[Peace-discuss] Statement by Israeli Conscientious Objector

[Alfred Kagan]

This is a very moving as well as informative statement. I wonder if 
we could somehow include it with our Aid to Israel pamphlet?  I am 
not sure how we could fit it in, but perhaps by reducing the type 
size or changing the font.  It would address the current conversation 
about how we counter charges of anti-semitism.

At 7:17 AM -0700 10/23/02, David Green wrote:
>The following statement is from Haggai Matar, a recent
>Israeli high school graduate who is refusing to enlist
>in the military. He toured in the U.S. around the same
>time as the refusenik we had in Champaign.
>
>STATEMENT BY HAGGAI MATAR
>
>Today, October 23rd, 2002, I will be sent to the
>military prison, as a
>result of my insistence upon my political views, which
>prevent me from
>enlisting to the IDF.
>
>Despite my young age, merely 18, and despite the fact
>that I do not carry
>with me memories from Israel's past, I can
>wholeheartedly declare that
>Israel has reached an unprecedented moral low. This
>extreme deterioration
>began with "Barak's generous offers", which were but
>another attempt at
>forcing a unilateral agreement upon the Palestinian
>people. Today, the
>militarization and racism among the Jewish population
>have reached the
>level of fascism. The repression of critical thinking,
>the total acceptance
>of the occupation's crimes, the idolization of the
>army and the gradual
>acceptance of the principles of "ethnic cleansing" all
>these constitute
>only part of our society's collapse. To this list one
>should add the
>systematic mistreatment of the Palestinian citizens of
>Israel, the hateful
>violence addressed at peace demonstrators, and the
>heartless attitude
>towards the abnormal and the weak. With all these, I
>refuse to cooperate.
>
>The voice of conscience and the lessons humanity
>should have learnt from
>countless similar situations in the past leave me no
>choice but to refuse
>enlistment to the Israeli army  which is falsely
>dubbed a "Defence Force".
>My refusal to enlist is inevitable. The oppression
>known by the peoples of
>this area at the age of the Empires, the torment of
>the slaves and the
>Indians in North America, the Algerian War of
>Independence and Apartheid in
>South Africa  all these precedents have made my
>refusal inevitable. My
>grandfather's actions in the Second World War, in his
>fight against Nazi
>Fascism, and his belief in humanism  these too lead to
>my refusal. At home
>I learnt of oppression and justice. At the face of
>such evil as one may
>find here and now, there is no other way.
>
>On this significant day of my life, accompanied by my
>supportive family and
>friends, I wish to acknowledge my companions, the
>unseen heroes of our
>struggle: the Palestinian who endures the occupation
>without turning to
>violence against the Israeli civilian population, in
>spite of his lack of
>hope for a decent life; the Palestinian citizen of
>Israel, who keeps
>striving for co-existence despite day-to-day
>humiliations; the youth who
>avoids serving the occupation, her upbringing
>notwithstanding; the European
>peace activist, who physically defends Palestinians in
>the Occupied
>Territories; and my friend, a girl who was raised in a
>right-wing family,
>fell in love with an Arab and was consequently driven
>out of her home.
>While in prison, when forced to salute State and Army
>I shall, in my mind
>and heart, be saluting all my brave friends, to whom I
>cannot equal,
>because of my identity; all those who sacrifice so
>much more then I do  for
>peace, against the occupation.  - Haggai Matar
>
>
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-- 


Al Kagan
African Studies Bibliographer and Professor of Library Administration
Africana Unit, Room 328
University of Illinois Library
1408 W. Gregory Drive
Urbana, IL 61801, USA

tel. 217-333-6519
fax. 217-333-2214
e-mail. akagan at uiuc.edu