- Reserve staff sergeant Shlomi Segall is one of 467 IDF
soldiers and officers who have signed a letter stating that they refuse
to serve in the illegally occupied territories any more. Segall argues
that Sharon is provoking Palestinian suicide attacks and then cynically
using them to oppress the Palestinian people and destroy Palestinian culture.
It is with an almost palpable sense of relief that Segall announces he
will no longer collaborate with this shameful project. It is neither anti-Semitic
nor anti-Israeli to speak up against the occupation, Segall argues: it
is both proper and necessary. - JN (The Guardian)
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- Why I Won't Serve Sharon
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- "By branding any criticism of the suffering he inflicts
on the Palestinians as anti-semitic, Sharon is enlisting something sacred
for the vile colonial and expansionist ends he pursues. People in Britain,
Jews and non-Jews alike, should not lend a hand to such a despicable attempt
to desecrate the memory of Jewish suffering, and to use it to justify the
oppression of another people."
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- -- Shlomi Segall, IDF Reserve Staff Sgt.
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- By Shlomi Segall
The Guardian - London 7-7-2
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- It is remarkable how easily one learns to live with occupation.
When I was born, the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories
was already three years old. When I became 18 the occupation was still
in full force, only by then the Palestinians had had enough of it. That
was the first intifada. I was there, along with many others, ready to serve
as the iron fist to crush the Palestinian resistance. Elsewhere people
our age contemplated going to university or travelling around the world,
but I and many young Israelis found ourselves in the narrow alleys of Jebaliya
and other refugee camps. We should have known better, but almost without
exception we didn't.
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- Nearly eight years later I was still serving in the occupied
territories, this time as a reserve soldier. I was manning a roadblock,
stopping Palestinians from entering Israel en route to their low paid jobs
in the Israeli "slave market". I remember talking to a friend,
trying to justify why I'd collaborated with a policy that denied a Palestinian
father the only means of bringing food to his children.
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- No more. No more excuses. We members of Courage to Refuse,
reserve soldiers who have vowed not to serve in the occupied territories,
will not set foot beyond the 1967 line unless it is in civilian clothes
and as invited guests.
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- Ariel Sharon will tell you that Israel is fighting a
war for its survival against a bloodthirsty enemy. Not so. Sharon and his
cronies are fighting a colonial war to keep their pet settlement project
in place, to perpetuate the Israeli occupation and the subjugation of the
Palestinian territories. It is a one-sided war with a not-so-covert purpose
of destroying any hope of a Palestinian homeland and independent national
life.
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- Any suicide attack within Israel, deplorable as it is,
is used by Sharon as a pretext for inflicting ever-increasing misery on
the 3.5 million inhabitants of Palestine. And if suicide attacks are not
forthcoming, you can count on Sharon to provoke them with his so-called
"targeted killings", which usually leave alleged terrorists unharmed
but often leave women and children dead.
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- In this so-called war, any pretext is used to inflict
a second Nakba (the catastrophe of 1948) on the Palestinians. Just look
at the wanton destruction of the Palestinian ministry of culture, the bureau
of statistics, the ministry of education; look at the destruction of such
national symbols as the Palestinian international airport and the Voice
of Palestine radio station, not to mention the shameful episode of Arafat's
virtual house arrest. All this is aimed not at some terrorist infrastructure
but at the basic foundations of a society struggling to attain independence
and develop its future from under the Israeli army boot. This is something
conscientious Israelis are no longer willing to take part in.
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- Sharon's strength is in turning Israeli society into
an obedient herd. He did that remarkably well 20 years ago, leading us
into Lebanon. No more. Sharon should know that he cannot count on us to
fight his war any more.
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- True, today we don't have the 400,000 Israelis who swarmed
the streets in protest, sending Sharon home after the terrible massacre
of Sabra and Chatila. But when Sharon looks over his shoulder he no longer
sees an entire enlisted Israeli society mobilised behind him; he sees 467
combat soldiers and officers who are not willing to take part in this colonial
campaign and more than 80 conscientious objectors, jailed by the state
they so faithfully served.
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- In the refuseniks, Sharon sees dangerous determination,
he sees the unherding of the herd. And he is afraid. University lecturers
who support us are threatened with dismissal, artists who sympathise with
us are boycotted. Sharon and his generals won't admit it, but they are
afraid of us - the privates, the sergeants and the corporals.
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- Although Sharon and his government are the elected and
legitimate representatives of the state of Israel, he and his generals
do not represent the basic values that Israelis, Jews and Arabs, stand
for. So to criticise the current government of Israel is not to attack
the people of Israel, and it is definitely not anti-semitic. It is not
up to Sharon, the "hero" of such human catastrophes as Kibya
(1953), Sabra and Chatila (1982), and Jenin (2002), to tell anyone what
it is and is not to be Jewish.
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- By branding any criticism of the suffering he inflicts
on the Palestinians as anti-semitic, Sharon is enlisting something sacred
for the vile colonial and expansionist ends he pursues. People in Britain,
Jews and non-Jews alike, should not lend a hand to such a despicable attempt
to desecrate the memory of Jewish suffering, and to use it to justify the
oppression of another people. ___
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- Shlomi Segall is a reserve staff sergeant in the Israeli
paratroopers and a member of Courage to Refuse. ___
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- >From Top View top_viewer@yahoo.com
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