The ongoing militarization of state (read: Jewish, non-orthodox) education in Israel has been among the major civic issues addressed by New Profile from the outset. Israel’s current minister of education, Gideon Sa’ar, provides an extremely blatant example of this ongoing process. Not hesitating in the least to openly defy democratic principles such as freedom of speech, he banned New Profile speakers from schools several months ago. This is and was part of his (pointedly headline producing) smear campaign terrorizing the young eighteen year olds legally exempted from military service, whom he systematically slanders as “shirkers”.

Now, Sa’ar is leading a witch hunt against university faculty who support international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) as a means for ending occupation and oppression. This week, anticipating an upcoming discussion by the legislature of “the limits of freedom of expression in schools,” he declared his express intent “to take action against Israeli professors who call for an academic boycott of Israel.” Several prominent mainstream figures have strongly condemned this emerging policy and the minister’s preferential treatment of a political group claiming to monitor on-campus fairness while harassing left-leaning professors. Commenting on a so-called report issued by this group, the rector of Haifa University, Professor Yossi Ben-Artzi, commented that, “‘It would behoove the education minister to ignore the report which emits an aroma of McCarthyism. I hope he will understand the gravity of the very fact of monitoring and informing on lecturers, and of whether he even needs to take seriously an organization like Im Tirtzu, which causes incitement.” Sa’ar however proceeds to make up and hunt out “enemies” of the educational system, preferring the more popular role of outpost commander to that of a minister in charge of a key civil society system.

In tandem, according to columnist Avirama Golan, Knesset Member Zevulun Orlev (of “Habayit Hayehudi,” party titled The Jewish Home), is turning the Knesset Education Committee from “a committee that is supposed to oversee the government’s activities in education … into a tribunal that summons everyone whose opinions and activities it does not like and brands them with moral turpitude.” It seems that the state educational administration in Israel is already emulating the McCarthy senate hearings and “investigating” allegedly un-Israeli activities. Committee members, says Golan, “have considered firing “leftist” school principals and have lashed out at university lecturers.” An exhibition in the town of Holon marking the anniversary of the Geneva Convention and showing Israeli soldiers harming Palestinian children, was accused by Orlev of anti-Semitic incitement.

Golan suggests that,

Orlev’s McCarthyist energy is a way for him to survive at the head of Habayit Hayehudi. But it means that the Knesset committee is not dealing with matters of education but rather is branding enemies of the people.

In this process it is making no distinctions between trends and views, but rather is adopting the deceptive dichotomy … between ‘loyal’ and ‘traitor,’ and between ‘Zionist’ and ‘anti-Zionist…[he] and his colleagues on the Knesset Education Committee [… have become] the vanguard leading the crushing of Israeli democracy.”

While all this, on one level, may seem ludicrous and laughable, the subscription by both Sa’ar and Orlev to the type of hate propaganda invented and distributed by organizations clearly operating along fascist lines should not be lightly dismissed and must be taken very seriously.

The letter from human rights defender, Ameer Makhoul, released and distributed by his family and friends, was written on May 30th, after Makhoul had spent 3 weeks in prison without access to even pen and paper, not to speak of lawyers, family visits, due process, humane and legal conditions. It made its way to his home by snailmail and then the original Arabic was translated into English.

I first met Ameer Makhoul through my own activism over twenty years ago. Ever since, I’ve remained aware of his distinctive, highly independent style as an activist and a civil society leader among Palestinian citizens of Israel. His singular persistence pointedly and continuously pushes the envelope of Israel’s declared commitment to democracy, exactly as effective and meaningful civic activism should. Accordingly, I wasn’t all that surprised to hear of his detention incommunicado and then of official claims (which I firmly disbelieve) that Makhoul has been serving as an enemy spy. After all, his is just the type of intelligently challenging voice that state authorities most wish, and indeed sometimes act, to silence. All the more so once these authorities have dropped any previous pretense to upholding democracy and are stepping up blatant repression.

Like many other citizens of Israel—both Jewish and Palestinian—I believe that that “Makhoul is being detained and severely harassed for exercising his right, under Israel’s Basic Laws, to free speech and political expression,” as the pseudonymous blogger “Moshe Yaroni” put it. Hundreds have held repeated protests throughout the country against Makhoul’s imprisonment, as well as that of activist Omar Said, denouncing as well the unconscionable interrogation to which both have been subjected. Amnesty International has called on Israeli authorities to stop Makhoul’s mistreatment.

As a long time activist, here in Israel, I am both dismayed and determined these days; Dismayed at how the state I share a stake in proceeds, with great speed, to discard remaining vestiges of democratic governance. Determined to continue resisting this process with all the means at the disposal of activists and civil society.

The US Congress has shamefully abdicated its oversight role in US foreign policy and has become an apologist for the worst policies of the Israeli Government, all the while sending Israel billions of dollars in aid. Fortunately activists are not waiting for the US Congress to act. They are staging their own investigation, a first of its kind event.

The Chicago Hearing is modeled after a Congressional hearing and will be webcast live from a link on the home page. The Chicago Hearing will bring together witnesses to tell seldom-heard stories from Israel-Palestine that raise critical questions about the effects of U.S. policies in the region. Does Israel’s explanation of security legitimize its violations of international law? Does the U.S. government condone Israeli policies and practices that would not be tolerated if replicated in America by the U.S. government?

The Hearing highlights voices of those on the other end of the pipeline of U.S. aid to Israel. Israeli, Palestinian and American witnesses will testify to lives lost, freedoms denied and property destroyed by Israeli policies buttressed by U.S. aid and support. The witnesses will testify to the collateral effects of U.S. policies toward Israel: military and financial aid that totaled over $3 billion in 2009 as well as unconditional diplomatic support for Israel in the United Nations”.

Yotam Amit, one of the organizers, asked New Profile, a feminist, anti-militarist movement in Israel, to provide background information  about the link between US aid and undemocratic aspects of Israeli society. The following piece is based on an ensuing exchange of emails between Amit, Rela Mazali, a founding and active New Profile member (and frequent contributor to The Only Democracy?) and co-editor Jesse Bacon, incorporating excerpts from a seminal study by Israeli sociologist  Shlomo Swirsky, “The Burden of Occupation,” which can be downloaded in full here.

For  years now, groups such as the US Campaign to End the Occupation have been trying to show how US aid reduces US social spending, New Profile works in Israel to make a somewhat analogous argument. While the $3 Billion in official US Aid is vastly more then we give any other country, the impact on Israeli’s spending is obviously much greater.

Based on various studies and, in particular, Shlomo Swirsky’s “The Cost of Occupation,” we suggest that the direct effect is not the repeated slashes in Israeli social spending, but rather a camouflaging of the fact that these slashes are the neoliberal policy of choice benefiting the economic and security elite, under the guise of necessary “security spending.” According to Swirsky,

It can be said that the American administration allowed Israel to conduct its military operations against the Palestinian Authority under highly favorable domestic political conditions. The government was not forced to strain the local capital market or to raise taxes, steps that would have distressed Israel’s more affluent stratum. This is the very stratum that, if faced with the threat of carrying a heavier financial burden, might have been able to press the government to consider changing its policy regarding the occupied Palestinian territories. As early as the first Intifada, the business community was reportedly ‘fed up with the devaluation of the benefits it derived from the occupation and with the increasing burden the occupation imposed on it’(Levy, 2003: 172). Notably, this is the same stratum whose children had evinced a ‘motivational crisis’ regarding their service in the I.D.F. during the first Intifada (see Chapter 6).” p.119

So Israeli’s elites are not being inconvenienced by the Occupation. How can we change that?

The 2003 request for loan guarantees was not the first time Israel had turned to the U.S. for this type of assistance. About a decade earlier, in 1992, during the Rabin administration, Israel asked for American guarantees to fund the absorption of thousands of new immigrants from CIS countries. Then, the American government stipulated that it would grant the request only if Israel froze its settlement activity in the Palestinian territories. In contrast, the guarantees requested in 2003 were not used to promote Israel’s society or economy; they were utilized to fund continuation of the occupation, and they enabled the Israeli government to exempt affluent citizens from picking up the tab.” p. 119.

The 1992 Loan Guarantees are infamous as a source of tension between the US and Israel, with then-president George Bush the Elder threatening to cut them off. Obviously no such threat was made in 2003.

Until the second Intifada … no Israeli government had taken such extreme measures as the Sharon governments, and under normal conditions, it is highly unlikely that any government would have considered recommending such measures, wrapped as packages to be delivered in a flurry to the Knesset for hasty approval. It is hard to imagine such far-reaching steps being taken without the prevailing atmosphere of the Intifada, particularly following the suicide bombings on buses and in restaurants and banquet halls. The combination of ‘military emergency’ and ‘danger of fiscal and financial collapse’ set the stage for the administration to take these drastic steps. … ‘even if we consider this military policy as a given, there were still other routes the government could have taken, such as increasing the capital gains tax; raising income tax for the upper income brackets – or at least not reducing it; imposing a war loan; cutting the salaries of senior government officials, local government officials, and high-ranking military officers; cutting the ‘fat’ in the military budget; or reducing government benefits to well-to-do sectors of the population, among them residents of the Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territories. The option chosen was to make cuts whose main effect was to lower the standard of living of Israel’s middle and lower classes.” p.122

Indeed, a June 2003 article by Akiva Eldar suggested that the US directly interfered with Israeli elections through its loan guarantees supporting the incumbent government which went on to a big victory.

Less then three months ago the Israeli government fell apart over a dispute between Likud and Labor over how the budget pie should be divided on both sides of the Green Line.

(Past Labor Party Prime Minister) Shimon Peres said last week during a campaign speech in Ramat Gan that Israel spent no less than $60 billion on the settlements, which he called ‘fanning the flames of the conflict’ – the equivalent of 20 years American aid. Amram Miztna (Labor Party candidate)  is trying to persuade the voters that the key to their physical and economic security is to be found in disengagement from the territories and the return of most of the settlers to the state of Israel.

And now, less than three weeks before the decision is made on Election Day, the U.S. is telling the Israeli voter that the Likud can preserve security, deepen the occupation and get funding from Uncle Sam.

Before the first word has been spoken in the discussions scheduled for today in Washington about the special aid and loan guarantees, the Israeli public is getting the message that the leader of the free world is pleased with the policies of the Sharon-Eitam (Likud Party) government:”

To conclude, the ‘security threat’ actively perpetuated by successive Israeli governments–through their choices of continued occupation and repeated warfare–has provided an effective smoke screen allowing the extremely swift implementation of radically neoliberal economic policies.  Recurring severe slashes in social budgets result from these policies rather than the needs of ‘national security’. But the official, as well as media, focus on national fear and ‘national security’ has successfully stemmed social unrest and potential protest. Meanwhile, these budget cuts actually feed directly into tax breaks for the highest salaried employees and richest property owners in the market. And the oversize, well heeled ‘security’ apparatus stoking conflict while deflecting social resistance is bolstered annually both by a disproportionate slice of Israel’s own budget and by billions in US aid. These same billions also directly benefit a related interest group within the US, because 75 percent of the funds are earmarked for purchases from US industry. Consequently, it’s no wonder that the aid agreement between the U.S. and Israel has for some years now been changing the ratio of military to civilian aid, increasing the former while incrementally canceling the latter. As journalist Moti Bassok wrote in 2007,”Each year throughout the present agreement civilian aid was reduced by $120 million, while military aid grew $60 million. As of next year, annual U.S. aid will [… be] all military,” forming an integrated enabling component of Israel’s continuing and destructive militarization. It would seem that the economic and political elites of both the US and Israel have vested interests in continuing Israel’s militarization, occupation and choice of warfare. Personally, we believe that it’s left to us as citizens of both these countries to make maintaining those policies too costly for both regimes.

Here’s a short version of Swirski’s report:

Members of Isha L' Isha (Woman to Woman)

In an extensive, research-based 2009 position paper titled: On Nuclear Weapons: A Feminist Perspective, Edna Gorney and Hedva Eyal of the Isha L’Isha Haifa Feminist Center wrote, “the Israeli public remains excluded from the [nuclear] debate. The public does not ask questions, does not demand that the state takes responsibility, nor does it demand to be involved in decision making; it accepts and is content with the information or, more accurately, with the lack of information.”

This passive indifference to the nuclear weaponry widely believed to be in the public’s backyard is, in my view, a highly dangerous manifestation of Israel’s longtime and entrenched militarization. As Gorney and Eyal have put it, “Decision-making in all areas related to security is characterized by secrecy and vagueness, excluding anyone who does not belong to the security elite. … The secret functions both on the outside as well as on the inside. Denying information under the guise of maintaining secrecy is one of the common ways through which elites maintain their status. … [While o]ne of the ways they can attain legitimacy for their control and actions is to continuously disseminate and instill fear – real and imaginary – among the citizens of Israel. This fear justifies and, in turn, foments military power and its use against any security threat, as defined by this elite group.”

Meanwhile, Gorney and Eyal have noted, “We are flooded with information on the great threat Iran poses and on the necessity of military operations. The debate within the Israeli public discourse is almost devoid of the possibility of solution through diplomatic means.”

Outlining the severely undemocratic suppression of any public nuclear debate in Israel, the position paper lists a line of researchers, journalists, politicians, activists and ex-security personnel who’s critical voices have been stifled by the security establishment, using a broad range of tactics. This in addition to the constant dissemination of fear underpinning militarization in general and the unquestioning Israeli public acceptance of its governments’ nuclear armament in particular. Thus, the risks of such armament to this public itself, as well as the entire area or even the globe, go unexamined and undebated for decades on end.

Resisting this reality and reaching for an actual, participatory democracy, Gorney and Eyal explain, “As feminists we wish to expose the connections between the policy of opacity, concealment and fear, and the current perception of security. We want to take responsibility for our lives and for actions carried out in our name.”

In one of the rare public voices taking up these issues, the position paper concludes:
“We demand the removal of opacity surrounding the issue of nuclear weapons in Israel; We demand a public debate and the development of an alternative policy that will enable us to live in peace in the Middle East; We demand nuclear disarmament; We demand that the State of Israel join the International Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.”

Click here to download the full 22 page position paper.

Another such public voice, sounded now for many years, is that of nuclear historian and analyst, Avner Cohen, whose work is one of main sources repeatedly referred to by the Isha L’Isha position paper. Cohen is equally critical of successive Israeli governments’ successful barring of nuclear debate and, in a recent op-ed, offers a series of serious arguments against what he views as the irresponsible and extremely dangerous possibility that Israel might launch a military attack against Iran in an attempt to quash its nuclear capacity.

Cohen’s op-ed, converging in part with some of the conclusions presented by the Isha L’Isha position paper, was published April 2nd in Haaretz and claims, among other things, that:

Instead of a public discussion [of a possible Israeli attack against Iran] there has been a belligerent press, which makes demagogic use of statements that intensify the message of the politics of fear. These include expressions such as ‘Iran is galloping toward a bomb’ and a ‘second Holocaust’ that Israel must prevent. Such discourse creates a feeling that if Iran is not attacked, and soon, we have no choice but to accept a nuclear Iran. [Meanwhile,] It’s doubtful whether the people making those statements are capable of giving them a precise (technical and political) interpretation.

[Israel's is] a culture of national security in which nuclear opacity has been exploited to the hilt to create a specific model of deterrence. The result is that when [… we Israelis] look at Iran we see ourselves: how we would behave in a similar situation. [… This] leads to systematic errors when making assessments.”

A comment regarding Avner Cohen, from Gideon Spiro:

Cohen’s recent op-ed in Haaretz was an important one as it supports the
claims of those who oppose the dangerous adventure of an Israeli military
strike against Iran. However, please make no mistake: Avner Cohen is no ally
of the struggle to dismantle Israel’s nuclear arsenal. He is a staunch
supporter of the Israeli nuclear bomb and his book “Israel and the Bomb” is
a hymn singing the praises of the nuclear program in Dimona. I have
personally confronted Cohen on several occasions, some of them public, most
recently several months ago on Al Jazira.”

Gideon Spiro is a Tel-Aviv based journalist and activist in various Israeli
and international peace and human rights movements, one of the founders of
the “Yesh Gvul” peace movement and the “Israeli Committee for Mordechai
Vanunu and for a Middle East Free of Atomic, Chemical and Biological
Weapons.

From the kindergarten homework of the child of TOD? Contributor Amir Terkel

In January 2010, an official UN body determined for the first time that the militarization of Israel’s government-run school system was in violation of the International Convention of the Rights of the Child and, in particular, of Israel’s implementation of the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict (OPAC), to which it is a signatory.

Unprecedented in an international legal document, this was one of the conclusions of a report submitted by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child reviewing Israel’s adherence to and breaches of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Optional Protocol.

Part of the evidence collected by the review included a jointly authored report prepared by: Defense for Children International-Palestine Section, Defense for Children International-Israel Section and New Profile, with additional contributions of information by Adalah, Yesh Din, Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers, UNICEF Occupied Palestinian Territories.

The sections authored by New Profile are based on the New Profile Report on Child Recruitment in Israel, 2004, which they update and expand. These sections were authored by Sergeiy Sandler and Albert Givol.

The item below, issued on 11 March 2010, by DCI-Palestine, announces the public release of the jointly authored document providing detailed answers to a list of questions posed by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. The item provides links to the full text of the ‘List of Issues’ and to additional relevant documents.

DCI-Israel, DCI-Palestine and New Profile release today their answers to the ‘List of Issues’ recently prepared by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) in connection with Israel’s implementation of the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict (OPAC).

This report, entitled NGO Answers to the List of Issues, compiles data provided by seven organisations* and was submitted to the Committee in December 2009, ahead of the review of Israel’s compliance with OPAC in January 2010. It includes thorough and up-to-date information on the recruitment practices of the Israeli state armed forces, and Palestinian and Israeli non-state actors. It also expands upon the militarisation of Israeli society at large.

[Read the full report] [Read the CRC Concluding Observations on Israel] [Also on the same topic: The New Profile Report on Child Recruitment in Israel, 2004]

More specifically, the 41-page report is based, inter alia, on: Adalah’s expertise on the legal and practical aspects of the Israeli military’s use of civilians as human shields; DCI-Palestine’s research and field documentation of the impact of Operation Cast Lead, and its experience of representing Palestinian children accused of security offences in Israeli military courts; New Profile’s expertise on Israel’s recruitment laws and practices, its knowledge about the administration of military schools in Israel, and its research on the militarisation of the Israeli education system; Yesh Din’s expertise on the Israeli military court system; and UNICEF’s perspective on the Israeli government’s support towards the implementation of the child rights monitoring and reporting mechanism set up by UN Security Council Resolution 1612.

On 19 January 2010, Israel’s OPAC implementation was reviewed by the Committee on the Rights of the Child. Committee members probed the Israeli government delegation on the following topics, among others:

• Applicability of the Convention in the OPT
• Use of Palestinian children as human shields
• Detention of Palestinian children by Israeli authorities
• Israeli military juvenile courts
• Age of minimum recruitment in Israel
• Israeli military schools
• Operation Cast Lead
• Construction of the Wall in the West Bank
• Israeli landmines in the Golan.

On 29 January 2010, the Committee on the Rights of the Child issued its Concluding Observations to Israel.

*Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Right in Israel (Contributor); Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers (Contributor); DCI-Israel – Defence for Children International-Israel Section (Author); DCI-Palestine – Defence for Children International-Palestine Section (Author); New Profile – Movement for the Civilization of Israeli Society (Author); UNICEF – United Nations Children’s Fund-OPT (Contributor); Yesh Din – Volunteers for Human Rights (Contributor).

BACKGROUND INFORMATION – OPAC Timeline

On 18 July 2005, Israel ratified the Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict (OPAC). As a State Party to OPAC, Israel was due to report to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child – the body in charge of monitoring implementation of the Convention and its Protocols – two years after ratification.

In March 2008, Israel submitted its Initial State Party Report, one year late. The report made no mention of the situation of children – Palestinian or Israeli – living in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT).

In July 2009, DCI-Israel and DCI-Palestine submitted a joint Alternative Report to the Committee in order to provide Committee members with complementary information relating to implementation of OPAC in the OPT.

On 6 October 2009, at the end of its 52nd Session, the Committee held a pre-session meeting on Israel’s OPAC Initial State Party Report and invited representatives of DCI-Israel and DCI-Palestine to present the contents of their Alternative Report to them. The Committee had many questions on Israel’s child recruitment practices in the OPT.

On 15 October 2009, shortly after the pre-session meeting on Israel, the Committee sent its List of Issues (22 questions) to the Israeli government, expressing its concern and requesting further information on a range of issues, a majority of them connected to the OPT, over which the Committee considers that Israel has jurisdiction. The government was given until 19 November 2009 to send its responses in writing.

On 7 January 2010, Israel forwarded its Written Replies to the List of Issues to the Committee on the Rights of the Child.

On 28 December 2009, NGOs sent their own replies to the Committee. The List of Issues had also benn forwarded to NGOs in Israel and the OPT, to encourage them to submit updated and complementary information to the Committee. Expert contributions from Israeli, Palestinian, international and UN organisations were compiled in the NGO Answers to the List of Issues.

On 19 January 2010, from 3:00-6:00pm, an Israeli government delegation met members of the Committee in Geneva in order to answer questions on the implementation of OPAC in the territories over which Israel has jurisdiction.

On 29 January 2010, the Committee on the Rights of the Child issued its Concluding Observations.

Sergeiy Sandler has been radical peace activist since the early 1990s. Since 1999 he is active with the feminist antimilitarist movement New Profile, and since 2002 is an International Council member of the War Resisters’ International.

On January 28th 2010, New Profile, a feminist movement working to demilitarize society and state in Israel, dispatched a letter to a list of top U.N. officials urging the U.N. General Assembly and the U.N. Security Council to intervene to ensure implementation of the recommendations made by the U.N. Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict.

“If the United Nations and wider international community are to meet their responsibilities in upholding the rule of law,” New Profile wrote the U.N. Secretary-General, among others, “then concerted, effective and prompt action must be taken at the highest level to end the impunity and ensure the accountability of the State of Israel.”

Based on its long years of research-based, oppositional praxis, New Profile stated in conclusion, that, “the militarized system in place in Israel renders the State of Israel incapable of conducting its own implementation of the U.N. Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict.”

To read the entire analysis corroborating New Profile’s claim and first-hand information on recent silencing measures encountered by the movement, please see the full text of this collaboratively composed letter (PDF).

UPDATE: Despite early reports of furious lobbying against the bill, the European Parliament has voted to endorse the Goldstone Report, condemning Israel’s crimes during the Gaza War and echoing New Profile’s call.

The European Parliament passed a resolution that said European Union states should “demand the implementation of the Goldstone report’s recommendations.”

The resolution, which was approved Wednesday by a vote of 335-287, said that the EU’s foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, should monitor the progress of the implementation of the U.N.-ordered report.

The parliament also expressed its concern about “pressure placed on NGOs involved in the document’s preparation” — a statement that apparently refers to the targeting of the New Israel Fund for supporting Israeli organizations that assisted South African judge Richard Goldstone’s committee in the preparation of his report.

The report accused Israel, as well as Hamas, of committing war crimes during Operation Cast Lead in Gaza last winter.

Here’s a video of Judge Richard Goldstone’s appearance on Al Jazeera.

Israeli generals live a life of luxury and extravagance, mostly shaded from public scrutiny, while their soldiers enforce a brutal and criminal occupation upon the Palestinian people. Now they appropriately choose the Waldorf Astoria in New York to solicit more American money. New Profile, an Israeli feminist movement for the civil-zation of Israeli society, asks US citizens to just say NO.

On Tuesday March 9 the US-based non-profit “Friends of the Israel Defense Force” is scheduled to hold its annual fundraiser at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York. The event will host Israel’s Chief of Staff as keynote speaker. Outside the hotel, a coalition of organizations will protest in a moving processing, under slogans such as “No to the occupation and siege of Gaza,” “No to the Israel Defense Force Brutality.”

It’s no coincidence that this particular non-profit, created to enhance the funding of Israel’s army, has chosen to hold this year’s fundraiser at the Waldorf Astoria.

It was just last October that Israel’s State Comptroller investigated the outrageous bills run up at lavish hotels by the thirty-nine Israeli army and security officials who attended the Air Salon in Paris. Defense Minister Ehud Barak topped the list in a deluxe 2,500 Euro a night hotel suite.

Two months later, in December 2009, Israeli media revealed the equally lavish pension deal – approximating some 3 million Shekels – struck by a retiring general with the military after arranging a prematurely hiked up salary. “Everything connected to the terms of military pensions remains unknown,” wrote The Marker’s Meirav Arlosoroff, in her report on “these shady deals regarding senior officers’ leaving conditions.” These deals, she said, were “beyond any kind of external supervision … [as] no one … can bring the IDF to disclose its data.”

The Waldorf Astoria is just another glimpse of this entrenched regime of extravagance and corruption.
Israel’s national security budget, 50 Billion Shekels in 2010, with 10 Billion more in US aid, coming from US taxpayers, is by far the largest portion of the public coffers allocated to any single government ministry. Itself a symptom and a benchmark of the state’s extreme militarization, it is moreover insulated from detailed examination by Israel’s elected representatives. The people entrusted with the dispensation of public funds towards implementing policy are in fact denied a transparent breakdown of this major portion of the budget. This has been the case for over sixty years, a perfect hothouse for corruption.

For decades now, Israel’s army and its security administration have enforced a brutal and criminal occupation upon the Palestinian people. At the very least, this choice of ostentatious venue reveals an arrogant, callous indifference to the intense human suffering inflicted by the military organization being honored by the Waldorf Astoria event. The Palestinian people withstanding this suffering are largely disregarded or viciously stereotyped and demonized both within and outside of Israel. In rallying to support Israel’s military, the “Friends of the IDF” align themselves with those acts of erasure and oppression. Their funding and fundraising help uphold the impunity with which such criminal acts continue to be committed. Perhaps less obviously, the “Friends of the IDF” also align themselves with a force that systematically undoes the democratic values and rights of all the people living in the state which the so-called Israel Defense Force claims to protect.

The gala event at the Waldorf Astoria, described on the “Friends of the IDF” website is “themed around the concept of education.” Indeed, education is one of the most militarized areas of civil society in Israel. The state education system, designed to perpetuate obedience to conscription law, produces and maintains the systemic militarization of state and society as it aggressively channels minors from a very young age towards enlistment. The end result – a population of young people with little critical capacity to make informed choices about conscription – is largely achieved by integrating a polarized, militarized world view into almost every aspect of school curricula. The system imbues youngsters with military-centered views, effectively entrenching paranoia while presenting the army as attractive and exciting. Students and teachers are commonly required to participate in lessons offered on school premises by uniformed officers and to visit a variety of military units in programs designed to naturalize armed conflict and enthuse future candidates for conscription. Enormous pressures both convince and oblige teachers to legitimize and normalize the militarized policy choices of warfare and to justify mandatory conscription. Precluding the encouragement of critical thinking, this means, in effect that Israeli youth are being educated as executors of the ongoing occupation of Palestine.

The feminist, anti-militarist movement with which both of us are active has been working for over a decade now to challenge and reverse Israel’s militarization, its onslaught of destruction and self-destruction. Along with all of the members of New Profile: Movement for the Civil-ization of Israeli Society, we are honored to stand with those who protest this event, exposing and denouncing what it stands for. From within Israel, we join the voices raised against Israel’s impunity, against Israel’s war crimes, against Israel’s affront to human rights and democracy.

Dr. Diana Dolev teaches at two schools of design in Israel and researches the connections between national identity and architecture. Her PhD dissertation analyzed the militarization of the Mt. Scopus campus of the Hebrew University, Jerusalem.

Diana has been an activist since 1980 when she facilitated a group of Palestinian and Jewish students at the “Education for Peace” program at Ben Gurion University, Beer Sheva, later introducing the curriculum into six high schools in Israel. In 1987, Diana established a branch of the Association for Civil Rights (ACRI) in Beer Sheva then going on to found the “Gaza Team,” which petitioned Israeli authorities against human rights violations in the Gaza Strip. The team collected detailed testimonies and succeeded in exposing Israeli atrocities in the mainstream media.

Since initiating a weekly Woman in Black vigil in Beer Sheva in 1989, Diana has been active with WIB, and a member of the organizing committee of the August 2005 international WIB conference in Jerusalem.

Diana has been an active member of New Profile since the founding event in 1998, mainly focusing her work with New Profile in the educational team.

Dear friends and supporters,

We would like to begin by letting you know, once again, that we truly appreciate your continuing interest and support. They have been crucial in enabling us at New Profile to withstand extended harassment and to keep up our work.

Over the last two years, we have faced a series of direct challenges to our longtime efforts towards demilitarizing state and society in Israel. As you may remember, in March 2008, New Profile was notified that its non-profit status was under review by the official body in charge of non-profits in Israel (the Fellowship of Societies Registrar). At the end of May 2008, New Profile learned that a rightwing non-profit had petitioned the High Court of Justice, requesting that it instruct the Registrar to revoke our legal status and effectively block our legal funding channel. Then, in September 2008, the State Prosecutor’s office announced a criminal investigation of New Profile’s activities. Over six months later, in April, this was followed by a highly publicized police raid immediately prior to Israel’s Memorial Day, which clearly drew on the loaded emotions aroused by the rituals commemorating military dead. Police knocked at the doors and searched the homes of six New Profile activists across the country, summoning each of them for interrogation. Personal computers, including some belonging to family members, were impounded by the police and held (in most cases) for a month. Over the following two weeks, eight more activists were interrogated regarding their activities and connections with New Profile.

On November 1, 2009, over a year after announcing a criminal investigation, the State Prosecutor’s Office notified the High Court of Justice that it was terminating proceedings against New Profile for lack of culpability and lack of evidence. On January 26, 2010, we received notification from the Registrar’s office that its investigation too had been concluded. The Registrar recommended that the High Court announce its dismissal outright of the petition to declare New Profile illegal and ineligible for financial support. We still await the final decision of the High Court of Justice, at the hearing set for later this year, although, given the above, this official ruling is apparently a formality.

While we are clearly relieved that this turn of events has been resolved without incriminating the activities and activists of New Profile, the process has required a great deal of energy, attention and other organizational resources. Meanwhile, we are also witnessing intensified attempts on the part of other branches of government to silence the dissenting voice that New Profile represents. The Ministry of Education and the minister at its head, Gidon Sa’ar, are leading players in a relatively new attempt to gag us.

Notably, on the 1^st of December, 2009, hundreds of high school principals were summoned to hear Israel’s Chief of Staff expounding his views on the significance of education for enlistment. A peaceful attempt by New Profile activists to offer participants leaflets questioning the militarization of Israeli education was forcibly blocked by security guards and later by the police. Later, in mid-December, Hebrew media channels reported a directive from the Minister of Education barring high schools from hosting New Profile speakers. This, in turn, led to the cancellation of New Profile participation in a series of high school events dedicated to human rights and civic freedoms, including freedom of expression. The series, organized by the highly respected Association for Civil Rights in Israel, was consequently cancelled altogether. These moves are symptomatic of the militarized considerations increasingly constricting the space for free civil debate. Part of a declared government policy to stem a growing non-conscription movement, such educational policies intentionally feed future conscripts’ propensity for uncritical, blind obedience, of the kind that can produce behaviors such as those seen in Gaza in December-January 2009.

The above steps are just a single part of a much wider drive to silence dissent and opposition being conducted by the government in tandem with its supporting (and very well supported) non-profit groups. Some other aspects of this campaign include: a revamped, vitriolic public campaign against refusal to serve in the military; smear campaigns aimed at other non-profits and most pointedly at those that supported the findings and recommendations of the UN-issued “Goldstone Report;” personal witch hunts against progressively leaning personages such as former Knesset Member and current New Israel Fund president, Prof. Naomi Chazan; the arrest and imprisonment of Palestinian activists leading non-violent protests; and, increasingly, detainment and deportation of international activists.

Drawing on the vital resource of your support and encouragement, and despite the onslaught, New Profile continues its entire scope of activities. While maintaining a publicly voiced critical analysis of the militarization of Israeli society and, in particular, of Israeli education, we continue supporting the young refusers who currently face increasing demonization, also creating safe spaces for young people who wish to discuss and examine their roles in state and society.

In the next few weeks, after eleven years of activity, we will finally be inaugurating our own meeting space and starting a catalogued, organizational archive. Preparations have just begun for a sixth annual alternative summer community for youth sponsored by New Profile. In April, one of New Profile’s activists will be touring the West Cost as part of a speaking tour sponsored jointly by the US-based Refusers Solidarity Network and the Resource Center for Non-Violence of Santa Cruz. Detailed news on other recent New Profile actions will soon follow this update.

A substantial and, to us, extremely meaningful portion of New Profile’s activities are made possible by the contributions, both large and small, of many individuals who support and believe in our work. We wish to acknowledge the importance of what each of you has been doing, either in contributing financially, in following and spreading our information, in writing to support imprisoned refusers or to protest to authorities.

We sincerely hope that those of you who are able will continue to make donations to New Profile, especially in these financially unstable times.  Here are instructions on how to donate.

Thank you all once again.

Rela Mazali and Ruth Hiller

Watch an Al-Jazeera profile of the group’s work here:

Ruth Hiller, mother of 6, is a longtime peace activist and one of the original founders of New Profile. Four of her children refused to serve in the Israeli military. Her oldest son, Yinnon, was the first pacifist in Israel to get an exemption from the military via an appeal to the High Court of Justice (though the army released him at the last minute — ostensibly on grounds of ‘unfitness’ — to avoid an actual court ruling, which would have established more of a legal precedent). This was a-six-year struggle with the military and through the courts. ). It is a unique story in the history of refusal in Israel. Ruth has published several reflective pieces on this process and on her involvement in New Profile, English, German, and Italian venues.