Israel’s “Gitmo Lite”

US Federal courts in recent weeks have finally gotten around to chipping away at President Bush’s most brazen assault on the Constitution: the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detention center, where several hundred “enemy combatants” have remained in legal limbo for five years.

The shame about “Gitmo” is not unique to the US, however, as a recent posting by Yesh Gvul, the Israeli support organization for conscientious objectors, demonstrates.

The organization posts on its Web site a monthly “Page of Shame” devoted to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories. June’s page focuses on the Israeli justice system in the territories and its dealings with Palestinians accused of terrorist activities.

Hava Halevi writes of the system:

Very seldom does a genuine trial take place, with witnesses and evidence. Most cases are closed in a plea bargain. A lawyer representing Palestinian prisoners explains: “Of course I can run a trial with evidence, demand that witnesses be brought for counter-examination and so forth; but this will take 2-3 years [during which the defendant remains in prison]. It's better to close a plea bargain. The inmate will sit an extra half-year to a year, and will return home. Even the families press to close a deal as soon as possible.”

In a posting on the Daily Kos Web site regarding the Yesh Gvul report here> , a writer identified as Assaf adds:

“The Occupation ‘justice’ system is interlinked with Israel's ‘legit’ justice system in many ways. For example, the IDF's attorney general during the critical First Intifada years, is currently an Israel Supreme Court justice. Appeals against Occupation policies or military-court decisions can be heard in our Supreme Court. A few liberal decisions, or more often, liberal parts of non-liberal decisions on such appeals, have created the image that our Supreme Court is an excellent check and balance on the Occupation. In fact, the bulk of Supreme Court decisions have upheld the Occupation. Even more disturbingly, when cases against Israeli settlers who attack Palestinians or their property come before Israel's civilian courts, the outcomes are extremely lenient … ”

So much for the principle of “Tzedek tzedek” — do justice justly — at Gitmo and on the West Bank.

— David Gradis

If you’d like to share a comment, click on the word “COMMENTS” below, to the left of the envelope icon.

CO Watch: Colombia

The US and Israel aren’t the only countries where Conscientious Objectors face difficulties and hardships in the wake of making known their moral opposition to war and violence.

Janice Gallagher, who left a teaching post at a charter school outside of Boston to join the staff of the Fellowship of Reconciliation’s office in Bogota, Colombia, has posted an insightful article about the travails of Colombian COs as they try to get their government to recognize their right to conscientious objection under international law. (Read her article on her blog, “Pedaling for Peace,” by clicking <here>.)

Caught in the coils of a civil war that is now forty years old, military-age youth in Colombia face forced recruitment by not only their nation’s standing army, but by paramilitary organizations and guerrilla groups, as well.

Gallagher notes that Colombia’s national constitution contains two contradictory provisions that make it difficult for COs to establish their status: Article 18 declares “nobody will be obligated to act against their conscience,” while Article 216 says “All Colombians are obligated to take up arms when the public interest necessitates in order to defend national independence and public institutions.”

The nation’s Constitutional Court, citing the latter provision, holds that there is no right to CO status, which means that Colombian COs are now turning to international law to force their government to recognize its treaty obligations under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Gallagher notes that it international pressure is especially important in the struggle to make Colombia recognize the right to conscientious objection. You can join a petition to secure release of Carlos Andres Hinacapie, a CO who was forcefully recruited into Colombia’s military in August 2006, by contacting FOR’s Bogota office at presenciaparalapaz@yahoo.com.

— Adam Simms

If you’d like to share a comment, click on the word “COMMENTS” below, to the left of the envelope icon.

“I am not prepared to ... set aside my convictions and fundamental approach to life”

Ruth Hiller, of the Israeli organization New Profile, has kindly forwarded the text of Hadas Amit's request for exemption from military service on grounds of conscience — a statement that is as eloquent as it is plainspoken.

Israel makes no provision for conscientious objection to military service. As noted in our previous post of March 4 (below), Hadas Amit was recently sentenced to her fifth term in prison for refusing to serve in the armed forces.

Hadas Amit

October 2006

Re: Request for an exemption from military service on grounds of conscience

Dear Sir/Madam

By writing you this letter I want to let you know that I request an exemption from military service. I state hereby that I am not prepared to serve in any military organization and set aside my convictions and fundamental approach to life. Below is a signed statement, in compliance with your regulations.

If I were to be drafted into military service this would stand in absolute and total contradiction with my beliefs and my way of living which do not tolerate killing, violence, nationalism and destruction. I am not prepared to wear the uniform of an organization which is responsible for death and destruction and which acts in ways that are damaging to its surroundings. All countries, including Israel, should act in peaceful ways only, and when under attack they should refrain from returning fire. It is wrong, under any circumstances, those of Israel included, for a state to maintain an army which is trained for war and killing. Such an approach runs totally counter to any striving for peace and co-existence with our neighbors in the Middle East.

I am aware that I am writing this at a late stage. My enlistment date is 24 October, 2006. There are several reasons for my lateness, which I shall explain below. But this delay should not give you the wrong impression: I have objected to violence and to military activities from the very start. –even if, to begin with, I didn’t find the right words to express my thoughts.

No aim, under any circumstance, justifies acting harmfully toward human beings. Even when I was very young, I understood that violence is of no use and that the only solution is peace with those who surround you. I have always tried to be helpful and constructive, and I have never taken part in any violent activity.

I hope there is no need for me to explain why it isn’t right to use violence. After all, that’s a general and absolute principle: those who don’t believe in it should open their history books, or just get out into the street to see for themselves. Isn’t it obvious that violence is a base and barbaric way of behaving? That someone who lashes out does so from fear or weakness? That a healthy society is a society without violence? In no case, at no point in time, and in no language, is violence the way to solve a problem. Instead, it in fact creates problems and entrenches those that already existed more deeply.

I appeared for my first call-up towards enlistment in spite of my opposition to the very essence of the military. Even at that early stage, I expressed a deep lack of motivation, undermining the whole process repeatedly, so that they eventually arranged for me to see the mental health officer. My main dilemma, at the time, was whether it would be right for me not to serve in the army while all my friends did: wasn’t it my duty as an Israeli citizen?

This question preoccupied me for a long time, but eventually I began to see how things should be tackled. I understood that what I owe society is nothing like joining any sort of military venture, even though that’s what the law says. Nor is any other person bound to do so. I understood that there is no such thing as military “defense” forces and that soldiers who have been trained to kill cannot defend a state. I also saw that if a country were seriously interested in defending itself, it would have to opt for radical change in its own approach. I saw that it is a fearful, neglected and tense society that hides behind an army. And even the strongest and best trained army cannot defend a society, for only a thriving society does not need defense and is secure.

No society, including that of Israel, can hope to entertain untroubled relations with its neighbors if it suffers from illness and disorder within. If we look at the world at large, we see many weak spots with suffering, poverty and violence almost everywhere, we see disempowered populations and repressed societies, marginal groups and minorities who are deprived of their rights as human beings and as citizens, and a sick environment that pollutes those who live in it. If a state wants to be secure, it must first look after its citizens and land and reconstruct itself on a just and equal basis.

I have understood that my true duty to the state is the same as my duty towards all the citizens of the world. I must make my contribution in truthfulness and with a pure heart towards social change and improvement and to heal the above mentioned ills.

Once the state is healthy, when all citizens lend each other a hand, there will be no need to worry about defense. This will then take care of itself. For when a state does not harm anyone, then no one in turn will want to harm it. And a country which treats other countries justly and considerately creates its own natural defense as other countries, surely, will only wish it well.

I believe in this wholeheartedly and act accordingly.

In recent years I have volunteered for the community in a number of places, and participated in many social and environmental struggles. I took part, for instance, in a big project of the Hashomer Hatsair youth movement, setting up five summer camps in five deprived neighborhoods all over the country. We took care of the funding and then volunteered as counselors. This is moreover the 15th month of my voluntary based, full time “community service year” (shnat sherut) at Kfar Rafael, a rehabilitation village for cognitively disabled adults.

I would also like to mention here that I am quite determined to do two years of civic “national service” beyond my “community service year”, as a way of expressing my values and ideals, and to fulfil my obligation to Israeli society.

The chaos and violence in society find direct and painful expression in our way of treating our environment, which itself, in turn, is no doubt violent too. Just like no person has the right to harm his or her fellow human being, no human being has the right to harm her or his environment, because nature is not our property. In all this, armies and wars play a major role, killing the environment in the name of the murder of other humans. The ecological damage caused by the army cannot be justified: the use of natural resources through ongoing depletion, and unrecyclable waste production caused by the arms industry, the destruction of nature for the sake of military exercises.

Ecology is a crucial issue for me and has a central place in my life. So far I have always tried as best I can to preserve and maintain the environment. I worked as an environmental coordinator at the High School for Ecological Education at Ben Gurion College, where I studied.

Unlike civic service, military service causes damage and destruction. If I have to serve in the army, regardless in what role, I will not be able to live according to my convictions – worse, this will clash completely with my principles.

I will not change my mind, even if the army offers me a function that seems to reflect my values, like community or environmental activity. Because I would still be doing the job as part of the same organization which operates against my above mentioned principles, and for what I believe is a despicable purpose – and this I am not prepared to support. I won’t fight as a soldier, and nor will I support a disabled person as a soldier. I do this work right now, and I will continue doing it in the future, but as a civilian.

Also, I don’t think soldiers should be part of community activity, because in this way the army presents itself as if it were a healthy thing for society and an organization that is friendly towards people, when the opposite is the case. Most emphatically, soldiers should not be involved in educational work with children. When a child receives educational support from a soldier, the child will be grateful to the soldier, unable to separate the person from his or her uniform. Even a soldier who does not wear a uniform will have this effect. The presence of soldiers teaches the child to admire the army, because the child has not yet gained the ability to think critically for her or himself.

I went through many initial doubts, I drew my conclusions and made my decisions – as I have described above – and finally I began writing this letter as a first step.

In fact, I already made up my mind about military service about one year ago, but didn’t yet write this letter due to practical reasons. One of them is the very demanding work load at Kfar Rafael: about 12 hours a day, 6 days a week, with very brief breaks only, once every few months. This intensely demanding work got in the way of formulating a letter. Often I was simply exhausted. Or else, there was no time. I would like to add that I officially completed my community service in August, but because of staff shortages they did not find a replacement for me, and because people are dependent on me for doing their most basic daily things, I chose not to leave. I continued my voluntary work full time, after the official end of my community service.

This is why this request is submitted at such a late stage. Nothing in this delay should be taken to cast doubt on the genuine nature of my conscientious beliefs (on the contrary – my late writing is the result of my dedication to these beliefs, as I just explained), and it should not affect my right to refuse to enlist for military service on grounds of conscience. However, because time is short, I would like to ask you to consider my request as soon as possible, and to allow me to appear before an exemption committee, before my official enlistment date. If this is not possible, I would like hereby to request a postponement of my enlistment date until a final decision has been made regarding my appearance before the exemption committee (or an appeals committee).

Genocide and the Sound of Silence

Momentum is building in the U.S. House of Representatives for a resolution that officially recognizes as genocide the deaths of 1.5 million Armenians during the First World War.

And this time around, if and when the resolution comes to a vote, American Jewry’s mainline organizations may sit on their hands rather than – as they have done in the past – side with the Turkish government, which opposes such measures and obstinately denies that an episode viewed by many historians as a dress rehearsal for the Holocaust was, indeed, genocide.

Nathan Guttman, writing in today’s issue of The Forward, reports that representatives of eight Jewish organizations – the American Jewish Committee, the American Jewish Congress, the Anti-Defamation League, B’nai B’rith, the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, the Orthodox Union, Chabad, and United Jewish Communities – met two weeks ago with Turkey’s Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul.

Gul asked their support in lobbying against the resolution, introduced by California Democrat Adam Schiff and supported by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

When similar resolutions came up in the past, Jewish organizations generally supported Turkey’s opposition, citing a desire not to complicate Israel’s military and economic relationships with Turkey and/or concerns about the safety of Turkey’s Jewish community.

As Guttman tells it, the organizations’ response to Gul’s pitch was tepid – more out a desire not to buck the newly-elected House speaker, and out of a desire not to be held as responsible by the Turkish government should the organizations opposed and fail to stop a measure that appears to have a strong chance of passage.

It would be nice to be able to say that the organizations rejected Turkey’s blandisments with public statements that the Armenian genocide was just that: genocide.

But at least they don’t take the position that it’s debatable whether genocide occurred.

That role was left to Israel’s prime minister, Ehud Olmert.

Reports Guttman:

When asked at a press conference if Israel would convince Jewish organizations in the United States to take action against the resolution, Olmert said it was a matter for members of Congress to decide. But he added, “It will be better if independent experts come together and look into the matter.”

Olmert’s statement echoed Turkey’s assertion that what happed to the Armenians at the time of the Ottoman Empire is a matter for historians, not politicians.

Olmert’s statement is both astounding and appalling, given the historical record to be found in openly available diplomatic and church mission archives in the U.S., Great Britain and Germany.

If today a head of government in Germany, Austria or Poland were to make a similar declaration regarding the historicity of the Holocaust, American Jewish organizations would be denouncing him or her as a “denier.”

Wait! What’s that deafening sound we hear issuing from computer keyboards and fax machines at the Committee, Congress, ADL, JINSA et al.?

???

???

???

Ah, yes. It’s the sound of silence.

-- Posted by Adam Simms