Israeli Youth Won't Join Army - Protects Palestinians Instead

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In many countries, joining the army, taking up arms, is something young men and women are willing to do if their country is actually under direct and immediate attack.

Or, if they enjoy carrying a gun, following orders, and shooting people on command.

Some enlist for the money.

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Otherwise, joining the army, navy or air force is something young people typically don’t want to do.

Not so in Apartheid Israel.

Happy Israeli youth get inducted into their army (David Kattenburg)

The Israeli Defense Forces (Occupation Forces) are the self-declared “Jewish” state’s most revered institution. Obligatory conscription at the age of eighteen is a ‘rite of passage’ — a ‘sacred duty’ to anticipate and embrace with Zionist pride.

Those who don’t join the IOF – refuseniks, they’re called – are rare as hen’s teeth.

And stigmatized. They lose friends and family. They are discriminated against in the civilian job market.

Still — horrified by their country’s genocide in Gaza, its permanent military occupation of the Palestinian West Bank, its apartheid subjugation of the Palestinian people, and ‘Gazification’ of South Lebanon; its flagrantly unlawful annexation and colonization of the Syrian Golan Heights — a steadily increasing number of young Israelis are seeking conscientious objector status.

Amit Orfali is one of these. Orfali, 19-years-old, is an Israeli refusenik.

He’s also the member of a group called Herd for Justice, and a participant in the Protective Presence movement, that protects Palestinian shepherds and villagers from racist attack by Jewish settler-terrorists and their Israeli soldier buddies.

It’s an astonishing reversal. Under the 4th Geneva Convention (1949), protecting the safety and broader interests of the indigenous people of occupied Palestine is Israel’s solemn and absolute duty as occupying power in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Gaza.

Geneva IV defines Palestinians as a ‘protected people’.

Rather than protecting Palestinians, Israel dispossesses, oppresses, subjugates, persecutes, jails, and murders them. It does so with complete impunity, and with the effective support of virtually the entire international community.

Qalandia checkpoint between Ramallah and Jerusalem.

On a recent visit to Hamilton, Amit Orfali sat down with the GPM.

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Listen to our conversation in today’s podcast. Click on the podcast play button above, or go here.

Listen to our complete conversation here:

In Gaza today, seemingly uninhabitable after a thousand days of joint US-Israeli genocide, young women and men are writing poetry. Coastal Lines Press is a collective of thirty-eight Gazan writers, facilitated by a global network of illustrators and distributors.

“Like vessels at sea,” Coastal Lines says at their website, Gaza zines “travel from coast to coast, drawing lines of human connection and solidarity.” Their goal: to turn words into life-saving supplies for their families.

In the last couple of GPM editions, we’ve spoken with two Coastal Lines poets, Lara Alharazin and Noor Abu Mariam. In this edition, we speak with Noorhan Shaheen.

Listen to our conversation in today’s podcast. Click on the podcast play button above, or go here.

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Listen to our complete conversation here: