesach and Easter holidays came - and still nothing changed in our
region. The violent, bloody conflict between Israel and the Palestinian
people is going on and nobody can see when and how it will finish. On the
surface the two peoples entrench in their fears and hatred, but some
underground streams can be felt in the Israeli public. Unfortunately
opposition to occupation and oppression of the Palestinian people is
expressed openly by just a minority in the Israeli Jewish public, but
alienation of a growing part of its elite and leading strata, from the
political leadership's policy is expressed more and more openly through
evasion of more and more youngsters from military service and  -  lately -
an outcry from within the hard core of the IDF "reservists" against absence
of equality in distribution of this heavy burden among all the relevant
population.
When the late Yitzhak Rabin was asked, why did he change his mind so
totally and accepted to negotiate with the Palestinians, his answer was,
that he didn't believe any more in the ability of the Israeli people to
live in a constant state of war. He prefered to negotiate for peace, when
the Israeli society was still strong.
I have no doubt, that if the IDF "reservists" would believe that the war
was for the defence of our country, our homes, if the youngsters that try
every way to abstain from drafting the Army would feel that the military
service was a matter of survival - all of them would go, without any
reservation, to defend the society. When the army is used on the first
place for the oppression of another people, it is less and less conceived
as something of positive value. When people feel that we go to unneccessary
wars, they are less ready to risk their lives (or even their well
being...). And if reserve service doesn't serve any more the security of
the country, if it is conceived as a "job that has to be done" - than quite
naturally they demand in return a higher payment.
The real danger in this process is, that in the reality of our region the
Army is - unfortunately - still neccessary. Periodical wars brake out from
time to time between neighbours all over the Middle - East. The
intellectual elites in the Arab world still boycot every idea of accepting
Israel ; a non-arab, non-Moslem state in this area, so in the unfortunate
political reality no country - first of all not Israel - can give up its
army, as an instrument of self-defense.
The conclusion is, that to use the IDF as an instrument for occupation and
oppression of another nation, weekens the ability of  the Israeli society
to withstand real dangers for its survival, if and when they will come. In
other words - the oppressive fighting against the Palestinian People,
neccessarily weekens the Israeli society, therefore it may be dangerous for
its future, if a real threaten will appear.

In this Info three articles are presented to you:
1 - Two of them about the crisis in the IDF reser service
2 - An article of Prof. Baruch Kimmerling, about "The right to resist".
     Prof. Kimmerling is one of the most outstanding authority for Law in
Israel.

The articles can be found also on the webpages:

http://friendshipvillage.homestead.com/ArticlesApril126Reservists.html ;

http://friendshipvillage.homestead.com/Home.html ;

On the http://friendshipvillage.homestead.com/Home.html  you can find a lot
of updated information about peace activities in Israel, in the U.S., even
in Australia. All this in addition to relevant documents, articles - and
description of the "Friendship Village" Project.


                                                        Jonatan Peled
                                   Friendship Village



Crisis in reserve duty

Haaretz Editorial
9 April 2001

Israel's defense strategy assumes that the country will always find itself
in a situation where few will have to face many and there will always be a
shortage of resources. As such, it has consistently relied on calling up
reservists. In addition to a small core of career officers (mostly in
intelligence, air force and the navy), and the conscripts, the Israel
Defense Forces (IDF) rely on about 30 years of reserve duty for men,
especially during periods of crisis.

During the initial weeks of the violent confrontation which began in
September 2000, the General Staff avoided calling up reservists. There were
various reasons for this - security, economic and social. The IDF feared
that calling up reserves on a massive scale would be interpreted in Arab
states as Israel planning an offensive. From an economic point of view, the
IDF was keen on sticking to its deal with the Finance Ministry, under which
all funds saved from paying for reserve duty days would be transferred to
the budget of the military. Also taken into account was the impact on
Israeli society of reserve duty during a violent clash with Palestinian
society: the longer the confrontation, and by extension, the greater
demands for reserve duty time, the more Israeli society as a whole would be
challenged.

The concerns were realized as the confrontation lengthened and the call-up
of reservists increased, so that field units would be able to rest and
train. Reservists are being pulled from their homes, their businesses,
their studies, for difficult and dangerous service; five reservists have
already been killed. Plans to shorten reserve duty and use it for training
purposes only, while canceling any call-ups of those 41 and older belonging
to field units (except in the case of war), were shelved - as was the plan
to shorten the period of service for conscripts.

The call-up of reservists is not across the board, and therefore - contrary
to other periods, such as on the eve of the Six-Day War - the Israeli
economy will hold its own without pressuring the country's political and
military leadership to put an end to the confrontation, either by agreement
or war. However, in the absence of a general call-up lies the problem: the
majority, who are not being called up, carry on with their lives and
routines, and the minority who are being called up face hardships and
dangers. This situation of inequality cannot continue for months and
perhaps even years.

The first bitter voices are already being heard, and these will grow louder
- and may even adopt a political tone - if the public's elected
representatives do not heed them. Addressing the issue of the reservists
demands a two-pronged solution. The first part is a more equitable
conscription system for mandatory service, and as an extension, during
later years in the reserves. The distortion is all too painful when the
Knesset and government representatives of those who avoid conscription pass
legislation which only adds to the burden carried by those who serve.

The second tangent, which is necessary, but in and of itself is
insufficient, is softening the blow to the lives of reservists -
financially, professionally and academically - and paying detailed
attention to the problems which their service involves.

Israeli society has adopted a nonchalant approach to those in uniform and
in its service. The reserve duty crisis is nothing like the strike of the
garbage collectors: Garbage accumulates in piles over a number of days, and
then everything returns to normal. Ignoring reservists, compared to the
favoritism which those avoiding conscription and their representatives
receive in politics, is causing serious harm to Israeli society. If this is
not fixed soon, the damage may turn out to be irreversible.



Reservists of the IDF, unite!

By Avirama Golanmailto:golan at haaretz.co.il
Haaretz 22 April 2001


For more than four years the Forum of Battalion Commanders failed in its
efforts to get the authorities to pay heed to their serious complaints
about the reserve duty system in the Israel Defense Forces. Now, suddenly,
everyone knows who the members of the forum are. In the past couple of
months, nearly every politician in the country has been looking for a
solution to the problems of the IDF's reservists. And this, thanks not to
the battalion commanders but to the Wake-Up organization, which pulled the
rug from under their feet.

That's too bad, because the Forum of Battalion Commanders is a serious,
responsible group which does not encourage shirking, whereas the struggle
of the Wake-Up group is not exclusively focused on the collapse of the
reserves system or with the inequality in the draft.

Its members organized, under the glare of a smooth media campaign, in
reaction to the recommendations of the commission headed by retired Supreme
Court Justice Zvi Tal, which sought a solution for the army service of
ultra-Orthodox men. Now they are riding the coattails of the security
crisis, which has heightened the distress of the few who bear the heavy
burden of army service.

The evasion by the Haredim and the cynical support their attitude receives
from their representatives in the Knesset is outrageous, but this is not
the reason the complaints of the reservists have increased lately. The
roots of the feeling of discrimination harbored by those who report for
reserve duty run deep, but in an area which the Wake-Up group does not even
try to reach. In the main, it is due to the ongoing failure of the IDF to
impose order in the reserves system and its capitulation to the process of
creeping evasion among broad - too broad - sections of the public.

Everyone who does reserve duty is familiar with the phenomenon: he fails to
report for duty once or twice, is summoned to a disciplinary hearing, gets
a few reprimands and a few beseeching phone calls - and then he is bothered
no more. Evasion in the course of active service is also well-known: the
situation heats up, a few soldiers declare that they are unwilling to risk
their lives and the company commander, who has been worn down by arguments,
gives in. Let them go. Who's left? The suckers who believe that it is their
obligation to do their duty.

The result, says the Forum of Battalion Commanders, is the erosion of the
moral foundation that enabled them to persuade soldiers to report for
reserve duty. If only 30 percent of the reservists bear 80 percent of the
burden of reserve service, and only one of every 22 men of reserve service
age does more than 26 days a year in the reserves, and only one of every 10
men is called to service in combat units or combat-support units, then a
combat reservist who is supposed to serve 30 to 42 days (the expectation
for this year) has to be a true sucker indeed to leave his family and his
occupation, not to mention to risk his life.

But this is only the tip of the iceberg. The truly significant tension has
for some time been apparent not between the reservists and the shirkers,
but within the reserve units themselves, and its root cause is economic
inequality. It is precisely when everyone is dressed in an identical
uniform that the gap is very pronounced between those who arrive at the
base in a luxury car, equipped with a mobile phone and a laptop computer,
and maintains constant contact with home and darts out to restaurants in
the area and for quick leaves - and those who make the trip to the base by
bus and for whom it's not economically worthwhile to make a long trip home
for a 48-hour leave. In many bases the phenomenon of selling guard duty for
hundreds of shekels is rampant. In recent years reserve duty has become a
matter for salaried people only: The motivation of the self-employed to
evade reserve duty is too great.

The crisis of reserve duty thus reflects the loss of solidarity and the
vast disparities within the entire society, and because this is so, the
attempt by the Wake-Up organization to come up with quick solutions is yet
another manifestation of the problem itself.

Instead of addressing the ills of society and the roots of the crisis, the
members of this organization - who look like the youth movement of the
Shinui party - prefer to represent the reservists as a sector with demands
(including the threat of organized evasion) and to hang the entire problem
on the dubious peg of hate of the ultra-Orthodox.

Those who do reserve duty certainly deserve to be compensated, but the
present crisis does not have one specific solution. As long as the IDF has
not decided - despite the dramatic changes in the political-security
situation - whether it is continuing to define itself as the people's army
or is deploying differently as a small, professional force, as some of
chiefs of staff thought was the case in the past, and as long as Israeli
society has not defined its socio-economic order of priorities within the
framework of a civil welfare state - until that happens, only the suckers,
the extremists and the weak will continue to do reserve duty.





The right to resist

By Baruch Kimmerling
Haaretz 27 March 2001


As difficult as it may be for us, it's important to make clear the
political, legal and moral reality in its historical context: Since 1967,
millions of Palestinians have been under a military occupation, without any
civil rights with, and most lacking even the most basic human rights. The
continuing circumstances of occupation and repression give them, by any
measure, the right to resist that occupation with any means at their
disposal and to rise up in violence against that occupation. This is a
moral right inherent to natural law and international law.The problem is
worsened by physical proximity, in which the two populations live next door
to one another, and how that imposes itself on the form of fighting.
Indiscriminate Palestinian terrorism against civilian populations in the
heart of Israel is immoral, and has a boomerang effect. It increases anger
and hatred in the Jewish community and blocks the possibility that an
empathetic, rational view can be taken of rightful!
 Palestinian demands. The terrorism also serves as a political tool,
consciously used by cynical politicians on the right, and lately by some
leading army commanders, to torpedo any possibility of agreements between
Israel and the Palestinians.

Furthermore, steps initiated by the army and the settlers often result in
the indiscriminate killing of Palestinians, which is equally unacceptable
by any human measure. Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed and
thousands wounded since the outbreak of the Al-Aqsa Intifada in late
September. Israel now turns frequently to collective punishments - sieges
and carving up of Palestinian territory - that are expressedly forbidden by
international law and convention. And Israel uses personal terrorism
against those it defines as field commanders of the Palestinian uprising.

The Palestinian right to resist the occupation is strengthened by the
Fourth Geneva Convention's ban on creating irreversible facts on the ground
in occupied territories, and especially the ban on transferring populations
from the occupying state to the territories it has conquered. Israel's
claim that it is not an occupier - because there was no sovereignty over
those lands since the British left in 1948, and the Palestinians rejected
the 1948 partition plan - is at best, dodgy.

According to the High Court of Justice, which is well aware of the Fourth
Geneva Convention, all the settlements over the Green Line were built for
"security" reasons, which is the loophole Israel found in international law
to justify their construction. The second "legal" loophole used by Israel
is that it does not expropriate private property, only establishing
settlements on "state lands."

Since 1967, more than 60 percent of the West Bank has been defined as
"state lands," which in effect has meant selective, de facto annexation of
the territories. This "legal" step was made possible because most of the
land was not properly listed in the books - whether Ottoman, British or
Jordanian. But all those governments recognized the traditional ownership
of the territory's farmers.

Israel made an unprecedented land grab in the 1980s, when it surveyed the
entire territory, compared its findings to the tabu (land registration
documents), and declared everything unlisted as state property - without
allowing local inhabitants prove their ownership and record their holdings.
Thus, the legality and morality of all the Jewish settlements and holdings
in the territories is highly doubtful.

Several phenomena have dulled Israel's political and more senses. Until the
end of 1987, Palestinian resistance to the occupation was only a minor
discord. Israeli society enjoyed the fruits of the "permanent temporary"
occupation without paying any significant and immediate price for it. Under
such circumstances it was easy to combine nationalist-religious messianism,
Likud-style secular chauvinism, and the security-above-all ideology of
Mapai and Ahdut Avoda to conquer Israel's political culture.

Even today, most of the public simply does not know that every violent step
taken against the Palestinians - let alone the aggregate of those steps -
borders on war crimes, and cannot see the black flag of illegality flying
over each of those steps. A state that regards itself as enlightened cannot
behave like a terror-state, even if it suffers from terrorism. Statesmen,
generals and simple citizens must see that black flag before it's too late
and we are all stained with the blackest of the black