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It is "the most compelling example of simmering dissent within Israel," says a correspondent for The Independent. "The refuseniks," reports The Scotsman, "are spearheading a reawakening of the Israeli left." In Newsweek, a senior editor for Foreign Affairs compared the "refusenik movement" to a small anticonscription drive in South Africa that turned the tide against apartheid in the 1980s. Hmmm. The numbers tell a less dramatic story. "Refuseniks" are those Israeli reserve soldiers and officers who have signed a letter declaring their refusal to serve in the territories. They hardly classify as a "movement." As I write, their petition has reached just over 400; that number has scarcely budged in months. It's also a miniscule fraction of the tens of thousands of Israelis who perform reserve duty without reservation. (The petition is updated regularly on the group's website. ) How much significance should we read into the protestations of about 400 young Israelis? First let's assume the online figures are correct (i.e., every signature is authentic and there is no double counting). One must compare the number of "refuseniks" against a standing Israeli army of 186,500 troops and 30,000 reservists. Thus the ratio of "refuseniks" to participants is less than 2 per 1,000 draftees, a trifling figure. Now, one might argue that "refuseniks" — who agree to join the Israeli army but who refuse to participate in "illegal incursions" into the territories — are distinct from those who dodge the draft altogether and should therefore be considered differently. They agreed to fight for God and country, after all, just not in this way. Their behavior, goes this line of reasoning, sends a more acute signal of their rejectionism. Whatever the intensity of their beliefs, however, the world would have never known of them were it not for Israel's adamantine democracy. Consider that the refuseniks' indictment of the state of Israel appeared in Yedioth Ahronoth, the country's largest newspaper, in the middle of a bloody war. For fear of sedition charges, few newspapers in the Western world would have published such a letter in like circumstances. Palestinian media would never have brooked such open dissension from within their own ranks. We never hear of Palestinian "refuseniks" because they are summarily shot. Compared to other nations, Israel positively embraces military dissent. In more than two decades, the Israeli army has never court-martialed a single "refusenik." Meanwhile, in Russia, 15 percent of those called up for military service illegally dodge the draft. That country's military commissariat has pursued hundreds of criminal cases in the past year. Yet the international press has winked at these prosecutorial excesses. Russian refuseniks are pitiable; Israeli refuseniks are the Western media's darlings. Disproportionate
coverage might be justifiable if the sentiments of the "refuseniks"
were widespread in Israeli society. But the vast majority of Israelis
surveyed in a poll for Yedioth Ahronoth favored disciplining the
reservists, not praising them. — Neil Seeman is a senior policy analyst at the Fraser Institute, a Canadian think tank. |
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how serious is the "refusenik" problem in the Israeli armed
forces?
