Israeli Soldiers Against the Occupation

Aug 19, 2024

Three Israeli soldiers recently publicly refused to serve in the massacre in Gaza and were sentenced in early August to 30 days in military prison, with more prison time certain to follow. Yuval Moav, Oryan Mueller, and Itamar Greenberg raise the number of Israeli war refusers to six.

For some soldiers to simply refuse to serve won’t stop Israel’s massacre in Gaza. But they should be heard.

Mueller told reporters, “I encounter a huge wall that separates Israelis from what is happening five kilometers south of where they live…. You must talk about the scale of the destruction and death in Gaza, about the oppression and about how deep the roots of apartheid are in the West Bank…. We want to support and promote the struggle against the occupation.”

Greenberg said, “I have friends [in the West Bank] who face daily oppression, people who want to kick them out of their homes… There are people here who are fighting, maybe not enough, but still fighting, and are willing to pay a very heavy personal price for choosing to fight for justice and equality.”

Moav said, “I can only hope that people will stop and think when they carry guns and are asked to do things they might not want to do… I refuse to participate in genocide.”

Sofia Orr, the second soldier to refuse duty earlier this year, told reporters that the third, Ben Arad, made his decision when he saw the first, Tal Mitnick, go to prison. Orr was imprisoned with draft dodgers, deserters, and absentees. She said, “It’s usually young women who come from a low socioeconomic position who have many difficulties in life, or who were badly harassed at their bases and weren’t given any help or allowed to transfer bases… A system that dehumanizes Palestinians will eventually dehumanize its soldiers… I’m not pro-Palestinian and I’m not pro-Israeli. I’m pro-all of us as people and our right to live well.”