[Peace-discuss] Fwd: (fwd) Doing things the hard way - the verdict of The Five

[Alfred Kagan]

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>Subject: (fwd) Doing things the hard way - the verdict of The Five
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>Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2003 02:34:09 +0200
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>Doing things the hard way - the verdict of The Five
>
>Dec. 16, 2003
>
>The courtroom at the Jaffa Military Court had never been so overcrowded.
>Special benches had been dragged in, filling the aisle and leaving hardly
>any room for passage. Activists, family members and journalists crowded
>into every available corner (there were four TV crews, who were chased
>out after the judges came in) and still as many as were in had to wait
>outside. At long last, the verdict in the trial of  Noam Bahat, Matan
>Kaminer, Adam Maor, Haggai Matar and Shimri Tsameret was going to be
>delivered.
>
>After the Yoni Ben-Artzi verdict, nobody really expected a "not guilty."
>Clearly, they would be found guilty-as-charged of the formal aberration of
>"not obeying an order", but against our better judgement we were hoping
>that these boys' convincing moral stand did impress the court. But the
>Colonel Avi Levy who read the verdict seemed a different person from the
>presiding judge who had exhibited signs of moderation throughout the
>earlier sessions.
>
>While starting out by accepting the defence's contention that the Freedom
>of Conscience is a right under Israeli basic law and not just a privilege
>granted at the army's pleasure, the verdict proceeded to give it such an
>interpretation as to nullify its practical value. In essence, the verdict
>endorsed the military authority's policy and the 
>judicial justifications for it
>as presented by the prosecution: exemption from military service should
>be granted only to pacifists and nobody else. The judge seemed less
>concerned with the ideological differences and more with practical ones:
>pacifists in his view are a small group which does not challenge
>government policies but just seek personal salvation and, so he stated, are
>not likely to grow significantly.
>
>But what the court dealt with here was far more serious: "We recognize
>that the accused do feel moral and ideological revulsion about taking part
>in an army which according to their belief is perpetrating manifestly
>immoral acts. But the act of refusal is derived not only from this revulsion
>but also - and perhaps mainly - from the wish of the accused to change
>public opinion in general, to effect a change in the views and in the
>behavior of those who are about to go into the army and of conscripts and
>reservists, and finally to cause a change in government policy and bring
>about an end to the occupation."
>
>Colonel Levy  went into long and complicated legal as well as
>philosophical arguments reaffirming over and over again that this was a
>threat not to be tolerated, and that everybody must be made to go into the
>army and share equally the risk to life in defence of the country (no
>mention of the tens of thousands ultra-Orthodox who don't risk their lives
>while receiving generous allowances for studying in religious seminaries).
>"There exists no legally established alternative 
>civilian service in Israel, so
>the military authorities cannot be blamed for failing to offer one as an
>alternative to the five accused. But it is the position of  this court that
>even if it existed, it would not have provided a fitting answer for the case
>of these five. The requirement of equality is not that citizens just give
>three years of service, but that they all undergo the same risk to life"
>(skipping over the fact that most soldiers in a modern army are non-
>combatants...).
>
>As the reading ended, we sat there in stunned silence. Only Reuven
>Kaminer, grandfather of Matan, got up and left the court shouting
>"Shame!" But outside the court there was the solid phalanx of press
>photographers and TV cameras, and behind them the activists who had
>not been able to enter. When the five emerged they got a hero's welcome
>of wild cheers and prolonged clapping. Then there developed a scene
>surely unequaled in the decades that this building has been used as a
>military court; something halfway between a political rally and a press
>conference.
>
>The chanting "Occupation is Terror - the Refuser is a Hero" and "Peace
>Yes - Occupation No" (some cried out "army no") lasted several minutes,
>until the TV crews managed to get the quiet to interview the five, their
>parents and their lawyer.
>
>"We are being punished for saying the word  o-c-c-u-p-a-t-i-o-n. So here I
>say it again: occupation, occupation, occupation" said Matan Kaminer.
>"The most easy thing for an 18-year old  in this country is to get an
>exemption from the army through all kind of backhand tricks. Anybody
>can do it, and many do. We chose to go the hard way. We say that the
>occupation is a moral abomination which moral people can not tolerate and
>that this is the reason that we refuse to enlist. If our sincerity means that
>we will sit many years in prison then we will sit many years in prison."
>
>"We say a truth that most of the public does not know, and that many
>choose not to know, and that's why we are being punished" said Haggai
>Matar. "They do war crimes and they expect us to keep silent. But we will
>not be silent. We will speak out against the occupation, even when we pay
>a price. After an exhausting year we find that the military court is not
>willing to listen to what we have to say. It turns out that Colonel Avi Levy
>is after all not more than a screw in the military machine. He is not the kind
>of person to shake the whole system."
>
>  "The worse the occupation becomes, the more people will refuse." These
>words of Adam Maor were to go into the evening TV news of Channel-I.
>He went on to say: "A country which oppresses three and half million
>people and denies them the most basic human rights is a country which is
>bound also to oppress its own citizens. No wonder that this country is
>sending us to prison. No wonder that it is trampling the poor and the
>disadvantaged, as it does."
>
>Shimri Tzameret was next: "I am not deterred by this verdict. This court is
>part of the army, and the army is doing terrible and immoral things such as
>sending my friends to risk their life for Netzarim settlement and for Hebron,
>when everybody knows that eventually we will evacuate these places. The
>army is causing despair in the Palestinian society. In fact it is the army
>which is breeding  the suicide bombers. This is the kind of army it is, and it
>is no surprise that this is the verdict handed by the court of this army."
>
>Last of the five was Noam Bahat: "It is important to remember that the war
>going on now is a war of choice, a war which is not needed for survival or
>self-defence. A war of choice is by definition immoral. We must refuse
>because this war will end only when people stop supporting it. I can't say
>that I am happy with this verdict, but it is in no way a reason for me or the
>others to give up."
>
>"I have listened most carefully to this verdict" said adv. Dov Chenin. "The
>test of whether a basic civil or human right is being respected is not when
>everybody agrees. The test is exactly when it is hotly controversial. The
>court said that the Freedom of Conscience is protected by Israeli law, but
>it refuses to apply it where it is most needed. 
>If people like these five don't
>get the protection of the Freedom of Conscience, then this freedom
>doesn't exist. About this I have a strong debate with the court. This right
>was not given the weight it deserves, which in my view makes the verdict
>unconstitutional." (This was perhaps the first draft of an appeal to the
>Supreme Court.)
>
>Meanwhile, the last act of this court is still to come: next Tuesday (Dec.
>23) at 2pm, the court is to hear the arguments of the prosecution and
>defence as to the fitting punishment, which is expected on that same day.
>
>[The information reached us that solidarity demonstrations for The Five
>took place today in London, Rome and Berlin, and that in France over
>thousand signatures were collected on a petition initiated by veterans who
>had themselves served prison terms for refusing to take part in the
>Algerian War.]
>
>For more information:
>Adv. Dov Chenin +972-3-5256333 / +972-68-249212
>Anat Matar +972-3-5408977 / +972-58-560001
>Messages of support to: Noam.Kaminer at exlibris.co.il
>
>Hebrew readers can follow the "Prison Blog" of Shimri at:
>http://e.walla.co.il/ts.cgi?tsscript=category&path=225
>
>[Report written by Gush Shalom member Adam Keller on behalf of the
>Refuser Parents' Forum.]
>
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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