detonate.net - Israel Rules Reserves Must Serve in Occupied Territories

JERUSALEM, Dec. 30 — The Israeli Supreme Court ruled today that reserve soldiers do not have a right to refuse to serve in the occupied territories. It held that Israeli society is too polarized and embattled to permit selective assertions of conscience by its fighters.

In a decision that tried to balance Israel's democratic values and its social and security needs, the court called this a "time of division" and warned that "the recognition of selective conscientious objection might loosen the links that hold us together as a people."

The ruling was a setback to a group of combat soldiers and officers who, while saying they will serve elsewhere, refuse to serve in the West Bank or Gaza Strip because, they say, their duties there involve "dominating, expelling, starving and humiliating an entire people."

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The fortunes of their campaign reflect the hardening of public opinion under the threat of Palestinian suicide bombings. The campaign, which began early this year, has drawn 512 members, but its leaders acknowledge that it has failed to gain much political traction nationally for its claim that the occupation is corrupting Israeli society.

Feeling they are in constant danger, Israelis have broadly supported the army's offensives and its tactics, from imposing 24-hour curfews on Palestinian cities to tracking and killing wanted Palestinians.

But beneath that broad agreement, the court found enduring fissures in society that it said would render a selective refusal to serve dangerous to the state.

The reservists' group was seeking a right accorded those who object on moral grounds to performing any military service: to appear before a committee with the power to grant a conscientious objector an exemption from service. But the court found a distinction between refusing any service and refusing specific duties.

While the objection today might be to service in the occupied territories, the court said, "tomorrow the objection will be against the evacuation of various settlements in the area."

"The people's army might turn into an army of peoples, made up of different units, each having its own spheres in which it can act conscientiously, and others in which it cannot," it warned. "In a polarized society such as ours, this consideration weighs considerably."

The lawyer for the reservists, Michael Sfard, said that as a democracy Israel should be willing to endure a bit more difficulty in administering its military. "We pay a lot of prices for the values democracy represents," he said.

He said he would feel sympathy for an extremely religious soldier who, regarding the West Bank as deeded by God to the Jewish people, might object to an order to evacuate a settlement.

From New York Times.