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June 29, 2007
Fighting against fighting itself
Netanyahu's nephew has been avoiding army duty for years.
GEOFF D'AURIA
If you were in a fight, you'd probably want Jonathan Ben-Artzi
on your side.
The 25-year-old Israeli has fighting in his genes. Both his grandfathers
fought in the Israeli War of Independence in 1948. His brother and
sister both served in elite technological army units. His uncle
fought and died for Israel in 1968. Plus, he's the nephew of former
prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu.
There's only one problem. He won't fight. Ben-Artzi is locked in
a battle with the state of Israel for the right to be a pacifist.
In fact, on and off for the last seven years, he's spent more time
in military prison or open detention than any other conscientious
objector. Some think the Israeli army is trying to make an example
of him.
Ben-Artzi, who is a graduate student in math at Brown University,
is currently visiting Vancouver to spend time with his father and
do some work in the University of British Columbia math department.
He agreed to talk to the Jewish Independent in a phone interview
last week.
While the main part of his story begins in 2000, when Ben-Artzi
first refused to be conscripted into the Israeli army, another part
of the story begins many years before that, when he joined his family
on a trip to Verdun, France. There he saw the battlefields and learned
about the horrors of the First World War: the damage that wars wreaked
on the land and the common people who fight those wars.
"They fought there for, I think, 10 months or nine months and
did not advance at all," Ben-Artzi said, "and 400,000
people from each side were killed, German and French. And so, you
know, [it] makes you wonder. So that was sort of a turning point."
However, it took some time for his pacifist ideals to crystallize.
As he read more about the First World War and as he kept an eye
on the wars occurring around him, he noticed some common themes.
One thing he said he realized is that, time after time, wars are
fought to settle a dispute once and for all, yet, time after time,
nothing is settled – or the war causes more problems.
"Americans thought they were going to go into Afghanistan and
make things right," he said, "and it's becoming worse
and worse, I hear, now in Afghanistan. The Taliban are re-occupying
territories that were previously liberated ... and [the] same in
Iraq and same for Israel and Gaza. So, it proves itself all the
time that this way of going at it is the wrong way."
Another thing Ben-Artzi observed is that the people who do the actual
fighting – those who are on the front lines getting shot at
and risking their lives – are often those who were not born
into privilege. They are the lower classes, the poor, the immigrants.
Ben-Artzi said that his friends - the kinds of people who go to
university, for example - "usually would find their convenient
spots in the military. So, when there's a war in Lebanon, they sit
in some office in some intelligence unit or something. They're not,
you know, fighting in Lebanon [on the front lines]."
He said he also noticed that the wars that are fought by the common
people are usually fought not for the good of the common people
but for the interests of the elite.
"Whatever regime it is – whether it's a democracy or monarchy
or whatever – they are able very easily to manipulate the people,"
he suggested. "You know, and these wars are never in the people's
interest."
Ben-Artzi first received his conscription notice in the spring of
2000. That's when he officially said, "No," and when he
informed the army authorities of his pacifism.
What followed, according to a background document that Ben-Artzi
provided to the Independent, was years of trials and appeals.
After two appearances in front of conscience committees, his request
for exemption was rejected. After two appeals to the Supreme Court
and two more appearances at the conscience committee (where Ben-Artzi
said that a psychologist suggested he couldn't be a pacifist because
a pacifist wouldn't fight so hard to be a pacifist), he was ordered
to appear at an induction centre.
Ben-Artzi reported to the induction centre seven times. Each time,
he refused to enlist, was arrested and sent for a month in a military
prison. The eighth time, he was arrested and court martial proceedings
began.
Eventually, in November 2003, Ben-Artzi was found guilty of failing
to obey an order – that order being to join the military –
and was sentenced to further prison time. Paradoxically, the court
also affirmed that Ben-Artzi was a pacifist and sent the matter
back to the conscience committee for a fourth time. He's currently
in the middle of appealing his sentence.
According to a story on Ben-Artzi in the online version of Britain's
Guardian newspaper, "Refusal to serve in the army is
a growing problem in Israel. Few confront the system as directly
as Ben-Artzi. The majority avoid the draft by claiming psychiatric
problems. Others exempted from service include students of the Torah,
Israeli Arabs and those with a criminal record. In total, around
45 per cent of Israeli men avoid the draft."
When asked why the military might be making an example of him when
so many others are excused, Ben-Artzi said that perhaps it's because,
for the first time, the people who are refusing to serve are from
the establishment, not from the margins of society. That, he said,
could be perceived as a threat to authorities.
"[It's] not a bunch of people [who] they can say, 'Oh, these
are hippies who are refusing, you know, look at them.' It was the
first time that, you know, normal people, in everybody's view, everyday
people, were just saying, 'No.' "
At one point in his ordeal, Ben-Artzi said he was offered an easy
job in community service. He rejected the offer.
Geoff D'Auria is a Vancouver freelance writer.
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