Jews for a Just Peace N.C. : Refuseniks

Courage to Refuse

Jews For A Just Peace NC brought Israeli Refusenik – Lieutenant Itai Swirski – to speak exclusively in Triangle in rare U.S. visiton October 5 at the Durham Arts Council.

Lieutenant Itai Swirski is one of the first 15 officers to sign the Combat Reserve Officers’ letter (Refusenik letter, January 2002), publicly declaring to refuse to serve in the occupied territories. The letter states, "We shall not continue to fight beyond the 1967 borders in order to dominate, expel, starve and humiliate an entire people." Read the full letter.

Lieutenant Swirski is one of the initiators of the Courage to Refuse movement, which grew out of the letter, and is active in the movement’s leadership circle. The Courage to Refuse movement was featured on 60 Minutes in May.

This is a rare opportunity to hear directly from a Refusenik. Swirski is one of only eight who have traveled to the U.S. to speak. The Triangle is his only US appearance. He will speak at various synagogues and universities as well as at a public appearance/fundraiser at the Durham Arts Council, October 5 from 7:30-9:30 PM.

Swirski joined the elite paratroopers’ battalion, became a sergeant heading combat missions, then served as a lieutenant of a highly professional platoon. He served for one year in the occupied territories and six months in Lebanon. His military service ended in December 1996 and he has served as a reserve office since. Lieutenant Swirski recently became a lawyer in order to practice in the field of human rights or community advocacy.

"I refused to serve in the occupied territories," Swirski says from his home in Israel, "because I was finally determined enough to stop cooperating with an ongoing and aggravating process, in which more and more irreversible obstacles for any just future peace between Israel and the Palestinians are being put on a daily basis. This leaves Israeli soldiers unable to rule a benign occupation, and forces them to take part in a discriminatory and humiliating military rule, thereby destroying Israel's moral face and power, and endangering its status as a Jewish and democratic state. I see my refusal and the activity of "Courage to Refuse" as a first priority service for the state of Israel, and as a pure and real Zionist act."

All of the 480 signers of the original letter to date are reserve combat officers and soldiers in the Israeli army, many of whom are decorated paratroopers and infantry.

One of the organization’s most vocal supporter’s is war hero Yigal Shohat, M.D., former Israeli air force colonel who is credited with helping to win the 1967 war.

Dr. Shohat recently published a letter urging soldiers to refuse to stop serving in occupied territories and to stop bombing Palestinian cities. "I never gave at any point a recommendation not to serve or to refuse altogether. And this group is not disobeying in general. It’s a group refusing to do a specific thing…This group represents…a strategic turning point in Israeli society."

The Courage to Refuse movement has been likened to the protest movement of the Vietnam war. "This is a war on the frontlines of the political division of the Israeli society," says Yaron Esrachi, a political scientist who, as a lieutenant, served for over two decades as a strategic analyst to the prime minister, the defense minister and the army’s chief of staff. He says the leaders of the Israeli army are taking the Courage to Refuse movement very seriously.