Israeli Soldiers Refusing to Serve in a Genocide here ♦ How Can Comrades Elsewhere Organize Effectively? here ♦
Demonstration outside the US Embassy in Tel Aviv, Israel, November 20, 2024.
What Does It Mean That Thousands Of Israeli Soldiers Are Refusing To Serve In A Genocide?
“According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz,” posted comrade B in a group chat, “thousands of IOF* soldiers have stopped serving in combat roles since October 7, 2023.”
This gave rise to an important discussion that involved two other US-based comrades. Comrade C responded: “The mental stress from carrying out a genocide, a total war, are tough on soldiers. it’s good that they’re not fighting anymore.
“I’m so sorry, but nobody’s going to give a damn about how the Palestinians are suffering from mental illness because of what’s happening to them.
“I appreciate this news story, but the Palestinians are more important than Israeli soldiers. They’re the ones who are suffered the Total war and the genocide at the hands of the United States and Israel. The imperialist West will do nothing to support the mental health of the Palestinian people, especially Palestinian youth. Genocide and Total War are part of their strategy to control the Levant (Middle East) in their interests.
“It took almost all of the world’s diplomatic pressure to demand that Israel allow the World Health Organization to give the Palestinian youth polio shots last year! We need a new campaign focused on the mental health of the Palestinian youth and the need to end the Total War and end the genocide they are facing at the hands of the US imperialists and Israel.”
Comrade D jumped in: “I think it’s a question of revolutionary potential. The IOF soldiers suffering from mental distress are the healthy ones.
“This parallels the situation of US soldiers who were drafted into a genocide in Vietnam and came home with PTSD. They saw their common humanity with Vietnamese workers. Some of them refused to participate, fragged their officers, and came home to organize.
“Those IOF soldiers are not coming from a context of urban rebellions and a mass movement against racism and war. They are coming from a society that has justified the Nakba and isolated Israeli young people from the reality of apartheid Israel. Yet they can’t make themselves carry out a genocide. They and thousands more are the base for a communist movement that unites the working masses of Jews and Palestinians for communist revolution.”
Have others been having these types of discussions?
What is the role of soldiers in ending Total War and genocide?
What does that mean for what we do every day?
—Comrades in the US
Gaza Genocide: How Can Comrades Elsewhere Organize Effectively?
“People have realized that standing on a street corner yelling is not a strategy that will defeat genocide,” I said to a friend. We were at a pro-Palestine demonstration doing just that. “Neither was lobbying legislators or passing City Council resolutions.”
“What would be effective?” she asked, really wanting to know. We moved a little way to where it was quieter.
“Armed struggle,” I replied. “Mainly in Palestine. Armed struggle for communism. But an effective strategy here in the US is to organize for communism inside the military.” She listened eagerly as I explained some of the history we have published in Red Flag.
“There is a particular opening right now,” I continued. “Trump threatens to use US military personnel to conduct mass deportations. But tens of thousands of US troops are immigrants. Many more are from ‘mixed status’ families. Will they follow orders to deport other immigrants? Will their buddies?”
“A lot won’t,” my friend agreed.
“We all know people with relatives in the service,” I said. “We can talk to them about refusing orders to carry out this attack on their working-class family. And orders to attack other workers anywhere in the world.
“We saw in Syria what happened when soldiers refused to fight for Assad’s government. Without revolutionary organization, they didn’t take the next step of fighting to take power into the workers’ hands. But discussions about refusing orders can easily lead to talking about turning the guns around. And about the communism we need to fight for. Revolution in the USA would be a powerful help to the masses in Palestine and a lot of other places.”
We agreed that it’s important to do whatever we can to help people in Gaza directly – like donating to a grass-roots group that feeds many hundreds every day. But that’s not enough. There won’t be a communist revolution in the US tomorrow. But we have to start organizing people for it now, or it will never happen.
The new pamphlet about Palestine will be especially useful if it highlights the strategic importance of organizing for communism among military personnel, and among potential recruits and draftees, everywhere.
—Comrade in the US