The gloves are off against growing number of COs
December 8, 2002

[] Israeli prisoners of conscience need all the support they can get;
-- of the prolonged imprisonment of Ben Artzi and Ya'acobi of new COs + Matan Kaminer's Letter
-- of protest & solidarity action you can take
[] "If despair is the message, who the hell needs Mitzna?" Uri Avnery explains why only through vision do miracles happen
[] Israeli prisoners of conscience need all the support they can get:
-- of the prolonged imprisonment of Ben Artzi and Ya'acobi
-- of new COs + Matan Kaminer's Letter
-- of protest & solidarity action you can take

Amidst the terrible things happening some encouraging news: the refuser movement - of reservists but actually these days especially of conscripts - is getting momentum, but this glimmer of hope has a backside: the army is becoming more tough.

Of the many hundreds who declared their refusal, there is a steady trickle inside the military prisons. This week several new 18-year old refusers are expected to be jailed (see *letter of Matan Kaminer) and we just got the news that Yoni Ben-Artzi and Uri Ya'acobi were each sentenced today for the sixth (!) consecutive time on the same charge (refusal to enlist) - to respectively 35 and 28 days. There can be no more doubt: the gloves are off; the army embarked on a new policy of crashing the phenomenon and trying to break these young people whose conscience forbids them to become part of an army which as long as they live and much longer has been an occupation army.

Letters of protest to:
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon pm_eng@pmo.gov.il
Spokesperson of the Prime Minister dover@pmo.gov.il
Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz sar@mod.gov.il
Spokesperson Defense Ministry info@mail.idf.il
Foreign Minister Benyamin Netanyahu sar@mofa.gov.il
+ COPIES to:
Amnesty International drovera@amnesty.org
amnesty1 mhoubrec@amnesty.org

Letters of support to:
Yoni: Matania.Ben-artzi@huji.ac.il
Uri: Prison_Hamster@hotmail.com

And, last but not least: speak to the commander (or his helper) of Military Prison-4:
+972-(0)3-9577555 / +972-(0)3-9577559 / +972-(0)3-9577560

[the following is the *letter of Matan Kaminer, among the founders of the Shministim, and third generation refuser, father Noam among the founders of Yesh Gvul, grandfather Re'uven (Ruben) refused as an American citizen to fight in Korea.]

Next Monday, 12/9/2002, I shall be imprisoned for refusing to join the army of occupation. A vigil supporting me and other new refuseniks will be held at 7:30 am at the Recruitment Office (Lishkat Gius), Tel Hashomer.

I presume the reasons for my refusal are known to you, but in case you've forgotten I've attached a declaration. If you need more info, you can open the "Seniors' Letter" website:
http://www.shministim.org

I'll check my own e-mail account for the last time Sunday afternoon (Israel time!). Afterwards my account will be closed, but you can get messages to me through my mother's mailbox, snehab@netvision.net.il

Peace,
Matan

PS: You're invited to propaagate this message and my declaration among anybody who may be interested.

[Follows the declaration of Matan Kaminer]

Freedom is, among other things:

Riding the bus and looking at the sea or reading a book, totally at ease. Walking the land and knowing each part of it, without knowing fear. Meeting new people of all sorts and becoming friends. Finding a job I like and which pays a living wage. Studying what I want to without having to pay a fortune. Being glad in Israel’s human variety without worrying about so-called demographic or economic threats. Walking down the street, or waiting for the light to change, or standing in line at the supermarket, without being drowned in commercials. Hearing the news without hearing about innocent people getting killed.

A place without freedom is a prison.
Israel today is a prison.

The worst kind of prison is the invisible kind. We cannot see our prison, not because it’s bewitched but because we are blind. Our capacity to sense suffering has been blinded. First we were blinded to the suffering of people who look very different from us: they live up in the mountains, they wear mustaches and veils, and they apparently hate us because we are more beautiful and intelligent than they are. Then we were blinded to the suffering of people who look more like us, and even talk our language, albeit in strange accents. But I guess they’re not as able as us, and that’s why they have no jobs and their children have no food. Lastly, we have been blinded to our own suffering. We’ve been convinced that we don’t really suffer – what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, and hey, we’re not dead yet. We’ve been blinded to think that our agony is pleasure, and that depression is fun.

The most suffocating kind of prison is made of glass.

Today I’ll be going to another kind of prison, a kind made of cement and tent canvas, of barbed wire fences and the uniforms of prison guards. It’s called Military Prison No. 4. I’m glad to be going because, finally, my prison will be visible. I’ll do my time in this visible prison for a few months for refusing to enlist to Israel’s academy for prison guards: the IDF, Israel’s “Defense Forces” which have been imprisoning an entire people for thirty-five years.

In Military Prison No. 4 I may develop a miraculous sense of sight. From staring at the fabric of my tent I might gain the ability to see fabrics of deceit. Looking at cement walls may teach me to recognize the walls separating human beings. Seeing barbed wires may bring me understanding of the wiring by which people are controlled.

Hope and experience both show that sight is an infectious trait. My goal is an epidemic of seeing people who will tear down the walls of separation with their sense of sight. They will use their vision to rip away the canvasses of lies, and cut the wires of exploitation with their eyes. Military Prison No. 4 already holds a few people who are trying to see, sitting and looking and waiting for me to join. In the schools and on the buses, in the refugee camps and the factories, on the streets and at the roadblocks and in the offices, thousands of seeing people are already infecting their neighbors with the seeing virus.

Soon a critical mass of seeing people will have collected. All of a sudden, everyone will be able to see the prison. Even the guards will realize that they, too, are prisoners.

And the prison will be gone.

[] "If despair is the message, who the hell needs Mitzna?"
Uri Avnery explains why only through vision do miracles happen

Uri Avnery
December 7, 2002

The Wisdom of Ahitophel

In order to win, Amram Mitzna needs three miracles.

He needs a miracle in order to defeat the Likud, which is expected by all the public opinion polls to win by an astonishing 2:1.

He needs a miracle in order to defeat the functionaries of his own party, who want to compel him to join a Sharon-led "National Unity" government. The posteriors of Peres, Ben-Eliezer and their colleagues, Sharon's collaborators in the last government, are itching to regain their soft chairs, from which they were separated with such great difficulty.

But he needs the biggest miracle in order to defeat Ahitophel* & Co., the crowd of advisors, election experts and "strategists", who feed on public opinion polls and statistics.

This points to simple and convincing arithmetic:
"The great reservoir of votes is located in the center. The more you move to the left, the further you get away from them. The more you move to the right, the greater become your chances of winning. The leftist voters are in your pocket anyhow. What other alternative do they have? Therefore, don't talk about peace. Speak about "separation", about a wall, about a fence.

Simple and convincing, indeed. But this is a certain recipe for defeat. If Mitzna rejects their advice, he will pass the first test of leadership. If he accepts it, his election campaign will die before it has even started in earnest.

Because Mitzna can defeat Sharon only if he lights new hope, an exciting, sweeping, electrifying hope.

As of now, Sharon enjoys immense superiority. A great majority supports him, in spite (some would say: because of) the fact that he has failed in every respect: brought no peace, brought no security, created an economic crisis and a social time-bomb. Yet he looks like a good old grandfather, who can be trusted. The ferocious wolf, whose whole world consists of war and brutal force, has wrapped himself in the white clothing of a sheep.

At the last elections, he promised to bring "peace and security". Now he proposes a "Palestinian state". That does not disturb his rightist voters, because they know that this is all make-believe. At most, he will agree to a Palestinian Bantustan-like enclave, surrounded by Israeli settlers and soldiers, on 40% of the occupied territories (amounting to 8.8% of pre-1948 Palestine), and this only after the Palestinians surrender unconditionally and accept the leaders appointed by Sharon and Bush. Sharon calls this "painful concessions". (Painful for whom)?

For centrist voters, that is enough. Sharon coming out for a Palestinian state - what could be better? Occupation of the Palestinian towns, targeted killing, demolition of houses and uprooting of fruit trees, together with the vision of a so-called Palestinian state in the remote future and under the conditions dictated by him - that is a winning recipe.

What will be Mitzna's response? The Ahitophels advise him to abstain from any talk about peace. At most, he should speak about a "political horizon" or "arrangement". And, most importantly, not to utter the name Yasser Arafat under any circumstances.

The "center" has despaired of peace, hates the Palestinians and is living in fear. So it is better to speak about "separation", building a wall, erect a high fence.

But whoever speaks about separation and walls, says in practice that he, too, has despaired of peace with the Palestinians. After all, the wall is the opposite of peace - a symbol of fear, hate and distrust, an expression of the conviction that peace is not on the cards in the foreseeable future. All in all, this is a message of despair, of depression, of being reconciled to the fact that there is no solution.

But if this is the message, who the hell needs Mitzna? Why leave the known and trusted Sharon for some unknown and inexperienced newcomer?

True, the Ahitophels agree that Mitzna should add to this dark message some mild words about negotiations with the enemy, finding out whether this is possible and making sure that it is not. But the message between the lines is: probably it's impossible.

That would be a message of disaster.

The public is longing for a leader with a different message. One who will get them out of the embrace of despair. One who will call out, without flinching: "Yes. It is possible! We can make peace with the Palestinians and their elected leadership, under Yasser Arafat! The violence can be ended! I shall do it!"

If Mitzna succeeds in lighting a fire of hope, all the polls and expert opinions will be burnt by it. A new situation will be created, one that will have immediate effect in many areas. New polls will show that there is a new center.

Mitzna's campaign needs two arms - the arm of peace and the arm of security. He cannot and must not give up the arm of security. But the decisive arm, the only arm that can bring victory, is the arm of peace.

An electrifying message of peace will bring back to the ballot box hundred of thousands of Arab voters, as well as thousands of despairing leftists. And, more importantly: he will bring back hope to millions of despairing voters.

They will bring victory.

* Ahitophel, the advisor of Absalom, has entered Hebrew folklore as the quintessential dispenser of bad advice, even though the Bible (2 Samuel 17) does not bear that out.

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