The Israeli military on Sunday threatened disciplinary action against a group of veterans and active reservists of a secretive military intelligence unit who declared that they would no longer participate in surveillance activities against the Palestinians.
However, dozens of other veterans and reservists came out in defense of their unit, outraged by their colleagues’ public act of refusal.
The protest and counterprotest exposed some of the complexities of life in Israel, where most 18-year-olds are conscripted for up to three years of compulsory service, and the episode set off an impassioned debate that had far more to do with army service and the refusal to serve than with the concerns raised by the would-be whistle-blowers about the treatment of the Palestinians under occupation.
Officials and politicians from the right and the left harshly criticized the 43 veterans of the elite Unit 8200 who lodged their protest in a letter sent on Thursday night last week to their commanders, as well as to Israel’s prime minister and army chief. The letter was made public the following day.
In it, they wrote that they refused to continue to be “tools” of Israel’s military rule in the occupied territories, that the surveillance work they had been required to perform made “no distinction between Palestinians who are and are not involved in violence” and that information collected “harms innocent people” and “is used for political persecution.”
Brigadier General Moti Almoz, the chief military spokesman, said in a statement that the Israeli army constituted “one common camp — perhaps the widest in all of Israeli society — and we think sevenfold before we express political positions in forums not meant for such expression.”
Accusing the protesters of exploiting their army service for political ends, Almoz said that the army’s top brass viewed the act with the “utmost severity” and that disciplinary measures would be “sharp and clear,” without elaborating about whether they would face criminal prosecution. Only 10 of the 43 who signed the protest letter were actively involved in intelligence gathering, he said.
While this was not the first collective, public protest by army reservists, it was the first by intelligence officers and the largest among soldiers in years.
Yediot Aharonot, the newspaper that revealed the protest letter on Friday last week, in tandem with the Guardian in London, printed excerpts on Sunday of a letter it said was signed by at least 200 members of the unit distancing themselves from the 43 protesters, which said that the protesters “chose the path of political insubordination.”
Those 200 members rejected the assertions about the absence of ethical and moral standards guiding the unit’s intelligence gathering.
Some commentators said that despite the contentiousness of the idea of soldiers’ refusing orders, the substantive points raised by the protesters should be examined.
However, many of them noted the danger of selective refusal, pointing to the right-wing supporters of Israeli settlements in the occupied territories who serve in the army and might one day be required to dismantle West Bank settlements, as they did in 2005 in Gaza.
And many critics castigated the 43 objectors for taking their protest to the news media rather than registering their complaints within military channels, particularly, they said, since Unit 8200 has the reputation of being like “a family.”
Responding to the criticism, the group of 43 protesters issued a statement saying the letter from the other soldiers affiliated with the unit “does not contradict any of the concrete issues raised by our refusal letter and the testimonials that were published in Yediot Aharonot.”
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