When Ruth Hiller was a teenager, she earned her political spurs demonstrating against the Vietnam war in her home town of Detroit. Then she moved to Israel and joined a kibbutz with a number of like-minded, left-wing friends. "I came here to build a new society. My husband worked on the land and I raised our five children. That was my life." Her days of being a political activist were over.

Now, with her children aged between nine to 24, she finds that the wheel has come round a second time: three years ago, her son Hinon, then 16, announced that he was a conscientious objector and intended to resist the draft.

I met Ruth Hiller in a cafΘ in Tel Aviv - her kibbutz is an hour's drive away - and she told me how her life had changed. "Our children had no guns or war toys. Nothing deliberate, we just didn't buy them. Our youngest child was the first. My husband bought him a gun. But," and she explains anxiously, "it wasn't big, just a water gun." Her daughter joined the Israeli Defence Force (IDF), as did her eldest son. Then along came Hinon and the legal battle to keep him out of the army started.

In Israel, everyone except Arabs and Orthodox Jewish students must serve in the IDF, the men for three years, the women for 18 months. Conscripts are profiled. Anyone scoring above 76 must go to the front. Between 45 and 76, they may volunteer for the frontline. Below 21, they are considered unsuitable - either emotionally or physically.

There are at present 17 people in prison for refusing to serve in the IDF. Some just don't fancy a soldier's life. Others are prepared to serve but not to fight against Palestinians. That leaves the conscientious objectors.

It is estimated that of the Israelis required to enlist, 25 per cent fail to do so and of the ones that join, a further 20 per cent drop out somewhere along the line. Most resisters plead Profile 21: there is always a doctor prepared to sign the necessary medical certificate and Profile 21 people don't show up in the statistics as draft resisters. Hinon, however, refused on moral grounds and is taking his case to the Supreme Court. If he wins, he will have made legal history: Israeli law recognises the right of a woman to be a conscientious objector but not that of a man.

There are a number of Israeli peace organisations campaigning for an end to the violence within their society. Rela Mazali, also with a son who refused the draft - he used Profile 21 - co-founded New Profile with Ruth Hiller and together with Dubliner Ronit Lentin, she has collaborated on a book about feminism and war.

Sitting in the courtyard of her house in Hertzlia, a seaside town north of Tel Aviv, Mazali recounted the difficulties facing parents in a militaristic society. "Israel is becoming increasingly militarised. In the bus queue, the young conscript beside you has a cigarette in one hand and a gun in the other. When my elder son was in the IDF, his gun was always in a corner of the room. Kindergarten children are told to bring sweets to school to take to the soldiers. Our culture is a war culture but instead of militarising it, New Profile wants to civilise it."

Unlike the Jerusalem-based Bat Shalom, which is a cross-border peace organisation, New Profile, works only with Israelis. "We have to deal with the violence within our own society first," says Hiller.

Gush Shalom, founded by former Knesset member Uri Avneri, offers counselling to draft resisters, warning them that any militant action they take against Palestinians could later make them liable to a war crimes charge. All these organisations say the Jewish settlements must be dismantled. "It can be done," says Mazali. "There are only a few hundred thousand people involved."

The people whose suffering will continue for a lifetime, however, are those parents who have lost a child. When his own son was killed by Hamas, Israeli businessman Yitzhak Frankental founded The Bereaved Parents Circle, which counsels Arab, Jewish and Druze parents. A year ago, he addressed the 60 families living in the Jewish settlement of Netzarim, at Gaza. It was at this crossing that 12-year-old Mohammad al Durrak, cowering in fear behind his father, was shot dead. Also killed here was David, a young IDF soldier guarding the Netzarim settlers. Grief-stricken, David's friend, El'ad, wrote to his dead comrade every day for nine days - then killed himself. At El'ad's graveside, Frankental spoke to the settlers. "Why in God's mercy," he asked, "do you continue to inhabit this cursed place?"

Israel and the Daughters of the Shoah, by Ronit Lentin is published by Berghahn Books at £13.95