Paths to
Peace
Refusenik and Zionist, he raises a different voice from
Israel
By CLAIRE
SCHAEFFER-DUFFY
Israeli paratrooper Guy Grossman believes the actions of his own
military in the West Bank and Gaza Strip are endangering his country. Calling
the occupation immoral, he said it is eroding Israel’s most important
asset: international support for a Jewish state and land.
Grossman is one of 430 reserve combat officers and soldiers within
the Israeli Defense Forces who have publicly stated their refusal to serve in
the Occupied Territories. Firmly committed to protecting Israel, the dissenting
soldiers, popularly known as refuseniks, say they will not fight the war of the
settlements nor will they continue to fight beyond the 1967 borders in order to
dominate, expel, starve and humiliate the Palestinians.
In April, Grossman, a founding member of the group’s
organization, Ometz LeSarev, or Courage to Refuse, traveled to the Boston area
to make their message known to American Jews. The Boston visit was Ometz
LeSarev’s first foray abroad.
Grossman told The Boston Globe he wanted to raise a different
voice from Israel, that you can be a Zionist and call for an end to the
occupation without being a self-hating Jew.
The soft-spoken, scholarly soldier, who lectured at three
universities and two synagogues, drew large crowds and received prolonged
standing ovations at every venue. His tour was organized by the Boston Workmens
Circle, a progressive Jewish organization, and Friends of Ometz LeSarev with
support from the Shefa Fund.
A few loud boos and thumbs pointing down followed Grossman’s
presentation to an audience of 800 at Temple Israel April 28. Nevertheless,
organizers of the event said they were dumbfounded at the high turnout and the
degree of sympathy shown for Grossman’s position. “I was very
pleased,” said Jewish educator Martin Federman. “He presents a very
powerful, moral and strategic point of view.”
A lieutenant within an elite paratrooper unit, Grossman spent 18
months in the territories during the early ’90s. He was a fulltime soldier
for four years and remains a reservist. He was the 11th officer to sign the
reservists’ declaration “Courage to Refuse.” The statement,
published in the Israeli daily Ha’aretz, evoked fierce debate within
Israel, where every male citizen must serve in the military for three years.
Many stay on as reservists, serving four to six weeks annually. This year,
military enlistment increased dramatically in response to the suicide bombings
of early spring.
While peace talks were going on, Israeli sympathy for withdrawal
from the territories was high, Grossman said. But the last two years have been
hell for Israelis and Palestinians, he said. “As the violence escalated,
[Is-raelis] began talking more and more about the occupation as a given fact.
The [Courage to Refuse] letter came to remind people that the continuation of
the occupation is not an option because it is immoral, because [Israel’s
security] has nothing to do with pouring more and more money into the land,
because the Palestinians have a right to the land.”
Grossman supports Israel’s longstanding policy of granting
immediate citizenship to Jews seeking asylum while withholding the same status
from Palestinians who have resided there a long time. “It might be unfair,
but as a Zionist I think the Jewish people have to have a home.”
Still, he favors a dem-ocratic notion of a Zionist state. While a
law student at Tel Aviv University, he volunteered with B’tselem, the
Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Territories. He was a
coauthor of a report on the use of excessive violence and torture against
Palestinian prisoners.
“There is not and there never will be a benign
occupation,” he said. “When you have 3.5 million people without basic
human rights, you are bound to be in a situation you can’t live
with.”
He called the settlements a historic mistake made by human beings
and said they can be undone by human beings -- but not without forcible
evacuations. He estimates that of the 200,000 settlers currently residing in
the West Bank and Gaza, about 25 percent will never leave willingly.
About a dozen people protested the soldier’s talk at Temple
Israel. The demonstrators, many of them Soviet Jews, held placards that said,
“Israel is Bleeding,” “Do Not Refuse to Protect Jewish
Children,” and “Do Not Build Your Image on Israel’s
Damage.” They demanded that Grossman and his group stop using the name
refuseniks, a term originally coined for Russian Jews who tried to leave the
Soviet Union but were denied and severely persecuted.
“This is not refusenik. This is traitor,” said Ilya
Magad.
“Mr. Grossman is advocating ‘Let’s leave the
territories, and the troubles will stop,’ ” said Evgeniy Itkis.
“But Israeli withdrawal will create a base for terrorist
infrastructure.”
There are currently 41 refuseniks imprisoned in Israel. Although
their sentences are light -- under 30 days -- many are being jailed repeatedly.
Recently, the case of Yigal Bonner, a refusenik who is a professor of Sanskrit,
drew international attention because of the harsher-than-normal treatment meted
out to him. Bonner has been forced to work 14 hours a day, is not allowed to
speak during that time, and is being jailed with conscripted military officers,
contrary to military regulations.
National Catholic Reporter, January 17,
2003
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