01-03-2003 01:08									#1
	Israel's Political Prisoners Remove this text

Hell no, Bibi's nephew won't go
Israel is throwing the book at Netanyahu's refusenik kin, as the number of young people evading military service continues to rise.



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By Michelle Goldberg



Feb. 28, 2003 | In less than two weeks, 20-year-old Jonathan Ben-Artzi will likely become the first Israeli conscientious objector in three decades to be tried before a military tribunal, where he could be sentenced to up to three years in prison for refusing to serve in the military. He's already been locked up for nearly eight months without a trial. His family is firmly behind him, arguing that the government is getting tough on so-called refuseniks because they challenge not just Israeli policy in the occupied territories, but the entire structure of Israeli society, built as it is around compulsory military service.

Well, maybe not his whole family. Ben-Artzi's parents are committed Israeli progressives, but his uncle is none other than the ultra-hawkish former prime minister and current finance minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a man to the right of Ariel Sharon. Ben-Artzi's connection to Netanyahu has made his story big news throughout Europe and the Middle East. Though Netanyahu hasn't involved himself in the case, Ben-Artzi's sister, Ruth, a 31-year-old doctoral student at Columbia, believes that the publicity about his famous nephew has spurred the Israel Defense Forces to try first to cajole and then to force Ben-Artzi into line. The head of IDF personnel has even been put in charge of dealing with Netanyahu's outspoken nephew.

"It's either embarrassing the army or putting them in a position where they feel they have to set some kind of example or scare other young men," Ruth Ben-Artzi says. Army spokespeople couldn't be reached for comment.

Meanwhile, Ben-Artzi, a longtime pacifist whose family and friends call him Yoni, isn't backing down. Instead, he, his family and his attorney hope his trial will force a public debate on conscientious objection, a deeply taboo subject in a country where the army is held sacred. "This trial is very important for the force of conscience in the Israeli legal system," says Michael Sfard, Ben-Artzi's lawyer. "If we win this trial it means the Israeli legal system has allowed respect to the human conscience."

Since he's been in prison, Ben-Artzi's family says, a series of high-ranking officers have told him that if he'd simply let himself be drafted, he'll be stationed in a hospital and won't have to fight. But Matania Ben-Artzi, Jonathan's father (and Netanyahu's brother-in-law), says his son refused. "He told them the following," says the obviously proud father, himself a military veteran. "Whatever organization I'm going to join, I'll try to do the maximum in that organization, not the minimum. I am a pacifist. I don't want to join this organization. It does not act in my name. It's morally weak for me to be in the organization and yet to avoid doing what others are doing."

Ben-Artzi was also offered the opportunity to see a military psychologist who could declare him mentally unfit, but again he refused. "I'm not mentally ill," his sister quotes him as saying. "I'm a pacifist. That's not a mental illness. Don't tell me to go to a psychologist who will sign a letter so it will give you a way out so you don't have to deal with me."

Right now Israel isn't sure how to deal with men like Ben-Artzi. Israeli law allows most Arabs, ultra-Orthodox Jews, and females who declare themselves pacifists to be exempted from military service, but it makes no such provision for secular Jewish male objectors. Ben-Artzi wants to do his service under civilian auspices, as Orthodox Jewish girls are allowed to do, but he wasn't allowed to. Refuseniks like him must go before a military panel that is bound by no legal standard and that almost never rules in their favor -- out of 53 requests between 1998 and 2000, only three were approved.

But as the military's overtures to Ben-Artzi suggest, it's gotten relatively easy for men to escape military service in indirect ways. According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, 45 percent of the young people who are fit to serve in the army don't. That number includes Israeli Arabs and Orthodox Jews, but it also includes many mainstream Israelis who claim to have psychological problems. "The army encourages people who don't want to serve to get out the back door, to play crazy or fake mental problems," refusenik Haggai Matar told Salon last year before he was imprisoned. Those who refuse to lie about their politics go to jail.

Ben-Artzi's supporters say that's because their defiance threatens the established order in a way that the religious and the mentally unfit don't. "The military in Israel is a very prestigious club," says Sfard. "The club belongs to men of a certain sort. Now, here comes a group of men that are exactly of the sort the army wants -- members of the elite -- and they say, 'We do not want any part in this.' I guess that threatens this establishment."

Ben-Artzi was also an early signer to the so-called Seniors Letter, a declaration by 62 high school students of their refusal to join the military. Sent to Ariel Sharon in August 2001, it read, "We the undersigned, youths who grew up and were brought up in Israel, are about to be called to serve in the IDF. We protest before you against the aggressive and racist policy pursued by the Israeli government's [sic] and its army, and to inform you that we do not intend to take part in the execution of this policy."

The letter has since garnered more than 300 signatures. Matar, who helped write it, has been in jail for five months, and on Wednesday he, like Ben-Artzi before him, was court-martialed and ordered to stand trial.

Matania believes the army wants to strike a blow against the open dissent sparked by the Seniors Letter. "The army somehow identified Yoni as the leading figure in this movement," he says, adding wryly, "Israel's really integrating into the Middle East. There are now two main powers that control everything -- religion and the military."

Behind that transformation are people like Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (who Matania says leads a "junta") and Netanyahu, an ultra-nationalist who is a veteran of an elite anti-terrorist unit in the Israel Defense Forces. Unlike Sharon, Netanyahu openly opposes the creation of a Palestinian state -- which is why Sharon recently bumped him from his role as foreign minister and made him finance minister. Ben-Artzi's family says Netanyahu has never commented on his nephew's case except to say that he hopes Jonathan changes his mind.

There seems little chance of that. Recently, Ben-Artzi wrote a letter to his supporters saying, "With every day that passes, I gain new strength, which even those closest to me never thought I'd have ... Together with my fellow refuseniks, we will one day prevail in offering a truly peaceful alternative to Israeli militarism."

A math whiz who looks more like a "Dawson's Creek" star than a political prisoner, Ben-Artzi is one of 10 young men currently locked up for resisting the draft. So far, their jail terms have been handled as a matter of military discipline. Upon being called up and refusing induction, each was sentenced to about a month in prison. Each time their sentence is up, they are given another chance to join, and each time they refuse, they're sent back to captivity. Of the 10, Ben-Artzi has been in prison the longest -- longer than any other military refuser in Israeli history.

The upcoming military trials represent a new phase in the refuseniks' conflict with the army, one that will set a precedent for how the military deals with conscientious objection. Ben-Artzi's family hopes it will force the Israeli Knesset to formalize the status of conscientious objectors and institute a civil alternative to military service that would allow war resisters to serve their country without taking up arms. The IDF hopes to lock up the young man, who a prosecutor described as "no better than any deserter or drug addict," until he's 23, discouraging others from following in his footsteps.

While some of the refuseniks object to army service because of Israel's presence in the occupied territories, Ben-Artzi's family says that he's a committed pacifist who wouldn't serve in any army. It's a belief the precocious boy formed when he was 13 or 14, his father says, during a weekend trip to northern France. Matania is a mathematics professor who has taught at Berkeley and Princeton, and that year he was teaching in Paris. When Jonathan visited his father during the Passover vacation, they went to Verdun, the site of a major World War I battle in which 700,000 soldiers died.

"Verdun has sort of a mild New England landscape with rolling hills," Matania says. "It's the ultimate in serenity, and then you see stretching to the horizon tens of thousands of graves. There's a huge structure overlooking the valley that houses the unidentified remains of 150,000 soldiers. Yoni says this was an emotional shock for him, and it started him on a conscientious understanding of the evils of war."

He read deeply into the literature of pacifism and wrote about it every chance he had at school. In high school, he refused to participate in field trips to army bases or on outings that passed through the occupied territories. Yet according to Ben-Artzi's family, the military panel weighing his refusal to serve decided that his history "as a fighter" proved he wasn't a pacifist, even though his "fighting" involved passive resistance.

"It didn't matter that he's a fighter for principles," says Ruth.


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About the writer
Michelle Goldberg is a staff writer for Salon based in New York.

	01-03-2003 01:25									#2
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"Political Prisoners"?

and no, I don't agree with them.
They're using wrong means against wrong goals.

	01-03-2003 01:43									#3
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Nonviolent civil disobedience against state slavery to oppress a couple million people sounds like the right means for the right goals. Good for him.

	01-03-2003 01:44									#4
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Political prisoner... no way.

Somebody who believes in his own cause enough to go to jail and fight the system... Yes.

He has refused every out offered to him. But instead, he stands fast to his convictions. His actions are indeed against the law, and he is paying the price for it, but of his own choosing. One can respect that.

However... to say he is a political prisoner, or to say that they are throwing the book at him is just ignoring the facts of this case.

He is breaking the law... it's that simple. Maybe his actions may some day change the law... but he is still breaking it.

	01-03-2003 01:50									#5
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Very often, "the law" differs from what is morally right and wrong.

Obeying the law just for the sake of law?

	01-03-2003 01:59									#6
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he's no political prisoner.

and please NOT ANOTHER M.E. THREAD!!!

	01-03-2003 02:01									#7
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So I'm sure next you're going to start one of these threads on the tens of other countries worldwide that have draft laws, none of which particularly appreciate them being broken? Because SURELY this wasn't just a cheap shot to get the words "Israel" and "political prisoner" in the same title phrase.

Get real. If an entire region of the world wants to kill you, you may have to make a draft law, and if you have a law, you can't just let people off the hook (and I'm sure if they did, you'd go on about how it was just because it was Bibi's nephew so Israel's an aristocratic state or whatever)

	01-03-2003 02:06									#8
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GS: he was obviously trolling.

	01-03-2003 02:06									#9
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It's one thing to have a draft law, [b]Squid.[/i] It's another thing to be forced to support what you feel is an immoral and illegal war.

	01-03-2003 02:07									#10
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Che these people are not political prisioners. Trying to claim they are something they are not doesn't help their cause; it hurts their cause because fewer people will believe the claims they make in the future.

	01-03-2003 02:13									#11
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quote: Originally posted by chegitz guevara It's one thing to have a draft law, [b]Squid.[/i] It's another thing to be forced to support what you feel is an immoral and illegal war.

Che: There were all sorts of pro-Nazi and isolationist types who were drafted in WW2. Should they have gotten a special release just because their political beliefs differed from the elected government?

These people are breaking the law. The law was passed by an elected government and if they want to change it then they should try to organize a political party. Don't you see we would have anarchy if every person got to ignore the laws they didn't like? "I don't want to pay my taxes because I don't like how the Congress spends money" or "I think speeding laws are facist so I'm going to ignore them" would just be the tip of the iceberg.

	01-03-2003 02:18									#12
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Drafts are always immoral in the extreme. Just because a representative gov't supports a law doesn't make it something you should necessarily obey.

	01-03-2003 02:21									#13
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quote: Drafts are always immoral in the extreme.

No, they're not.

	01-03-2003 02:23									#14
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Just telling you my personal morality. I don't like slavery, regardless of who the master is.

	01-03-2003 02:27									#15
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YOU'RE WRONG I AM RIGHT.

	01-03-2003 02:30									#16
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It should be obvious that every man must fight in war. No drafting, everyone goes.

	01-03-2003 02:32									#17
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quote: Originally posted by Ramo Drafts are always immoral in the extreme. Just because a representative gov't supports a law doesn't make it something you should necessarily obey.

What makes it right for you - an individual within the society - to say that those elected representatives of all of the society are wrong in their deciding whether a law is moral or not? You can question a law, or seek to change it. You can even disobey the law - but you should be prepared for the consequences if you do so. You shouldn't think "oh, this law doesn't apply to me". Or you could easily be justifying Joe Homicidals killing rampage - after all, he only did it for civil disobedience.

	01-03-2003 02:35									#18
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It's a question of ethics, Edan.

	01-03-2003 02:55									#19
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quote: What makes it right for you - an individual within the society - to say that those elected representatives of all of the society are wrong in their deciding whether a law is moral or not?

I believe that force should be opposed whenever it cannot be justified. I don't think slavery can be justified. As for what makes it right for me to have these beliefs, that's kind of how the human brain works. It's up to each individual to construct one's own ethical system. I will not have mine dictated by the state.

If the US gov't started legally rounding up members of your ethnic group for extermination, would you meekly go along with it?

quote: You can even disobey the law - but you should be prepared for the consequences if you do so.

What does that mean? It's not like I'd be locked up with my consent.

quote: You shouldn't think "oh, this law doesn't apply to me". Or you could easily be justifying Joe Homicidals killing rampage - after all, he only did it for civil disobedience.

If he believes there's nothing wrong with killing rampages, then he justified it to himself. Not to me.

	01-03-2003 05:24									#20
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quote: It's one thing to have a draft law, Squid. It's another thing to be forced to support what you feel is an immoral and illegal war.

I don't quite get what you mean. You're saying it's okay to have a law, but it's not okay to make people follow it? That sort of defeats the whole purpose of it being a law, doesn't it?
Conscientious objection is great, but a conscientious objector has to be willing to suffer the penalties, or else he's just someone trying to weasel out of something. If you honestly believe no one should be given any punishment for refusing to follow a law they do not personally believe, then that is both beautifully idealistic and flagrantly impossible in a sane society.

And if perhaps you meant to discuss the morality of a draft, then this thread should have been titled "The Morality of Draft Law" instead of something nasty and provocative against Israel, no?

	01-03-2003 05:27									#21
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Ramo:

quote: I believe that force should be opposed whenever it cannot be justified. I don't think slavery can be justified. As for what makes it right for me to have these beliefs, that's kind of how the human brain works. It's up to each individual to construct one's own ethical system. I will not have mine dictated by the state.

Ramo, wouldn't you say that a draft in a country that is very likely to need all the military it can get if it doesn't want its entire population to be wiped out is a pretty decent justification? Or the draft in general, assuming it's in a country where it is necessary for defensive purposes rather than offensive? I don't have any figures, but I would guess there are a lot of small countries where if not for the draft their armies would never get big enough to hold off the nearest aggressive invader.

	01-03-2003 05:34									#22
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quote: Originally posted by Azazel and please NOT ANOTHER M.E. THREAD!!!

Can't take the scrutiny, can ya?

Oh, and you've used some top-notch arguments so far.

	01-03-2003 05:45									#23
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In a country where there is mandatory service and troubled times, it's everyones personal duty to defend their own country, whether they feel alienated or not.

But personally I give respect to anyone who follows their conscious, if they really do feel like it's wrong. If they are not using it as an excuse to weasel out because they think they are something special, or just too lazy, or think their life is more important than others. But if problem is ideological, I respect their wishes. In Israels situation.. I don't know.. I'm not sure how legal it is to do that so.. but no one is telling them to kill innocent civilians. This guy could still just join, and make sure he treats Palestinians fairly, and courages others to do the same. Show good example. I think that would be more effective to the cost, than just refusing and making things hard for himself. Giving more positive image to IDF, and most of all gaining some respect in the eyes of Palestinians as fair soldier even if it was near to impossible. But that's just my opinion, and there are as many opinions as there are people in this world.

It's just that I think if you want to make a change, you have to play the game. And it doesn't matter what game you play, it matters how you play the game. Refusing service only devides people, and I believe in Israel makes you minority. Just play the game in order to change it, don't drop out and blame the game if you cant' stop it anyway.

	01-03-2003 07:15									#24
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quote: Originally posted by Ramo Just telling you my personal morality. I don't like slavery, regardless of who the master is.

Sorry, but your personal morality doesn't matter. Things like "morality" are formed by group consensus; you may not like it but it is true.

	01-03-2003 07:34									#25
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While I agree with the kid's actions, they are not political prisoners per say. Drafts are not illegal, and if you have a draft, you can put people in prison for not doing their civic duty. to me p[olitical prisoners are indviduals held solely for their political beliefs. These boys do have political belief opposite of those of the government, but they are in prison for breaking a valid law.

	01-03-2003 07:39									#26
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Don't be so tough on Israel comrade, even if they are wrong in this particular instance.

	01-03-2003 09:09									#27
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quote: Ramo, wouldn't you say that a draft in a country that is very likely to need all the military it can get if it doesn't want its entire population to be wiped out is a pretty decent justification?

The population of Israel is in no real danger of being "wiped out."

quote: Or the draft in general, assuming it's in a country where it is necessary for defensive purposes rather than offensive? I don't have any figures, but I would guess there are a lot of small countries where if not for the draft their armies would never get big enough to hold off the nearest aggressive invader.

If the people believe their state is worth defending, they could join the military. If a military needs a draft to operate, that's a good indication that the war and/or state running the war is morally questionable.

quote: Sorry, but your personal morality doesn't matter.

Doesn't matter to whom?

quote: Things like "morality" are formed by group consensus; you may not like it but it is true.

What are you referring to when you say "morality?" Moral values held in consensus are indeed formed by consensus. Which doesn't mean anything. Moral values held by an individual are formed by an individual even if society reinforces or shapes these values.

	01-03-2003 10:29									#28
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Idea's such a societial values & ideas of moral or immoral behavior are socially constructed. In essience it is held to be immoral because the majority of the people agree it is immoral. Just like the word "red" is socially constructed to mean the color red. All socially constructed things are created when a group of people all for a consensus and agree that a certain sound or symbol should mean a certain idea or sound.

You will find that all of our commonly held beliefs including ideas like "right", "wrong", "justified", "unjustified", "moral", etc are socially constructed.

	01-03-2003 10:37									#29
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quote: Originally posted by Ramo quote: Sorry, but your personal morality doesn't matter. Doesn't matter to whom?

To deciding if you go to jail (or get a fine or whatever punishment) after commiting an illegal act.

	01-03-2003 10:40									#30
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I would take all the young men like him and house them in an unprotected neighborhood in Gaza. Perhaps they would be heroes to the Palestinians. Perhaps they will be killed. In either case, they do not deserve to live with their fellow citizens who they consider racists. They should live with the people they admire, the Palestinians.