In Jerusalem, two students are trying to generate “a moral and political debate” among their peers. So far, however, the debate has been largely confined to their living room.
Hebrew University students Noam Leschem, 24, and Roy Folkman, 26, are squaring off rather congenially in Leschem’s apartment. Longtime friends and fellow part-time computer instructors at the Jerusalem Art High School, both Leschem and Folkman are leftists: they favor a peace settlement between Israel and the Palestinians that would include Israel’s relinquishing the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
How to bring about such a settlement is where they differ. Leschem recently joined the Courage to Refuse movement, a loose federation of reserve officers and combat soldiers in the Israeli Defense Forces who, for reasons moral, political, or both, refuse to serve in the Occupied Territories. The movement was founded by Lieutenant David Zonsheine, a reservist in a paratrooper brigade who published an open letter in the Israeli daily Ha’aretz in December 2001 stating his refusal “to fight beyond the 1967 borders in order to dominate, expel, starve and humiliate an entire people.” Since then, the list of signatories has swelled to nearly 500—all reserve officers or combat soldiers who are willing to risk jail time for their position. They are known in Hebrew as sarvanim, quite literally “refusers.”
Leschem signed on to the letter in March of 2002. No pacifist, Leschem served in Lebanon and throughout the West Bank before coming to his decision. Says Leschem, “There are certain things that we as human beings—and as Jews—cannot do morally.” He believes ruling over Palestinian civilians is one of them.
Folkman disagrees. Although he finds the occupation “completely wrong,” he will not refuse to serve in the Occupied Territories. He believes that in order to maintain Israel’s democratic structures, a soldier must obey his orders and insists that this in no way precludes political activity against government policy: “I will volunteer, I will write, I will do seminars in the university,” says Folkman, but he will not refuse to serve in the West Bank or Gaza Strip. For a soldier to refuse orders, he says, “is a problem in a democratic society. That is not how I want the decision [to withdraw from the Occupied Territories] to be made.”
Whatever their differences, both Folkman and Leschem agree that these issues must be discussed openly. Both insist on the urgency of, in Folkman’s words, “a moral debate on the issue of refusal, and the occupation in general.”
Since the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 there has been a small group of Israelis advocating for “selective objection” to military duty they found morally objectionable. But these activists were always considered a fringe movement far on the outskirt of mainstream Israeli society. In contrast, the Courage to Refuse movement, although the participatory numbers are not great, has received unprecedented attention: Courage to Refuse has been discussed in the Israeli media, debated among Israeli members of parliament, and garnered support from leftist American Jewish groups.
But this debate had been conspicuously absent from Israeli campuses. A modest protest at Hebrew University in mid-April, along with the distribution of written Courage to Refuse materials and several seminars at other Israeli college campuses, represents the entirety of student-generated campus activity surrounding the refusal movement.
Apparently, discussions have largely been confined to living rooms where long-time friends like Leschem and Folkman debate behind closed doors. Leschem and Folkman agree that the question of refusal needs to be the subject of a wider discussion, especially on campuses. “Whether or not Courage to Refuse is democratic is left for a moral and political debate,” says Leschem. So far, however, students don’t seem to want to debate it at all.
If there is anything likely to spark debate on an Israeli college campus it should be the refusal movement. The majority of Israeli men are required to serve in the Israeli military immediately following high school for a period ranging from one to three years, after which time they must complete annual reserve duty until well into their adult years. As a result, Israelis don’t enter college until after their initial army service, while still serving several weeks a year in the reserves.
Courage to Refuse is made up entirely of reserve soldiers who have completed their initial army service, many of whom are now university students. And while refusal might in the past have been a largely academic issue, today it’s more real than ever—particularly to Israeli college students: Thousands of reserve soldiers enrolled at Israeli universities have been called up to serve in the Israeli military’s extensive operations in the West Bank and Gaza over the last year and a half.
So, why aren’t the halls of Israel’s universities ringing with debate on the issue? According to Leschem and Folkman, the absence of a real political debate on campus is nothing new. Instead, they say, the failure of the refusal movement to cause widespread political activity among students is indicative of a simple fact—the average Israeli student is uninterested in activism.
To be sure, Israeli college campuses are by design not conducive to free political expression. Official demonstrations, for instance, are prohibited within the boundaries of the university. Only registered student groups may distribute information, and all such information must first be examined by the university administration. On campuses such as the University of Haifa, with its large Arab student population, political activity is even further restricted for fear of potential unrest.
But Israeli students point to deeper reasons for the apolitical nature of Israeli college campuses. Folkman cites the relatively conservative mindset of young Israelis, a mindset that stems from the threat to Israel’s survival. “[We] are in a country that is in constant danger, so it’s very hard to be radical.”
According to Uri Dotan, 25, a student of social work at Tel Aviv University, the issue is that “we are really living the politics…We live in a complicated situation, and Israelis when they are on the campus are trying to retreat, to ignore, and to disconnect. They want to create some shelter in which they can live.” As the situation gets worse in Israel, says Dotan, students retreat further and further into their own lives and studies.
To Tamir Sorek, 33, also active in Courage to Refuse, the reluctance of Israeli university students to get involved is less about the political climate than about age. “Of course they are less politically active than American students,” says Sorek. “You should remember that [Israeli] students are older. They have served in the army sometimes for three years. They look at college very instrumentally. They are looking for their profession, to have their degree, and that’s it.”
Some point to compulsory service in the Israeli military as an explanation for the lack of activism among Israeli college students. According to Ori Rotlevy, 27, a graduate student of philosophy at Tel Aviv University, the army has a pacifying effect. “You are in the service, and it’s quite a heavy load for an 18-year-old. And when you finish service you want to continue peacefully with your life. Most of us go on an extended trip in order to find some peace. And when we return we want to continue the peace that we found there.”
Amit Mashiach, 30, a master’s student in political science and communications at Tel Aviv University, sums up the absence of political debate on campus in simple economic terms: “You have to understand that Israeli students don’t have t
he luxury of being only students. In Israel most students work, do reserve service, and study.” The only large-scale student political activity that he can remember was in response to a proposed student-fee hike in 1998. “That’s the only thing that will get Israeli students on their feet—money.”
And if the average Israeli college student is not inclined towards activism to begin with, the violent reality of life in Israel since the beginning of the second intifada has left even less room for debate on campus. Leschem says that, with the daily grind of bus bombings and Israeli military operations, his peers are quite simply “tired—very, very tired.” Israeli college students yearn to distance themselves from the conflict, he says, and the campus serves as a potential refuge. For this reason, campuses are not “a place of debate” right now.
Says Folkman, “Hopefully there’ll be more space [for student activism] when our existential threats are solved. When you are occupied by occupation there is no room for other debate.”
Dotan also sees improvement on the security front as a prerequisite to meaningful debate on campus. “The security situation will create the atmosphere for dialogue.” As things move toward peace, he says, then students will feel that they have the room to debate among themselves. Until then, he adds mockingly, “we are just fighting terror’”
However, the issues that lie beneath the apolitical nature of Israeli campuses, and the reactions to the current atmosphere of violence, are deeply personal—not just for the individual refusing, but for everyone else around him. For many students the issue itself may just be too personal to debate in public.
“It was a very difficult year,” says Folkman. “Half of the time half of the men in the class were somewhere serving, missing months and months of university. And it was all the time one of your friends serving and it was very emotional bringing this debate to the campus in such a way, talking about refusal, because it’s very personal.”
“What is our responsibility as friends to each other? Besides the very academic argument surrounding the ‘legality’ and ‘morality’ of refusal, there’s my friend who’s now in a tank in Jenin while I am collecting assignments for him. So if he calls me, what do I say? ‘Yeah, I think you are doing war crimes in Jenin?’ It becomes very personal and most of the students just wanted to show support for the guys at the front.”
Ultimately, refusal to serve in the Occupied Territories may be too intimate a decision to discuss publicly in any meaningful way. Perhaps a debate on refusal can only be constructive between close friends like Roy Folkman and Noam Leschem, who care so deeply about each other and each other’s opinion.
In a society as close-knit as Israel’s, says Leschem, “the rules are something very intimate. Once I refuse and break the rules, it’s as if I offended Roy personally. Of course, it’s nothing personal, but it gets down to something very personal, very intimate. It’s as if my personal refusal is an offense against my fellow soldiers.” In order to get beyond these feelings, says Leschem, “You have to lift yourself from that personal point of view into a higher and wider point of view in which you can debate.”
In the course of their conversation Folkman, by way of example, demonstrates just how sensitive Leschem’s decision to refuse service in the Occupied Territories is. “If more people would serve then I would have to serve fewer days.” Cocking his brow and turning towards Leschem, Folkman adds, “As it is, I have to serve 30 days, which is basically my summer vacation. I have to be in Ramallah for 30 days instead of going to Europe or something. And we all know that Ramallah is less beautiful than Rome.”
“And a military prison,” asks Leschem in response, “How does that compare to Rome?”
