Fwd: Israeli slackers
[list alum Jeet Heer writes…]
I have some thoughts on the Israeli slackers issue that might be of
interest to people on the list.When I was in Israel 2 years ago, I was really struck by the fact
that the Israeli army, being a citizen army made up of almost the
entire (Jewish) population, included many people who were not
soldierly at all and in fact very uncomfortable with being soldiers.Three anecdotes: 1) We talked to an Israeli film director, who was in his late
twenties. He had been called up to go do reserve duty in Gaza. He
refused to go. In telling us this story he wanted to make one thing
clear: he didn’t refuse to go out of political reasons, he was not
a refusenik who was opposed to the occupation, rather his motives
were purely self-interested. He had an infant daughter and he
wanted to see her grow up. Therefore he preferred to go to jail
than to go to Gaza. As a result of his decision, about half his
family and friends stopped talking to him …2) Another film maker told us gleefully that he was algeric to
metal and therefore didn’t have to serve. He seemed quite proud of
this.3) It is illegal for Israeli soldiers to hitch-hike, since there
have been incidences of Palestinians pretending to be military
hitch-hikers who have kidnapped those who picked them. When we were
travelling in the north, we saw a young woman in uniform who was
hitch-hiking. Our Israeli driver told us we should pick her up
because he was sure she was a genuine Israeli soldier. We took her
in. She started telling us that she’s been have a lot of problems
with the military because she keeps disobeying orders. Again, this
was not something ideological, simply the fact that she was just a
teenager and didn’t like being told what to do. In fact, she said,
she wanted us to drop her off at the local military jail, where she
had to stay for the weekend to serve a sentence. Her crime? She had
hitch-hiked a few weeks ago. So she was now hitch-hiking to serve a
jail term for hitch-hiking.Best, Jeet