Israeli refusenik imprisoned

Please let your support letters fly in like doves

Summary:

Israeli refuseniks and conscientious objectors increase
First refusenik against war in Lebanon jailed for 28 days.
Report based on material from Payday and Yesh Gvul

Full story:

While the United Nations dithers and blathers, the carnage and destruction in Lebanon continues daily. One Israeli soldier did not wait for the long discredited community of nations to act. He decided that the war was wrong and that he would not be part of it.

Captain Amir Pasteur (32), an Israeli infantry officer and student at Tel Aviv University, has now been sentenced to 28 days imprisonment for refusing to take part in the current war in Lebanon.

At his trial he declared: "Taking part in this war is contrary to the values on which I was raised"

Refusenik support group Yesh Gvul have contacts with about a dozen officers and soldiers who have received emergency call-up orders and plan to refuse to take part in the war in Lebanon.

The war has also produced its first conscientious objector. Staff Sergeant Itzik Shabbat, 28, a TV producer, refused to comply with an emergency order to report for reserve duty in Palestine (referred to in military reports as "the territories") to free forces in the standing army for the war in Lebanon.

"I know people will attack me for not taking part in this war when Qassams are falling on my home town (Sderot) and Katyushas on the towns in the north. In my opinion, only this type of opposition that I've chosen will put an end to this madness that is going on now and will shatter the false feeling that the entire home front supports this unnecessary war that is based on deceptive considerations", he told an Israeli newspaper

He said that he is willing to pay the price for his action.

Sergeant Shabbat has already served a 28 day prison sentence for refusing to fight in Palestine.

First Sergeant Omri Zeid has also refused to fire 150 shells into the Lebanese village of Mjdara, As he took up his backpack he told his comrades: "I am not willing to be part of an army that shoots at women and children" and departed.

You can contact Captain Amir Pasteur, (Military ID 5103057) at Military Prison No 6, Military Postal Code No 01860, IDF, Israel