Israel-Palestine, Tel Aviv, Celebrating the release of the 5 refusnics aster two years in jail - the struggle goes on. 25/09/04

About four years ago - at the beginning of the second Intifada, an high-school refusniks initiative for total refusal of the compulsory 3 years service in the army was started by anarchist youth and others. This step was interwoven as an extreme with the refusniks spectrum. The wide spectrum include mainly people who evade reserve service and compulsory 3 years service on individualistic mode - mainly faking health and mental problems.
The political refusniks spectrum included mainly reservists whose refusal was selective - not to serve in the occupied territories. The second Intifada that started 4 years ago initiated a stronger wave of selective refusnics and a new wave of high-school refusnics.

At the beginning, the teens refusnics were few - mainly anarchists, and the army let them go after few repetitions of 3 weeks prison terms. At the beginning of the third year of the Intifada, the refusniks and teens political total refusing the compulsory service expanded to less marginal extremists and the army changed strategy - not letting the teen refusnics go after 100 or so days in jail.

The political refusniks 5 and a pacifist were in the focus of the struggle of refusing service, in spite of the objection to that step by the milder refusniks movement which is only the radical wing of Zionism.

Thursday evening, two days after the final release of the 5 refusnics, a big welcome reception with about 700 participants was arranged in Tel-Aviv, sponsored by the whole radical left - including the Anarchists Against The Wall.

Following is the leaflet distributed by the AATW at that happening.

WE MUST PUT DOWN THE WALL

Would you buy a used toaster from Dany Nave [the health minister] Would you buy a used car from Tsahi Hanegby [the suspended police minister] How come you buy from them and their friends (Aric, Bibi, Ehud, Limor [first names of the top ministers] and all other interested from any where up to the Likud [ruling party] central comity, disastrous plans, that will influence our life for many years?

IS IT THEM YOU TRUST THAT THE SOLUTION TO THIS PLACE IS FENCES, IS WALLS, IS APARTHEID ?

At the end of 2002 Israel government started to build a separation fence. The route decided on pass, mostly, deep in the Palestinian area, garbing thousands of acres of agriculture lands, separating between children and schools, between sick people and medical treatment, and between people and their relatives. The twisted route create Getos - enclaves that prevent normal connection between villages and the surrounding world. Thousands of fruit trees are uprooted to clear the way - trees that gave the main income to people (who were prevented from working in Israel). The government present the the route as just a security measure, but both the Israeli supreme court and the international court stated that the route is illegal, and harm in a serious way the life of the inhabitants. This rise the question: "was so harsh harming of the inhabitants was taken into the security considerations? is a person his resources were robed, his trees are uprooted, and his honor is tramped become less dangerous?"

So, if not security, what really hide behind the decision to build that kind of fence? The sad answer is TRANSFER. Not the kind in which people are forced on transport cars and taken away, but the quiet transfer - the one that making the life of people so unbearable that they were left with only two options: to get out or to explode.

At january 2004* the villagers have chosen a different option - nonviolent struggle against the fence, inspired by leaders like Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King. Men, women, children and old people, went out of the villages to try to block with their bodies the bulldozers, to prevent the destruction and robbery, accompanied by Israeli and international activists who arrived to stand at their side in solidarity, and to try to decrease the level of violence of the army. Not always was this helpful as usually the army responded with extreme violence, using batons, shock and tear gas grenades, and shooting of rubber coated bullets and even live ammunition.
Along the year, there were tens of demonstrations harshly suppressed, resulting with the killing of 6 demonstrators and the injury of hundreds. The media usually chose not to focus on what was happening and only the decision of supreme court stooped for a while the free stampede of the bulldozers.

These days, the work of building the fence is renewed with full speed, again in Palestinian area, with clear disregarding of the supreme courts verdicts. Now, it is no more possible to avert the eyes and to say - we did not know.

NOW IS THE TIME TO ACT.

STOP THE MADNESS! STOP THE FENCE!

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Come to Salon Mazal, Simta Almonit 3 Tel Aviv, Monday (already moved)
[20:00 27.9.04] to hear more.
Subscribe to the activist against the fence list:
againstwall-subscribe@lists.riseup.net
More derails on the fence: www.gader.org
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* [Ed. Note: after 8 months of joint struggles of small scale activities of the villagers, international volunteers and people involved with the Anarchists Against The Wall initiative]