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This article detailing the stand of one Israeli soldier, Sergeant Yishai Rosen-Zvi, is interesting and potentially important because of who his father was and because he comes from the very heart of Israel's religious and usually right-wing Zionist establishment. But this is not the first time an individual of conscience in Israel has stood up in this way.
Non other than Moshe Arens' son Yigal -- Arens the past Defense and Foreign Ministers and still a top official in Ariel Sharon's Likud party -- was essentially an Israeli "draft dodger" who refused to serve at all in uniform and left Israel to live in the U.S. For decades, Yigal occassionally has had to very quietly and privately obtain special permission to even return for brief family visits to Israel without being arrested.
And at the height of the 1982 war Israel's youngest tank commander, Eli Geva, under threat of imprisonment refused to follow Sharon's orders and publicly opposed the war, helping lead to the small organization Yesh Gvul ("There Is A Limit"). Like with Yigal Arens, the Israeli government plays with these individual cases very carefully and did not send Geva to prison either, carefully maneuvering to prevent more than a few individuals being involved and to mask as much as possible from the public.
[Ha'aretz - June 15, 2001] Two months ago, when Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Sergeant (res.) Yishai Rosen-Zvi received a reserve duty summons for a week-long stint in the Nablus area, he informed his unit that he had no intention of showing up for the assignment.
"I won't take part in a siege enforced against hundreds of thousands of people, including women and children," he wrote to the unit's liaison officer. "I won't starve entire villages and prevent their residents from getting to work each day or to medical check-ups; I won't turn them into hostages of political decisions. A siege against cities, like bombing raids from helicopters, does not stop terror. It is a sop to placate Israel's public, which demands 'Let the IDF win.'"
Last Sunday, Rosen-Zvi's reserve duty began. The first three days of training prior to the unit's field assignment in the Nablus area were undertaken within the Green Line, and so Rosen-Zvi had no qualms about taking part in this brief training period. "He didn't argue with fellow soldiers from the unit who come from the territories and were looking forward to the assignment," his wife Michal says. 0Then, on Wednesday morning, when the unit headed out to Nablus, Rosen-Zvi honored his original announcement and refused to cross into the territories.
Right on the spot, he was sentenced by the platoon commander to 13 days in the unit's jail. Since this prison term is to end before his platoon mates have finished their duty in Nablus, Rozen-Zvi will finish the reserve stint doing various odd jobs on the unit's base.
Though details of this saga resemble trials and tribulations endured by other IDF soldiers who refused to serve in the territories, Rosen-Zvi's story has some distinctive twists, stemming partly from his pedigree. He is the son of the late Prof. Ariel Rosen-Zvi, the former dean of Tel Aviv University's law faculty who was (prior to his premature death at the age of 52, due to cancer) named as a candidate for the "religious seat" on the Supreme Court bench. A highly respected figure in religious and secular communities, Prof. Rosen-Zvi served on the state commission that investigated the assassination of former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin.
Yishai Rosen-Zvi studied at the Har Etzion Yeshiva, which is located at Alon Shvut, in the territories; and for the first two years of his married life, he took up residence in Alon Shvut. Today, he is doing a doctorate in the humanities at Tel Aviv University and is a research fellow at the Hartman Institute in Jerusalem. Rosen-Zvi's story appears to be the first case of a graduate of the hesder yeshiva program, which combines army service and Torah studies, going to prison due to a refusal to serve in the territories.
Speaking yesterday from the compound where he is incarcerated, Rosen-Zvi noted that he had served in the territories in the past. "But the last time I did so was in Jenin, three years ago, and I vowed that I would never do so again," he said.
His moral objections, he stressed, were not just prompted by the exceptional reprisal actions taken by Israel during the past months of Intifada violence. Instead, he said, he was troubled by what he regarded as the ongoing immorality of the conquest: "The problem is the daily indignities and injustices - the checkpoints and the barriers that impede movement and stop people from going to work."
The 13-day prison sentence, Rosen-Zvi believes, is "fitting," because it "causes me to identify with the occupied Palestinians." The punishment only "strengthens my sense of pride in what I've done," he added.
Asked if he had any reservations about taking his stand against the backdrop of an uprising initiated by the Palestinians after they had refused far-reaching proposals offered by former prime minister Ehud Barak, he replied: "I don't accept that analysis of the events. Peace will come only after the State of Israel comes to terms with the real cost of ending the occupation.
"Barak's approach - either accept immediately what I've offered or you won't get anything - was symptomatic of Israel's aggressive, bullying disposition. I think that the right of return issue will have to be put on the negotiating table. When the mythology surrounding this issue vanishes, plausible arrangements, I believe, could be worked out."
Some members of Rosen-Zvi's family, his wife admitted, would be less than thrilled with his ideological stand. She indicated yesterday that she was planning to forewarn Yishai's grandmother before his reserve duty refusal made the news: "She's very right-wing and it would be wrong were she to find out about this by reading the newspapers," she said. "My side of the family will certainly not take it well, because I have a brother who lives in a caravan on Givat Ha'dagan [near Efrat, Y.S.] and many cousins scattered throughout the various settlements. Yishai's side of the family is more supportive. His mother and brothers all respect his position."
Some of Rosen-Zvi's friends and associates from the Hartman Institute and Tel Aviv University are planning to protest his incarceration in front of the Defense Ministry offices in Tel Aviv next Wednesday.Reservists don't usually go to jail
Yehuda Menuhin, the spokesman for the Yesh Gvul ("There is a Border") movement that supports soldiers who refuse to serve in the territories, said that Rosen-Zvi had turned to the group for advice many weeks before his call up for reserve duties. Yesh Gvul, Menuhin said, advised such objectors to inform their unit commanders in advance about their decision not to serve. Individuals like Rosen-Zvi were also advised to take part in aspects of the reserve duty that took place with the pre-1967 borders of Israel, he added.
Since the Intifada broke out, the Yesh Gvul spokesman said, 200 soldiers had refused to serve in the territories, but only 11 had served time in prison for their refusals (six reservists and five regular soldiers).
The army, Menuhin said, "prefers not to put the reservists on trial. It's unusual for reservists to be sent to jail." The spokesman believes that Rosen-Zvi's platoon commander "apparently regarded the case as a personal affront," and decided to punish the soldier.
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| Source: http://www.middleeast.org/articles/2001/6/247.htm |