{"id":34946,"date":"2013-05-21T08:28:11","date_gmt":"2013-05-21T07:28:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/nerds-jocks-and-jailed-dissidents-inside-the-world-of-israels-high-school-war-resisters\/34946\/"},"modified":"2013-05-21T08:28:11","modified_gmt":"2013-05-21T07:28:11","slug":"nerds-jocks-and-jailed-dissidents-inside-the-world-of-israels-high-school-war-resisters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/nerds-jocks-and-jailed-dissidents-inside-the-world-of-israels-high-school-war-resisters\/","title":{"rendered":"Nerds, Jocks and Jailed Dissidents: Inside the World of Israel\u2019s High School War Resisters"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A Palestinian woman and boy walk among Israeli soldiers and military vehicles in the West Bank town of Nabi Samuel.
Photo Credit: Ryan Rodrick Beiler \/ Shutterstock.com<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

May 17, 2013<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span>
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When the 19-year-old Israeli war resister Noam Gur attends weekly demonstrations against the occupation of Palestine, the soldiers who suppress the protestors\u2013with tear gas, stun grenades, and occasionally live fire\u2013aren\u2019t just strangers in uniform. Among them are her former high school classmates, who have been conscripted into the Israeli army. <\/p>\n

Gur was supposed to serve, too, but instead joined the\u00a0shministim. This is a Hebrew term meaning high school students in their senior year, who face conscription into the army.\u00a0But the word is also used to refer to students who publicly refuse conscription on ethical grounds. <\/p>\n

\u201cAll my friends from high school are in the army,\u201d Gur explains. \u201cNow I see them at demos. It is really weird and complicated.\u201d <\/p>\n

With a shrug of her shoulders, Gur describes the process that led to her refusal of conscription. \u201cI found out that what they taught me in school was different from this reality. I went to the West Bank to protests and saw the occupation. I started to realize I didn\u2019t want to serve.\u201d <\/p>\n

Gur, who has cropped hair and a shy smile, was supposed to be a soldier before she was out of her teens, like most Israeli youth. But instead she served 20 days in prison for refusing orders. Now an anti-occupation activist who supports other young people questioning military service, she is one of many young Israelis who are saying no to the army. They are part of growing number of Israeli movements working to end the occupation from the inside. <\/p>\n

Letters of resistance<\/strong><\/p>\n

To understand what it takes to become a\u00a0shministi\u2013the singular form of\u00a0shiministim\u2013it\u2019s important to understand the powerful grip of the Israeli military on society.\u00a0Israel\u2019s occupation of Palestine and aggressive stance toward many of its neighbors requires a highly militarized society. The country devotes almost one fifth of its national budget to military spending<\/a>, 18 percent of which is paid for by the United States. Israel\u2019s military spending as a percentage of GDP is one of the highest<\/a>\u00a0in the world, and it boasts a larger military than any of its neighbors. The country maintains a stash of nuclear weapons and is the world’s eighth largest<\/a>\u00a0arms exporter. <\/p>\n

Meanwhile, children are prepared for compulsory service from an early age by constant military presence in educational settings, including \u201cteacher soldiers\u201d in some schools. Walking through Israeli cities and towns, one encounters streets filled with soldiers carrying M4 and M16 rifles, many of them in plain clothes. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere is always a military background here,\u201d Gur says. <\/p>\n

While the Israeli army is preeminent in society, it is not invincible. Public draft resistance began in 1970, when a handful of students penned an open letter to then-Prime Minister Golda Meir, in which they explained their refusal to serve in territories seized and occupied in the 1967 war. In 1982, a group of army reservists refused to serve in the Lebanon War, founding the group Yesh Gvul<\/a>, whose name means \u201cthere is a limit.\u201d The movement of letter-writing and refusal by high school seniors grew during the early 2000s, prompting the military to crack down and sentence each of the five\u00a0shministim\u00a0from the class of 2002 to two years in prison. <\/p>\n

By 2008, when almost 100 people signed public letter<\/a>s resisting conscription, prison terms for\u00a0shministimhad become standard. The army makes it nearly impossible to get a discharge based on conscientious objector status, and many\u00a0shministim\u00a0escape conscription only by claiming mental unfitness, often after serving multiple prison sentences. The 19-year-old\u00a0shministi Nathan Blanc\u00a0<\/a>is currently serving his eighth consecutive prison term for refusing army service in protest of second-class rights for Palestinians. <\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on : AlterNet<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Palestinian woman and boy walk among Israeli soldiers and military vehicles in the West Bank town of Nabi Samuel.Photo Credit: Ryan Rodrick Beiler \/ Shutterstock.com May 17, 2013 \u00a0| Like this article? Join our email list: Stay up to date with the latest headlines via email. When the 19-year-old Israeli war resister Noam Gur […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-34946","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-breaking-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34946","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34946"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34946\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}