Young Israeli women follow their consciences into prison

November 13, 2009

TEL AVIV // When most Israeli girls her age are planning how they will spend the time after their mandatory two-year stint in the armed forces, Emelia Markovitch, 19, is considering a spell in jail.

The 19-year-old high school graduate has refused to serve in the Israel Defense Forces because she does not agree with the country’s continued occupation of Palestinian lands. But that decision will land her in prison.

"I am afraid. I don’t know what will happen there," she said.

Ms Markovitch said she felt being jailed for her moral convictions was an "insult".

However, she is not alone.

In October, 88 youngsters – some still enrolled in school, some recent graduates – sent a letter to Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, Ehud Barak, the defense minister, and the IDF’s chief of staff, Gaby Ashkenazi, stating their refusal to serve in the armed forces.

Israel’s policies in the West Bank and Gaza created an "unbearable actuality for Palestinians in the occupied territories". And it will not achieve peace, their letter said.

"There is no military solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – only peace will ensure life and security for Jews and Arabs in this country."

Ms Markovitch, whose family emigrated to Israel from the former Soviet Union when she was an infant, also signed the letter.

She said that when she received her first letter from the army while still in high school about her upcoming service, she realized how little she knew about the IDF and the occupation. "I started to look for information," she said. "I did research. And I decided I didn’t want to take part in it."

She went before the Conscientious Objection Committee, the army body that sometimes grants enlistees a discharge due to moral objections. "They said no," Ms Markovitch recalled, but offered her a position as a secretary within the Israeli army.

"You can’t talk about pacificism to officers."

Because the IDF does not acknowledge draft-dodgers, Ms Markovitch, technically, has not been released from duty.

When she fails to report for duty in February, she will receive anywhere from one to four weeks in jail for refusing an order.

After she completes her sentence, she is likely to receive another order, which she will again disregard – and that means more time in jail.

This can go on for two years, the amount of time young, non-religious women are expected to serve.

Haggai Matar of New Profile, a local non-governmental agency that advocates the demilitarization of Israeli society, estimates that only 50 per cent of eligible Israeli men complete their mandatory service – 25 per cent of those do not ever join while another 25 per cent drop out within a year. Less than half of eligible Israeli women complete their service according to Mr Matar.

Official numbers, however, are hard to come by as the IDF does not recognise those who refuse, and conscription rates are confidential. Academics and pro-peace groups estimate that as many as 700 people have been sent to jail for refusing to serve over the past 20 years.

But Israeli pacifists are finding other ways to opt out of military service, such as claiming psychological or other medical problems. Religion, too, has provided a way out for conscientious objectors.

Young men who study at religious institutions are automatically released from service. And Israeli girls need only to claim religious observance to be set free from the army, which many more have been doing.

In 1991, 21 per cent of women avoided service on religious grounds, according to army figures; last year the figure was 36 per cent, even though overall only around 20 per cent of Israelis classify themselves as religious.

The army, however, appears to be cottoning on, and last year launched a surveillance operation to try to catch out girls who claim to be orthodox. Since then, 520 young women have been caught kissing, a taboo for unmarried religious women, and bar-hopping, or driving on the Sabbath.

Mr Matar said the slowly thinning ranks, which have been dropping steadily since the 1990s, are "threatening" to the army. He points to the recent criminal investigation of New Profile – which provides information to young Israelis and counseling to draft dodgers – as evidence of an army that feels insecure about its ability to keep its numbers up.

Doing time in the IDF is a rite of passage – an entry card to society. But for many Israelis, the increasingly right-wing policies of their government has tarnished the cachet of serving with the armed forces.

Ms Markovich expects serious social repercussions from her decision, including difficulties finding work as many employers do not want to hire those who have not served.

Her neighbors have even threatened her with a lawsuit because she mentioned her hometown in a media interview.

"We are seen as traitors," Ms Markovich said.

Yaara Shafrir, 17, said her family has been supportive of her decision to refuse to serve, but some of her friends were confused by her choice to do so on moral grounds.

"They can’t see why I chose such a difficult way to get a discharge," Ms Shafrir said. Most of her friends opted out of the army by claiming medical exemptions.

Ms Shafrir, who will go before the Conscientious Objection Committee in February, feels that publicly refusing army service is a small step in the process of improving Israel.

"I don’t see myself as standing apart from society, as a viewer – we’re a part of society, so we’re a part of the change."

There have been many refusal movements in Israel’s history.

The first came in the early 1970s as "a reaction to the endless skirmishes in the Sinai and the Israeli government’s rejection of the Egyptian peace offer," according to Gadi Algazi, a historian and social activist.

As early as 1979 – 12 years into the occupation – young Israelis, concerned about participating in the repression of Palestinians, began refusing to serve in the territories.

Spikes have also occurred in times of war, such as the handful of soldiers who refused to participate in Operation Cast Lead, Israel’s winter offensive against Gaza.

And it is not always the students who are refusing to serve.

Some, like Tom Mehager, a former artillery commander, make the decision later in life.

Mr Mehager is a member of Courage to Refuse, a 500-strong organization of reserve soldiers and officers who have publicly spoken out against the occupation.

Reservists too can find themselves behind bars if they refuse to report for duty – as approximately 200 members of Courage to Refuse, including Mr Mehager, have done.

For Mr Mehager, it was while he was on reserve duty in the West Bank in 2003, and asked to man a roadblock which the army had imposed on a village after a Palestinian man allegedly murdered an Israeli settler.

The decision was crystal clear," Mr Mehager, then 26, recalled. "I refused. And I spent four weeks in a military jail."