Israel

by Shani Werner, Rela Mazali
English: Tal Haran

CCPR/CO/78/ISR
21 August 2003

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24. While noting the Supreme Court's judgement of 30 December 2002 in the case of eight IDF reservists (judgement HC 7622/02), the Committee remains concerned about the law and criteria applied and generally adverse determinations in practice by military judicial officers in individual cases of conscientious objection (art. 18).

The State party should review the law, criteria and practice governing the determination of conscientious objection, in order to ensure compliance with article 18 of the Covenant.

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The Israeli refusenik organisation Yesh Gvul has a programme called "adopt a refusenik", aimed at generating support for Israeli refusenik and conscientious objectors. As part of WRI's campaign to support conscientious objectors in Israel, WRI also promote Yesh Gvul's "adopt a refusenik" programme.

Yesh Gvul: Adopting a refusenik

We in Yesh Gvul have found over the years that an effective way of supporting jailed refuseniks, is by having them adopted by support groups from outside of Israel.

New Profile and WRI invite you to an International Refusal seminar which takes place on May 9th-15th, 2003, in the "Old Jaffa" Hostel in Jaffa. For details call +972-58-595500

The programme:

The project will start with a seminar style event on the weekend prior to 15th May (Friday/Saturday 9/10 May 2003).

Focus on Israeli refuseniks and nonviolent resistance against the Israeli occupation and in favour of coexistence and cooperation

Resources and links on Israel and Palestine | Seminar/action details | History of International Conscientious Objectors' Day | Right to Refuse to Kill project

Many Israelis believe in separation from the Palestinian populace. Some call for the erection of a segregating fence between ourselves and the Palestinian populace of the 1967-occupied territories, while some call for an agreement with the "legitimate representatives of the Palestinian people". In this way, they claim, the occupation will be ended and Israel shall be cleansed of its responsibility for the situation of the Palestinians.

The Broken Rifle is the newsletter of War Resisters' International, and is usually published in English, Spanish, French and German.

This is issue 58, May 2003.

This issue of The Broken Rifle was produced by Andreas Speck, Sergeiy Sandler, Shani Werner, Huwaida Araf, and Peretz Kidron, with help from Alberto Estefania, Tikiri, and many others, who provided the information used in this issue.

This issue was made possible through the financial support of American Friends Service Committee, Objecion Fiscal, and The Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust.

There is a lot of material available on conscientious objection to military service in Israel.

This is only a brief selection of materials, mostly available on the internet.

War Resisters' International

WRI publishes material on Israel regularly.

The most important WRI publications are:

Panorama- the Palestinian Center for the Dissemination of Democracy & Community Development

www.panoramacenter.org

Ramallah panorama@panoramacenter.org Tel: +972-2-2959618 Fax: +972-2-2981824

Jerusalem: walid@panoramacenter.org Tel: +972-2-6281151 Fax: +972-2-6283351

Gaza: panoramag@panoramacenter.org Fax: +972-8-2839188

Huwaida Araf

The International Solidarity Movement (ISM) was founded to support and strengthen the Palestinian nonviolent resistance to Israeli occupation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The Palestinian people, who have been dispossessed since 1948 -- over 750,000 driven from their lands for the establishment of the Israeli state, and approximately 3 million who have been living under Israeli military occupation in the West Bank and Gaza since 1967 -- over the years have adopted various means of struggle in an attempt to regain their homeland.

Peretz Kidron

Andreas Speck

The situation of Druze conscientious objectors does not receive much attention - neither from the media, nor from the peace movement inside Israel, nor from abroad.

The Druze form a minority within the Arab population of Israel. When Israel introduced military service in 1949, it was supposed to be compulsory for all Arab and Palestinian men.