These are the words of a young Israeli Jew who has spent time in the "Occupied Territories", not as a member of the IDF, and a young Israeli Jew who has spent time in Hebron as a member of the IDF...

http://www.refusersolidarity.net/default.asp?content_new=one_story_dt

To the Minister of Defense, Shaul Mofaz
From Daniel Tsal, ID 7-20015889
Re: My refusal to enlist in the IDF

"I hereby request to be released from mandatory service in the IDF due to reasons of conscience, and to allow me, instead, to do alternative service outside the army. If I should not be enabled to be thus exempted I shall be obliged to refuse service.

I considered this decision in the course of the past half year and made it after much hesitation, with a growing knowledge that no decision I make will be perfect and only as good as possible in the face of the complicated current situation of our country. In-depth study of what has happened and is happening in our region has led me to see that this step of refusal is legitimate and even necessary. It is not an act of subversion directed against the very foundations of democracy. The principles of the "only democracy in the Middle East" have become void of meaning as a result of the trampling of the rights of about three million people, and more indirectly, of the ongoing destruction of the foundations on which the State of Israel is supposed to be based.

During the past few months I have read a great deal on the issue, visited the occupied territories a number of times, volunteered for Halonot – an organization that enables cooperation between Israeli and Palestinian youth and carries out humanitarian work in the occupied territories. I also participated in some Ta'ayush activities and have witnessed my mother's work with CheckpointWatch. Once I witnessed the daily routines of the occupation I realized that I was not living in a civilized country which is waging a legitimate war upon its enemy, but rather, in a country that ethnically segregates between populations, so that some enjoy basic rights while the others are deprived of the most fundamental rights.

In a sense, when visiting checkpoints, I had a harder time watching a "well functioning" one than being present at a "problematic" spot, where IDF soldiers acted more violently than usual and prompted intervention from human rights activists. When I witnessed a boy who had only just finished high school calling the next in line, and with a condescending expression telling him to open his bag, I perceived the silent truth, the truth of the occupation: Nineteen year old boys who dominate an entire population, men, women and children.

I believe that if more Israeli girls and boys, before conscription, would come to the Palestinian villages under the Israeli occupation, the number of draft refusers would increase. A lot more people would realize how one-sided their education through the schools and media has been. A lot less people would accept military service as our obvious duty, and they would, perhaps, see that this army is no longer a "defense force" but has become an occupying force.

In such historical times, a sane individual must rise up against the system that makes the ongoing oppression possible. I have a moral obligation – not a choice but an obligation - to refuse to participate in the occupation and to struggle against the institutions that cancel such basic human rights. Any sane person, who has not yet been wholly overcome by fear and racism, must by dint of his basic humanity refuse to be part of an occupying and oppressive system such as the IDF has become.

Of course I don't for a moment believe that by refusing to be part of the military system I am relieved of responsibility for what is going on here and blameless. But the IDF is the main active tool used by the government in carrying out the above crimes and in continuing this insufferable occupation. And now I am called upon to take active part in that system. I consider every military role – whether it is doing combat service at the checkpoints or working in military offices in Tel Aviv – as complicit with the crime that is being committed here.

For the reasons stated above I hereby request to be released from military service and be allowed to perform alternative service outside the army."

http://www.refusersolidarity.net/default.asp?content_new=shovrim_shtika

Shovrim Shtika - Breaking the Silence: Soldiers Speak Out About their Service in Hebron

"Recently, we were released from active military duty. Hebron was the hardest, most confusing place we served. Until now, each of us dealt with the difficult things we saw there on our own. Our photo albums - souvenirs from the time we spent in Hebron - have remained, until now, sealed on our respective bedroom shelves. Since we were released, we came to realize that these memories are common to all the guys who served alongside us. We decided to speak out. We decided to tell our stories. Hebron is not on another planet; it's an hour's drive from Jerusalem. But Hebron is light years from Tel Aviv. So we decided to bring Hebron to Tel Aviv. Now, its up to you to come, look, and listen. To understand what's going on there...

...If I'm standing at a checkpoint that prevents people from going somewhere, somewhere it's obvious they need to get to, like from the grocery store to their house, and they can't get there because I'm standing in their way, it really doesn't matter how polite I am. I don't have to behave cruelly for it to be unjust. I can be the most courteous person in the world and still be unfair. Because from their point of view, it makes no difference if I'm a nice guy. I still don't let them go home. What difference does it make if I try to be nice? Or humiliate them? The very existence of the checkpoint is humiliating.

As long as I'm doing my duty according to the regulations, something completely legal, I'm doing something that is inflicting pain on people, harming them unnecessarily. I guard, or enable the existence of, 500 Jewish settlers at the expense of 15,000 people under direct occupation in the H2 area and another 140,000-160,000 in the surrounding areas of Hebron. It makes no difference whatsoever how pleasant I am to them or how pleasant my company commander is, it simply… won't make it any better. I will still be their enemy. There will still be a conflict between us. And sometimes, the fact that I may be nice to them will only cause me trouble because then they'll have someone to argue with, someone to turn to. But there is nothing I can tell them. You can't go through the checkpoint because you can't, and that's it!! It's an order, based on security considerations.

As long as you want to protect these 500 people, that's what you have to do. As long as you want to keep these folks in Hebron alive and enable them to go about their existence in a reasonable manner, you have to destroy the reasonable existence of all the rest. There's no alternative. For the most part, these are real security considerations. They're not imaginary. If you want to protect them from being shot at from above, you have to occupy all the hills around them. There are people living on those hills. They have to be subdued, they have to be detained, they have to be hurt at times. But as long as the government has decided that the settlement in Hebron will remain in tact, even without undue cruelty, the cruelty is there, and it doesn't matter whether or not we act nice."