Israeli Youth Rejects Capitalist Divisions here ♦ Israeli Refuseniks Should Turn the Guns Around here ♦
Tel Aviv (Israel), December 30—Hundreds defied fascist wartime restrictions in an anti-government protest, with signs saying: “Corruption and lawlessness. Fire him now!” “1400 on your watch. Abandoning the hostages. Down With the Government” It’s not just Netanyahu – Jews and Palestinians need to unite to end the Zionist government, all capitalism and imperialism. Communism will free us from all wage slavery and division.
Israeli Youth Rejects Capitalist Divisions: “I Am a Different Person Now”
ISRAEL, December 31— “I grew up in a staunch Zionist family in Jerusalem,” Adam told a comrade in Israel. “At 18, I wanted to join the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). I was rejected because I had serious medical conditions. Then I joined a conservative Jewish seminary, and by chance I met a Palestinian man who worked in the seminary farm.”
“For the first time in my life, I met a Palestinian man,” Adam continued. “I assumed he was a terrorist out to get me. This is what we are told in Israel. He had finished his work and was frantically trying to get home 6 km (3.6 mi) away on the other side of the border. He said it would take him four hours.”
When Adam saw the Palestinian worker the next day, he asked why it would take four hours to reach home. The farmworker explained that he had to cross at least half a dozen checkpoints. At each checkpoint, he would be interrogated and humiliated. He would stand in long lines to board the next bus. All the checkpoints are heavily guarded with automatic weapons and cameras. And even after crossing the border, he would be harassed in his own house by the Zionist IDF. He said this happens every day.
Adam could not believe this. He decided to cross the border with his Palestinian acquaintance. When he reached the occupied West Bank after four hours of grueling interrogations, he felt his life would be in danger because he had been told that the Palestinians were terrorists. Instead, he was welcomed. People offered him food. He decided to spend the night there. A stranger offered him a place to stay.
Adam said that night in the house of a complete stranger changed his life forever. If a Palestinian worker asked for a place to spend a night in a Zionist neighborhood, they would be lucky to be alive. Adam said that spending eight hours surrounded by Palestinians broke down all those barriers that capitalism has created. He felt an immense sense of solidarity.
“I spent one day in the occupied territory and saw how much repression they are facing,” Adam said. “I cannot believe that this has been happening for 75 years. We need to eradicate this inhuman way people are forced to live.”
The Israeli comrade told Adam that if Israeli and Palestinian workers joined in a fight for communism, it would inspire millions of workers around the world who are outraged by the horrors Israel has created in Gaza. He shared the letter in Red Flag from a comrade from Gaza.
Adam said, “I want to learn more about communism,” Adam replied. “If a person like me, brought up as a staunch supporter of Zionism, can change his outlook by peeking into the life of Palestinians for a few hours, I know that it is ruthless capitalism that has separated us. I will do everything in my power to smash this ghastly system. I am a different person now.”
With comrades like Adam and Hamza, our party is becoming a beacon of our bright communist future.
Israeli Refuseniks Should Turns the Guns Around
On December 26, eighteen-year-old Tal Mitnick was jailed for 30 days for refusing Israel “Defense” Forces (IDF) enlistment. He is the first conscientious objector imprisoned since the Israel-Hamas war began.
Even Israeli government censorship hasn’t prevented reports of its fascist atrocities from spreading. And of IDF’s deadly incompetence, including its shooting of three Israeli three hostages waving a white flag. Tal Mitnick was already active in a support network of Israelis who refuse to enlist or participate in the Israeli occupation of Palestine.
Israel has universal military conscription, but most non-Jews are exempted. Sixty-nine percent of Jewish men and fifty-six percent of Jewish women are drafted at age eighteen. Most aren’t trained as fighters. All are trained to conform to Zionist ideology. The ultra-orthodox and absolute pacifists are legally exempt. But most refuseniks get shorter sentences than Tal.
Tal’s refusal, the publicity around it, and the harsher sentence show both growing opposition to the genocidal assault on Gaza and the growing fascism of the Israeli ruling class.
Draft Resistance or Revolt?
There are deep connections between Jews in Israel and in the US (despite significant political differences). Draft resistance in Israel today recalls opposition to the US draft during its war on Vietnam. For example, young people in Israel are publicly burning their draft letters as US draft resisters did in the 1960s.
Hundreds of thousands of US youth resisted the draft. Tens of thousands fled to Canada and Sweden. But the ruling class drafted other young men, overwhelmingly working-class and disproportionately Black or Hispanic, who couldn’t afford to escape the draft by attending college full-time.
The genocidal war on Vietnam continued until rebellion within the armed forces made it impossible for the US to field a reliable military. Soldiers refused to obey orders and even killed their own officers to avoid combat. Meanwhile, the Vietnamese masses continued to fight fiercely. US imperialism was forced to withdraw.
The rulers never fight their own wars. Instead, they arm working-class youth (often the most oppressed) and send them to kill their class siblings. But they don’t always comply!
In a revolutionary situation, soldiers and sailors can either support the rulers in murdering other workers or join with their class siblings to overthrow the rulers.
The collapse of the Tzarist army and navy in full-scale armed mutiny was crucial to the proletarian revolution in Russia at the end of World War I. Bolsheviks mobilized soldiers in the barracks and sailors in the ships to join with urban workers to topple the Tzar and seize state power. No revolutionary movement can succeed without taking seriously the role of soldiers and sailors.
If Tal Mitnick and his comrades want to end the Zionist military occupation and genocide in Palestine, they need to look at root causes and at strategy. Only a revolutionary communist movement uniting all workers in Palestine/Israel can achieve that goal. If you agree, join the International Communist Workers’ Party! Together we will plan to organize soldiers in the IDF to turn the guns on the rulers and fight for communism.