ISRAEL: Israel's high court yesterday rejected a claim by eight reserve soldiers that they should not be forced to serve in the West Bank or Gaza because the Israeli army is committing war crimes.
The court ruled that permitting troops to choose the circumstances under which they serve "would weaken the ties that bind us as a nation". The three judges said to uphold the claim would open the way to objections on a number of political grounds, such as soldiers refusing to dismantle Jewish settlements as part of an agreement with the Palestinians.
"Yesterday there was opposition to serving in Lebanon. Today the opposition is to serving in the West Bank and tomorrow there will be opposition to evacuating settlement outposts," the judges said.
"The people's army is liable to turn into an army in which every unit acts according to its own particular conscience." The soldiers argued that they were not obliged to serve in the Palestinian territories because the Israeli military operations there are illegal under the state's constitution and under international law.
They said it would be illegal for them to obey orders that maintain "a system which consists entirely of collective punishment of a civilian population that today numbers over three million people - children, women and men".
The court's decision means that one of the soldiers, Lieu David Zonsheine, will return to jail for three weeks. After the ruling, he said he welcomed being sent back to prison. "It is the best and most important duty a soldier in the army can perform today for Israel," he said.
"Our refusal to serve in the occupied territories is the most Jewish and Zionistic ideal that can be upheld in this situation." The eight are among 512 soldiers who have signed a petition, Courage to Refuse, saying they will "not continue to fight beyond the 1967 borders to dominate, expel, starve and humiliate an entire people". - (Guardian Service)