victims of unjustified aggression is what glues the Israeli army together.
"There isn't any need for disciplinary battalions to force family men to fight. There is a self-imposed discipline based on strong personal motivation and loy-
Israeli antiwar soldiers sum up the movement's progress alty to comrades that has been forged over the years under the pressure of national consensus."
As reactionary and colonialist as it is, the Israeli army is nonetheless a people's army. Its backbone are the reserve units, which are made up of citizens in arms between the ages of 35 and 60, including the officers.
Meir said: "When for ten or twenty
One year after launching the war against Lebanon, the Zionist regime remains heavily involved in the country.
But the Begin government has not yet achieved any of its main war aims. It has not smashed the Palestine Liberation wing buffer state in Lebanon. It has not been able to deliver a crushing blow to
Syria. And, most importantly of all, it has not reconsolidated Zionist national unity among the Israeli Jewish population.
The war of attrition with Syria in the Bekaa valley has already cost more Israeli
According to the most recent polls, 50 percent casualties than the siege of Beirut.
of the Israeli population favors a unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon.
The Lebanon conflict thus remains the most political of all the Zionist wars and is tending to become more and more so.
ability of the Palestinian movement to keep up pressure on the Zionist state and on the ability of the anti-Zionist forces within Israel to win decisive sections of the Jewish population to an alternative to "fortress Zion."
The resolution of the present conflict in the PLO will certainly affect the ability of the movement to maintain pressure on Israel. But it will take some time for the
In the meantime, in this issue, we look at the other side of the equation, the growth of the anti-war movement in the Israeli army.
At a press conference to mark the an- armored unit.
niversary of the invasion of Lebanon by the Israeli army, the reserve soldiers movement against the Lebanon war,
"Yesh Gvul" ("There Is a Border" and also "There Is a Limit"), announced that it had just gotten the two-thousandth signature on its petition demanding that the ministry of defense not send any of the
Among the numerous officers who signed the petition, many of whom were high ranking, were the former general secretary of the Labor Party and a judge of the Jerusalem district court, both of them
At the same time, hundreds of soldiers were signing another petition rejecting the campaign medals due them for participation in the Lebanon war.
radio, and all the daily papers devoted a large part of their reviews of the results of the first year of war in Lebanon to the soldier movement against the war.
It is not an exaggeration to talk about a reservist soldiers movement against the war. (1) Given the central role of the army in the Jewish state, International
Viewpoint was interested not just in the soldiers movement itself but in its place in a perspective of struggle against Zion-
So, our correspondent met three anti-
"Yesh Gvul"
activists in the
Meir, an engineering worker, is a member of the Political Bureau of the
Revolutionary Communist League, the
Fourth Internationalist organization in
Israel. He is a corporal in the quarter-
Yigal, a former member of a kibbutz, is a building worker and a sergeant in an
It has not built a stable rightThe outcome depends decisively on the
The third person interviewed, A., is public worker and a reserve lieutenant.
The last two joined the Revolutionary Communist League during the Lebanon war, partially as a result of their work in the war started," Yigal "and we were mobilized, there was an unprecedented disarray in the battalion. Most of us didn't want this war, but people didn't know what to do, whether to go or refuse to go. The idea of refusing to go was not altogether new.
"In recent years there has been talk on several occasions about soldiers refusing to do their reserve duty in the occupied territories. I was demoted myself for conducting a refusal action two years ago in the occupied territories.
"The problem with refusing to serve was not so much the threat of actions or lack of firmness in rejecting this war. The hardest thing is to stay behind when your friends are going into the slaughter-
"For us, things were easier. We were told that we were going to the Golan Heights to hold the defense lines and not to Lebanon. Immediately afterward, we found ourselves facing two Syrian units on the eastern front!"
Yigal, who is 31 years old, went through the October 1973 war in an elite unite that suffered numerous casualties He himself was wounded. At that time, he had no objections to having to fight.
"Like everybody, I thought that the Arabs wanted to drive us into the sea and that I was fighting for my life. Today, along with thousands of people, I have come to see that this myth of being the years you spend a month or two every year with the same people, a solidarity develops that you don't find very often in a shop or a factory. That's the strength of Zionism but it's also its weak-
"So long as the soldiers are convinced that there's no choice, and that sooner or later there will be peace, this kind of army is effective.
"As soon as doubts arise, or it seems that war is not inevitable, or that it's Israel that's doing everything it can to knock away the hand offered by the Arabs, this sort of motivation boomer-
Why should you risk your life when there's another option?"
During the Lebanon war, a number of factors came together to upset the image that Israeli soldiers had of the Palestinian militia and expose the big lies of the Zionist authorities and their systematic propaganda to dehumanize the ("two-footed animals," "cockroaches"). There was the fact that in the year preceding the invasion the PLO scrupulously kept the ceasefire. There were the many statements by PLO leaders favoring a peaceful solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In the war itself, the heroism of the Palestinian fighters was often
And the treatment of Israeli prisoners of war was more than humane.
As a credibility gap opened up between the bases of the Israeli soldiers' motivation and the real objectives of the war, the government had no choice but
"One of the things that most scandalized us was to hear the radio say in the second week of the war that Israel had accepted a ceasefire with the Syrians, but that they attacked us any-
"At that very moment, when the front was entirely quiet, we got the
'step up the pressure on the line.' It was disinformation of this sort, which seemed to be a new thing to most Israelis - although it was not - that led to the formation of the short-lived 'Soldiers
Against Silence?
"The aim of this group was to demand clarification about a series of initiatives that had resulted in numerous losses and had extended the war far beyond bulk of the Israeli army in periods of mobilization. - IV.
forty kilometre area that Begin said was the limit of the 'Peace in Galilee' operation."
A. said: "The big difference between
Yesh Gvul and the Soldiers Against
Silence was that we in Yesh Gvul offered a practical answer to tens of thousands of soldiers who felt deceived.
"Peace Now, from which Soldiers
Against Silence came, only raised questions. We said, "There is a limit, yesh guul, that we will not pass." Today there are more than two thousand people who have declared their refusal to go to Lebanon, and the list is getting longer every day. But the Soldiers Against Silence disappeared a long time ago."
There is a limit. But what limit?
Why Lebanon more than the occupied territories, why this war more than the
1967 war? "It's true that there's fundamentally no difference," A. said. For him, the Lebanon war was such a revelation that it brought him from moderate
Zionist positions to Yesh Gul, and from
Yesh Gul to an anti-Zionist position, and then to the Revolutionary Communist
League.
"But," A. continued, "I only understand that now. When the Lebanon war broke out, how many were there like
Meir who refused to go right off the bat? Even the Yesh Gul petition, which was formulated in a very moderate way -"We ask not to be sent to Lebanon" -got started only after several weeks.
"It was the unfolding of the war, the massacres, the lies, that confirmed in practice for everyone that this was a dirty war and that broke the national consensus.
"Once this first break was made, the way was opened up for a more general confrontation with the myths of Zionism. How did we get there? Was it because the same arguments were used in the previous wars? Weren't they also the result of Israeli aggression? Today the whole thing is collapsing. Now a lot of people in the soldiers movement are refusing to do their tours of duty in the occupied territories as well.
Meir was the first soldier to refuse to go to Lebanon. He did so on June 7. "Disobedience is not a principle in itself; it's a tactical decision," Meir said. "We made that decision in the Revolutionary Communist League on June 6, 1982, on the basis of a concrete assessment and the certainty that the war would rapidly become unpopular, and that so our action and our appeal would be understood and even be followed.
"At the beginning we were isolated. In the first days everything seemed to be "going smoothly" for Sharon and company. There seemed to be an atmosphere of national unity. Friends who a few weeks later joined in setting up Yesh vul tried to persuade us not to take an initiative that looked likely to isolate us and make our comrades who had been called up easy targets for repression."
After refusing to cross the border, Meir was sent to a rear base in Israel itself. There his conviction that his organ4 ization had made the correct choice was reinforced. "The reaction of the soldiers on the base where I was stationed was still better than I expected. In the quartermaster corps there are not a lot of would-be heroes. It's rather the opposite.
There is an overwhelming majority of oriental Jews, people from poor neighborhoods or immigrant towns, young workers, or lumpen. Most of them didn't see why they should risk their lives in
Lebanon. Moreover, they had respect for somebody who was ready to take risks and confront the authorities for a principle."
Yigal said: "In a unit like mine, it's different. The ideology is a lot stronger.
But if you proved in the past that you weren't a gold brick, that you lived up to your responsibilities, then they could understand and respect your choice."
A. just got out of prison where he was held 21 days for refusing to join his unit in Lebanon: "Along with me were 18 reserve soldiers and officers who were sentenced for refusing to go to Lebanon. Not only was there an excellent atmosphere and constant political discussion among us, but we were the center of attention for the other prisoners, with whom we had long political conversations. Generally, the soldiers understood us and often respected our choice.
"A young guy called up from a small immigrant town told me: "I don't agree with you. I support Begin. I hate the Peace Now people. I respect you on the other hand because you at least put your money where your mouth is, and you don't just make speeches but take risks. That's what counts."
"It should be said that the risks were not very great, the penalites were relatively light. I know some soliders have considered refusing to go to Lebanon, figuring that a stay of twenty to thirty days in military prison was less serious than running the risk of getting killed in an ambush.
This last point was confirmed by a top officer in a radio interview, and it is undoubtedly the reason behind a change in policy by the military authorities.
At the beginning, the policy was to cover up the cases of refusal to go to Lebanon. Then, after the impact of the Yesh Gvul petition, the line was to impose punishments but nothing going beyond the usual limits of military discipline. Today, the general staff has decided to send soliders back to Lebanon after they have served a term in prison for refusing to go there, and to give them another sentence if they refuse again, and keep it up. Things are going badly for the Israeli army if it finds itself forced to reinforce its repressive arsenal to impress on soldiers that they have to go to Lebanon.
The impact of the soliders movement goes far beyond the left. It exceeds even the periphery of the currents united in the Committee Against the War in Lebanon.
Yigal pointed out: "It is paradoxical, but the people who have refused to go to Lebanon and have joined Yesh Gul are often more 'right wing' than those in the
Committee Against the War in Lebanon.
This is the only organization where you find typical supporters of Peace Now, even some ex-supporters of Likud [Beg in's party] and radicals, communists, and anti-Zionists. The reason for this is that it is in the army, as a soldier, that you are obliged to confront political reality most directly.
"To a certain extent, the army lowers the barriers. That gives what you think more weight, more legitimacy, even if your views are very radical, than it would have in civilian life. This explains another paradox. It is those with the least political background, the 'new comers' who are the most radical. And it is often the activists of the left and far-left organizations in Yesh Gvul who are obliged to hold back initiatives that would cut the movement off from tens of thousands of people who in one way or another support our fight."
Meir added: "That shows how it is important for left activists not to try to avoid military service, even though it isn't very pleasant serving in an apparatus for repressing the Palestinians. In this sense, as I said before, disobedience is not a line in itself. If we chose this course for the present war, it doesn't flow from some 'special horror' of this war, as some have said, or because it is less legitimate than the others. For us as anti-
Zionists, this war is no more criminal than the one in 1967 or in 1948.
"The reason is that, in the present context, we estimated, and this proved to be quite correct, that a refusal to go to Lebanon would not cut us off from the broad anti-war sentiment, even in our army units, but to the contrary it would be a concrete way of expressing our total opposition to this criminal adventure.
"It doesn't follow from this by any means that we will follow this tactic of refusing to serve as the crisis of Zionism deepens. Quite the contrary. The crisis of Zionism is, and will be, more and more of a military one. That is, it will take the form of armed confrontations, of wars, occupation. And the army, that is, the bulk of the male population, will be in the center of it. The duty of peace activists then will be to be with their companions in their units to help them find an alternative to the suicidal policy of Zionism.
"What the Lebanon war showed, more than anything else, was that the anti-Zionist activists were right to put their bets on the possibility of breaking the national consensus and of detaching a major section of Jewish workers from Zionism. This is no longer a theory today but more and more of a concrete reality, as is shown by the thousands of soliders who have broken from the actual line of action of the leaders of the Zionist state. This is going to make it possible for us and for all those who long ago decided to make a common cause with "the enemy" to find the strength to continue to wear the despised uniform of the Zionist army. •