Posted by Rory Fanning at
4:42pm, February 24, 2019.
She began cutting school on
Fridays and simply sitting on the steps of the Swedish parliament. Her name was
Greta Thunberg. She was 15 years old, with a mind of her own and a sign demanding a school strike against climate change.
Her parents wanted her to go back to school, but Friday after Friday she kept
at it until others (including one of her teachers) began joining her. She handed out leaflets that said, “I am doing this
because you adults are shitting on my future.” She demanded that her country’s
politicians “prioritize the climate question, focus on the climate and treat it
like a crisis” -- like, that is, the one that could take down civilization and
cripple the planet. She knew that it was time to panic. (“I want you to panic,” she insisted in
a speech directed at the ultra-rich in Davos,
Switzerland. “I want you to act as if our house is on fire. Because it is.”) A
single Swedish schoolgirl with Asperger’s syndrome was determined to take on the
planet’s blind billionaires and leaders everywhere. She urged her peers to face
the disaster that's becoming an increasingly obvious part of all our lives
and that their parents have generally been remarkably unable to face. She was,
in other words, striking for the right to a future.
Within months, thousands and
then tens of thousands of high-school students across
Europe, as well as in Australia and Japan, among other places,
began walking out, too, in “Fridays for Future” protests. And honestly, if that
isn’t inspirational on a planet overseen by Donald Trump and his crew of climate arsonists ready
to pump yet more greenhouse gases into a world already
buckling under the strain, what is? Adults, too, should feel good to know that
somewhere in a world in which the Chinese are still
building coal plants domestically (and in Africa), in which Australian politicians are
carefully looking the other way as their country burns and floods... well, I could go on, but I’m almost 75 and I’d
rather let Greta Thunberg do so for me.
Let’s face it, when children
become thoughtful adults because adults are acting like thoughtless children,
how can you not feel amazed and inspired? In another set of circumstances, no
less grim if more localized, TomDispatch regular and war resister (while in the U.S. military) Rory Fanning
has stumbled across a different kind of Greta Thunberg -- a 19-year-old Israeli
who proved more than willing to go to jail, again and again, to protest his
country’s expanding occupation of Palestinian lands. Thousands
of other teens have yet to follow him, but check out Fanning today on just how
inspiring he is. After all, a world of such young people remains a world of
hope. Tom
A Teenage War Resister in
Israel
An Antiwar Story from the
Embattled Middle East
By Rory
Fanning
Hilel Garmi’s phone is going
straight to voicemail and all I’m hoping is that he’s not back in prison. I’ll
soon learn that he is.
Prison 6 is a military prison.
It’s situated in the Israeli coastal town of Atlit, a short walk from the
Mediterranean Sea and less than an hour’s drive from Hilel’s home. It was
constructed in 1957 following the Sinai War between Israel and Egypt to house
disciplinary cases from the Israeli Defense Forces, or IDF.
Hilel has already been locked
up six times. “I can smell the sea from my cell, especially at night when
everything is quiet,” he tells me in one of our phone conversations. I’m 6,000
miles away in Chicago, but Hilel and I have regularly been discussing his
ordeal as an Israeli war resister, so it makes me nervous that, this time
around, I can’t reach him at all.
A recent high-school graduate
with dark hair and a big smile, he’s only 19 and still lives with his parents
in Yodfat, an Israeli town of less than 900 people in the northern part of the
country. It’s 155 miles to Damascus (if such a trip were possible, which, of
course, it isn’t), a two-hour drive down the coast to Tel Aviv, and a four-hour
drive to besieged Gaza.
Yodfat itself could be a set
for a Biblical movie, with its dry rolling hills, ancient ruins, and pastoral
landscape. The town exports flower bulbs, as well as organic goat cheese, and
notably supports the Misgav Waldorf School that Hilel’s mother helped found.
Hilel is proud of his mom. After all, people commute from all over Israel to
attend the school.
He is a rarity in his own
land, one of only a handful of refuseniks living in Israel. Each year roughly
30,000 18 year olds are drafted into the IDF, although 35% of such draftees manage to avoid military service
for religious reasons. A far tinier percentage publicly refuses to fight for
moral and political reasons to protest their country’s occupation of
Palestinian lands. The exact numbers are hard to find. I’ve asked war resister
groups in Israel, but no one seems to have any. Hilel’s estimate: between five
and 15 refuseniks a year.
“I’ve thought the occupation
of Palestine was immoral at least since I was in eighth grade,” he told me.
“But it was the March of Return that played a large role in sustaining the
courage to say no to military service.”
The Great March of Return
began in the besieged Gaza Strip on March 30, 2018, the 42nd anniversary of the
day in 1976 that Israeli police shot and killed six Palestinian citizens of
Israel as they protested the government’s expropriation of land. During the
six-month protest movement that followed in 2018, Israeli soldiers killed
another 141 demonstrators, while nearly 10,000 were injured, including 919 children, all shot.
“I couldn’t be a part of
that,” he said. “I’d rather be in jail.”
However, after 37 days in
prison, it was the letter Hilel received from Abu Artema, a key Palestinian
organizer of that march, which provided him with his greatest inspiration.
It read in part:
"Your decision is what
will help end this dark period inflicted on Palestinians, and at the same time
mitigate the fears of younger Israeli generations who were born into a
complicated situation and a turbulent geographical area deprived of security
and peace... I believe the solution is near and possible. It will not require
more than the courage to take initiative and set a new perspective, after
traditional solutions have failed to achieve a just settlement. Let us fight
together for human rights, for a country that is democratic for all its
citizens, and for Israelis and Palestinians to live together based on
citizenship and equality, not segregation and racism.”
“This letter excited me a
great deal,” Hilel said. “It’s Palestinians like Artema who have the true
courage, the kind that can only come from the moral authority of those
resisting occupation and violent oppression. This type of authority is much
stronger than the forces that occupy Palestine.”
After trying yet again to
reach him by phone, I send Hilel a Facebook message:
“I hope everything is all
right. Call me when you can. By the way, I was listening to this song and it
reminded me of you. Stay strong, brother.”
I attach a YouTube video of
“The World’s Greatest” by Bonnie “Prince” Billy:
I'm that little bit of
hope
With my back against the ropes.
I can feel it
I'm the world's greatest...”
With my back against the ropes.
I can feel it
I'm the world's greatest...”
War Resister to War Resister
As a war resister myself while serving in the U.S. Army --
I was protesting America’s unending wars across the Greater Middle East -- I’ve
wondered a lot about what it means to be one in Israel, a country where an
antiwar movement is almost non-existent. My friends in the U.S. who are
familiar with the militarization of Israel and the population’s overwhelming
supportfor their country’s still-expanding occupation respect what Hilel is
doing, but wonder about the political purpose of an essay like this one about a
war resister who lives in a country where such creatures are rarer than a snowy
day in Jerusalem.
A valid point: the Israeli
antiwar movement (if you can even call it a movement at this moment) is a long,
long way from making a dent in the occupation, no less ending it, and I
wouldn’t want to convey false hope about what such refuseniks mean to the
larger question of Palestinian liberation.
Still, I talk to Hilel because
I know how much it would have meant to me if someone had contacted me when I
was still resisting the Global War on Terror within the 2nd Ranger Battalion
nearly 15 years ago. If I had known that there were others like me or at least
others ready to support me, it would have made my own sense of isolation during
the six months I spent on lockdown inside my barracks less intolerable.
There’s more, though. Each time Hilel and I speak, I feel
like I’m the one being energized by the conversation. He’s smart, reads a lot
of the books I also read (despite the 22-year age difference between us), and
has a passion for rock climbing in the Shagor mountain range. More than
anything else, though, he has a kind of energy that I identify only with those
who are standing up for a principle, whatever the repercussions for their own
future. He exhibits no misgivings about what he’s doing, but somehow remains
remarkably grounded in reality.
“It’s hard being rejected by
friends and family who have never questioned the occupation,” he tells me in
one of our phone conversations. (His English, by the way, is superb.) “Very few
in my class agree with what I’m doing. But I believe in what I’m doing. That is
the most important thing. Although, who knows, my decision to resist may have a
positive ripple effect in a way we can’t appreciate at this point in time.”
He tells me all this in a tone
that feels both light and confident, the very opposite of what you might
imagine from a teenager who had at that moment been jailed six times in a
single year and expected more of the same. His voice is authentic. It’s all his
and draws strength from a self-possessed sense of the truth.
Like many, I’ve been exhausted
and depressed by Donald Trump’s presidency. His administration represents a
dark step back when it comes to social-justice issues around the world and
makes me question the time I still spend organizing against America’s endless
wars. The ship appears to be sinking, no matter what I do, and since the
election I’ve found myself asking why I shouldn’t try to just shut out the
world.
In such a context, talking
with Hilel has been a tonic for me. After our conversations, the
all-too-familiar feelings of depression and hopelessness fade, at least
briefly, while his courage and optimism energize me. So part of my urge in
writing this piece is to convey that very feeling, hoping others will be
energized, too. It's a tall order these days, but worth a try.
The Adventures of a Teenage
Refusenik
After a week in which my calls
frustratingly keep going to voicemail, I finally hear back. “They arrested me
again,” he informs me. “I expected it, but wasn’t sure they would come back a
seventh time.” Surprisingly, he’s still in good spirits.
The Israeli government
distinguishes between pacifists who reject the use of force for any reason and
those with “selective
conscience,” or those who specifically refuse to fight in protest over the
occupation of Palestinian territory. The latter are treated far more severely
and are significantly more likely to find themselves in prison.
Hilel’s public declaration -- which has been circulating in
left-leaning outletsin Israel -- on why he continues to refuse military
service couldn’t be clearer on where he stands and helps explain why the
Israeli government has sent him back to prison so regularly:
“I cannot enlist, because from
a very young age I was educated to believe that all humans are equal. I do not
believe in some common denominator which all Jews share and which sets them
apart from Arabs. I do not believe that I should be treated differently from a
child born in Gaza or in Jenin, and I do not believe that the sorrows or the
happiness of any of us are more important than those of anyone else... As a
person who was born into the more powerful side of the hierarchy between the
Mediterranean and the Jordan River, I was given the power as well as the
obligation to try to fight that hierarchy.”
Refuseniks like Hilel
generally spend 20 days in jail. They are then released for a day or two and
immediately reprocessed back into prison.
“There is a lot of sitting
around in prison. I read a lot. It’s a military prison so I’m in with people
who are in trouble for a variety of things while serving in the IDF.” There are
different cellblocks (A, B, and C) designated for various infractions -- A
being the “easiest,” C the “hardest,” according to Hilel:
“I started in A, but worked my
way up to C because I continue to refuse to fight. C is where those who commit
assaults of varying degree within the IDF are housed. C is used as a threat by
the jailors. I was in C for a short time because I wouldn’t tell a group of
demonstrators protesting my arrest to disperse. After they left on their own,
they sent me back to B.”
I ask him how many protestors
there were. “About 50,” he replies, “But they gave me a lot of strength. Altit,
where the jail is, is not a very big town, so to have anyone out there at all
was encouraging.”
An increasing number of Israelis oppose the occupation and some have formed groups to
help support war resisters. Yesh Gvul, an organization that backs
refuseniks like Hilel (and to which he belongs), for instance, first put me in
touch with him. Palestinians like Abu Artema are also reaching out to
refuseniks. Palestianian and Israeli activists are working to overcome the barriers that divide them, searching for
creative ways to connect and organize against the occupation. In December 2018,
Israeli activists, including conscientious objectors, held a video meeting with
Artema. "Those who refuse to take part in the attacks on the demonstrators
in Gaza, who express their natural right to protest against the siege, those
who refuse to take part in the attacks on Gaza's citizens -- they stand on the
right side of history," Artema said during the call.
And now, having grown
strangely attached to Hilel, I feel a small flood of relief that he’s on the
phone with me once again. I ask if we can Skype so that I can actually see him
and he promptly agrees. It’s December and he’s wearing a ski hat. He’s sitting
in his parent’s kitchen and his eyes glimmer. As he talks, I’m taken back to my
own 19-year-old self, to the Rory Fanning who was still trying to fit in, get
decent grades, and have fun. I certainly wasn’t taking on my government, which
only makes me more impressed that he is.
He and I chat more about his
family and his town. Yodfat was once a place governed by a group of people
called the Kibbutz (from the Hebrew word kvutza, meaning “group”). Inspired in
part by Karl Marx, the Kibbutz movement strove to live communally and
maintain deep connections to agriculture. “It's still a progressive
town,” he says, “and most people, at least as lip service, will say they oppose
the occupation. However, they see obedience to the current law and general
support for the military -- even though some of them may admit it's an
undemocratic one -- as far more important."
I ask him about the Boycott Divestment
Sanction, or BDS, movement. BDS is Palestinian-led and inspired by the
South African anti-apartheid movement. It calls on others globally to pressure
Israel to comply with international law and end the occupation of Palestine.
“The people of Israel feel
isolated from the rest of the world,” Hilel responds. “The government and media
constantly remind them how Iran and so many others want to destroy the country.
The effects of anti-Semitism echo in everyone’s head. I think BDS only
reinforces the idea that the government promotes that Jews are rejected by the
world.”
I remind him how an earlier
BDS-style movement helped end apartheid in South Africa and ask if he thinks it
might be an effective way to end Israel’s system of apartheid, too. “Maybe,” he
responds hesitantly. “I haven’t thought about it too much. I could certainly
see how it could.” I don’t press the issue, but as ever I’m struck by how open
he is, even on a topic that the Israeli government clearly feels deeply threatened by.
As I can see via Skype, the
sun is going down behind Hilel. It’s still morning here in Chicago, but six in
the evening in Yodfat, so I let him go back to his embattled teenage life.
And I wonder yet again how
I’ll write about that life, his dilemmas, and the unnerving world both of us
find ourselves in. Then, I’m reminded of how encouraging it felt to have many
active-duty soldiers reach out to me over the years after hearing my own story
of war resistance. I know that there are surprising numbers of people in the
U.S. military who question America’s endless wars, trillion-dollar national security budgets, and the
near-robotic thank-you-for-your-service patriotism of so many in
this country, because I’ve met or talked to many of them and even seen a few
over the years break ranks as I did (and as, in a very different
situation, Hilel has done). And obviously there must be many others out there I
know nothing about.
News travels fast these days.
Support networks like Veterans for Peace and About Face continue
to be built up in this country to support soldiers who question their mission.
And I know that, in Israel, there are others who think the way Hilel does and
are just waiting for an atmosphere of greater support to develop so that they,
too, can begin to resist the injustices of their moment and their country.
That, of course, is what Hilel has helped accomplish. Stories like his create
openings for others to act. Sooner or later, those others, inspired by him and
perhaps by similar figures to come, will inevitably follow their lead.
Just as I’m finishing this
piece, he suddenly calls to tell me that he’s been released -- for good! The
Israeli Defense Forces have freed him from his military obligation. At first, a
ruling against releasing him came down from a committee of civilians and
officers controlled by the IDF, because his refusal to fight stemmed from
reasons that were “political” rather than from “conscience.” Later that day,
however, a higher-ranking officer overturned that group’s decision and, after
his seventh imprisonment, Hilel was suddenly free.
He isn’t sure why the decision
was overturned, but perhaps the higher-ups finally concluded that he simply
wouldn’t break under their pressure. Quite the opposite, a determined
19-year-old resister might only get more attention if they kept sending him
back to jail. His courage might, in fact, motivate others to resist, the last
thing the IDF wants right now.
I look forward to staying in
touch with Hilel. He tells me he plans on working with disadvantaged youth in
Israel for the next two years. I know there are great things in store for him.
Interacting with a fellow war-resister across continents and seas these last
few months, and seeing him go from prison to freedom in a matter of weeks, has
reinvigorated my own tired sprit in ways I had not anticipated when I sent my
first note to him.
Rory Fanning, a TomDispatch regular, is the author of Worth Fighting For: An Army Ranger’s Journey Out of The
Military and Across America and co-author of Long Shot: The Struggles and Triumphs of an NBA Freedom Fighter.
You can reach out to him on Twitter at @rtfanning.
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