Up: The Refuseniks Iddo Elam (left) and 18-year-old Itamar Greenberg hold a poster that says: “Refuse the war, mobilize for peace”, in a pro-democracy manifestation in Telavive, Israel, on Saturday
In a military prison in downtown Israel, 18-year-old Itamar Greenberg sat with a US army uniform while Hollywood’s box office hit “American Sniper” spent on the living room television.
But Greenberg is not a soldier and desert camouflage uniform is the only military uniform that the so -called Refusenik – as objectors of consciousness are called in Israel – ever wore.
Greenberg entered and left prison last year, serving a total of 197 days in five consecutive sentences. Earlier this month, Greenberg was released from Tzedek’s snow prison for the last time.
Your crime? Refusing to enlist after being summoned to military service, mandatory for most Jewish Israelites – and some minorities – over 18 years old.
Greenberg said his refusal to serve was “culminating from a long process of learning and moral assessment.”
“The more I learned, the more I knew I couldn’t wear a uniform that symbolizes killing and oppression,” he said, explaining that Israel’s war in Gaza – which began after militants led by Hamas attack the south of Israel on October 7, 2023 – solidified his decision to refuse.
“There is a genocide,” he said. “So we don’t need good reason (to refuse).”
The Israeli government has vehemently denied the accusations that the war in Gaza is equivalent to a genocide against the Palestinian people.
The war, which was rekindled last week when Israel resumed air strikes and land operations in Gaza after a short-term ceasefire killed more than 50,000 Palestinians in 17 months, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
More than 670 people were killed and 1200 have been injured in Gaza only since Tuesday, when the Israeli military campaign resumed, according to the Ministry of Health.
“I want this change and I will give my life for it,” Greenberg said about his decision to serve a sentence in prison rather than serving in Israel’s defense forces (IDF).
Itamar Greenberg under a painting read “Save Rafah” at the headquarters of the Hadash Left Political Coalition on Saturday. Kara Fox/CNN
It is a decision that objectors of consciousness like Greenberg do not make a light mood, since refusing recruitment is essentially a choice of ostracization.
In Israel, the army is more than a simple institution. It is part of the social fabric, with military service and deeply interconnected Jewish-Israelite identity. And that starts early: since primary school, students are taught that one day will be the soldiers who will protect children like them, with soldiers to visit classrooms and schools to explicitly encourage students to enlist. At 16, these children receive the first recruitment orders, culminating in the enlistment at 18. Many see it as an honor, duty and a rite of passage.
Greenberg was called a Jew who hates himself, anti -Semitic, supporter of terrorists and traitor, told – even by family and friends.
“People send me messages on Instagram and say they will massacre me, as Hamas did to the Israelites on October 7,” he said.
In prison, Greenberg was placed in the lonely after receiving threats from other prisoners – a measure that prison employees told him to be “for their security.”
Despite social ostracization, he – and what a network of support organizations for consciousness says is a growing number of Refuseniks – remains dedicated to the cause.
The number of these young people is still very small. Only a dozen Israeli adolescents have publicly refused to enlist for reasons of conscience since the beginning of the war, according to Mesarvot, an organization that supports objectors. But this number is higher than in the years before the war.
Mesarvot told CNN that there is much more “gray refusiniks”, that is, people who claim mental or general health to dodge recruitment and avoid the possibility of serving time behind bars. Due to the nature of these refusals, it is impossible to provide exact numbers.
Yesh Gvul, another anti-war group that supports objectors of consciousness, told CNN that, on average, every year, 20% of young people forced to serve to do so, according to numbers shared by the Israeli army. This number, according to Yesh Gvul, includes both the refuseniks and the gray “refuseniks.”
The Israelite army does not publish numbers about the refusal of enlistment. CNN requested the Israelite army these numbers and a comment.
Other groups have been manifested much more clearly than the Refuseniks in the refusal to participate in the Israelite military tradition. Prior to the attacks of October 7, thousands of reservists protesting against the government’s desire to weaken the judicial power said they would not present themselves to service. And for months, the country has been busy with the recruitment of ultra-orthodox men who refuse to enter the Armed Forces because they are studying in religious schools.
Greenberg’s opinions are extreme even for the increasingly marginalized Israeli left marginalized. Mass protests that have become commonplace since October 7 are not so much against the army or war in general, but in favor of a ceasefire agreement to bring back the detained hostages in Gaza. But Greenberg and other Refuseniks expect their movement to create room for a more widespread dialogue about the traps of a militarized society.
“If you enlist myself in the army, I’ll be part of the problem. Personally, I prefer to be part of the solution,” said Greenberg, stressing that he may not live to see it.
A group of Refuseniks is preparing for its weekly demonstration at the Center of TreeVive on Saturday. Kara Fox/CNN
On Saturday, about a dozen Refuseniks gathered at the headquarters of the Hadash Left Political Coalition to prepare the weekly demonstration in the Center of Treevive.
Smoking a rolling cigarette on the building’s porch with a handful of other consciousness objectors, Lior Fogel, a 19 -year -old Tipavive young woman, said she always had “problems with the army as an institution, based on violence and strength”, and has managed to give her a mental health certificate to get out of military service.
Only after being dismissed from the army that he began to understand the role that the Armed Forces play in daily and systemic violence that Palestinian are victims in Israel and in occupied territories, ”this injustice, she said, drives her activism today.
Several human rights organizations, including amnesty International, said Israel’s treatment to Palestinians is an apartheid. Israel denounced this characterization as an anti -Semitic.
“The apartheid system and the maintenance of this rule that actively oppresses another group cannot be supported. Not only is immoral and usually horrible, but it will end up with your face,” said Fogel.
Lior Fogel (Center) said his parents were against his decision and that, when he did not enlist in the army, he became a “outcast” of society. Kara Fox/CNN
While Fogel and the others marched to Begin Street to join thousands of people from all the quadrants of society who manifested themselves under the aegis of pro-democracy and anti-war, she also acknowledged that the opinions of Refuseniks remain marginal.
However, activists may be finding their moment.
Anger against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reached a feverish peak this week among tens of thousands of protesters who believe he is employing increasingly undemocratic means to stay in power and question what he expects to achieve with a renewed military campaign that almost a half and a half relentless war could not.
Many accuse Netanyahu of giving priority to their political survival to the detriment of their country’s security and claim that the renewed military campaign endanger the lives of the close live hostages still detained in Gaza by Hamas and their allies.
This feeling marks a significant turn in the conflict and a turning point that Refuseniks expect to give the Israelites who are considering refusing to serve in protest against the new military campaign the power to act – regardless of their political conviction.
When Israel restarts the struggle, many people, not radical or leftist, but people who support ceasefire and hostages can now say, “Let’s refuse – even if they don’t worry about the Palestinians,” Greenberg said.
“The refusal is now less taboo. So you can use this instrument we have developed – although they think we are crazy and traitors – when they think it’s right,” he added.
Another Refusenik present at the demonstration, Iddo Elam, 18, who served a prison sentence for his refusal, told CNN: “I prefer this to kill children.” According to UNICEF, more than 14,500 children have been killed in Gaza since the beginning of the war.
Elam said he expected his protest to help the Israelites understand that “the pain of the Palestinians is the same as that of the Israelites.”
When another broader protest participant heard Elam to speak, he interrupted him to insist that the teenager’s point of view was not representative of Israelite society and said, “This is not true. He is a minority and his opinions do not represent what everyone here thinks.”
But others supported the dozens of objectors who shouted “peace, equality, social justice” and holding posters where they read “refuse war, mobilize for peace.”
Rakefet Lapid, whose two children also refused the service years before the war, and whose family lives on one of the Kibutz that was attacked by Hamas on October 7, said: “Good thing there are still young people willing to say that.”
“But I’m sorry they are a small minority,” he added.
A 16 -year -old refusnik plays drums alongside other activists against war in Tel Aviv on Saturday. Kara Fox/CNN
Greenberg said he chose to go public because “I didn’t want to lie.”
But a 16 -year -old who asked not to be identified, told CNN that, although he knows he will refuse recruitment when he comes to height, he is still deciding how.
Although the teenager has achieved documents from a psychiatrist who say he has mental problems that do not allow him to serve, he stated that his reason is not due to his mental health – but to his political perspective.
“If I’m leaving due to my ‘mental problems’, then it’s like to say to the army: ‘The problem is me, not you,'” he said.
*Mick Krever contributed to this article
