Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Live Saturday

Group of Israeli Soldiers Refuses to Fight on West Bank

Aired April 27, 2002 - 12:15   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: More on the Middle East crisis, and an aspect of the story that you might not have heard much about. A small number of Israeli soldiers are not following their marching orders. They are called refuseniks, willing to fight for Israel but unwilling to fight in the West Bank offensive. Our Christiane Amanpour has their story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In February, a group of Israeli soldiers started a campaign, refusing to serve in the West Bank in Gaza, declaring Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories "unethical, unbearable and unjustified." To date, 435 reserve soldiers have signed on. It's a small number, and they are seemingly out of step with a massive response to Israel's call up for Operation Defensive Shield.

This is how pediatrician David Zangen sees it. He was amongst the majority who came to serve, as chief medical officer for the Israeli combat units in Jenin.

DAVID ZANGEN, RESERVE MEDICAL OFFICER: I was so proud of our own people, because the show-up for this operation was over 100 percent, everybody wanted to volunteer, everyone understood that he defends his own home, his own children, and everybody came. There was no such situations as somebody refused; in all our divisions, there were none, not one that did not show up.

AMANPOUR: But Noam Shizaf refused to go to Jenin, and he has just emerged from punishment in prison.

NOAM SHIZAF, RESERVE LT. INFANTRY: I appreciate the people who went there. These are my friends, and some of them were hurt and they paid a great price personally, and they put their life in danger, and they believed they were doing the right thing.

I disagree on their way and I disagree on the way our government is using our willingness to serve in doing things that does not serve the interests of the Israeli people, but serve the interests of the politicians, of the government, of the Likud Party and of Sharon personally.

AMANPOUR: Noam and a group of his fellow refuseniks gathered to talk to us about why they have decided to become conscientious objectors.

This is not a radical left wing group of pacifists, they say. They are all active reservists, all combat soldiers, who, like David Zonshein, have fought and will continue to fight external wars of aggression.

DAVID ZONSHEIN, RESERVE LT. PARATROOPERS: I think that occupying the territories is very bad for Israel and very bad for Israeli interests.

AMANPOUR (on camera): The people who disagree with you say that you are a traitor to your country.

ZONSHEIN: I'm not a traitor. This is ridiculous to call me a traitor. A traitor -- I fought Hezbollah not once, not twice, I sacrificed my life not once or twice.

AMANPOUR (voice-over): David co-founded this movement, which also has support from non-combatants throughout the country.

Professor Ariel Rubenstein, winner of this year's prestigious Israel Prize.

PROF. ARIEL RUBENSTEIN, PRINCETON AND TEL AVIV UNIVERSITIES: You know, a nation needs bodyguards and the nation needs soul guards. For me, these are the soul guards of the Jewish people. I am an Israeli, I am a Zionist, but first of all I am a Jew. Jewish people cannot afford, the Jewish people cannot afford to be occupiers of other people.

AMANPOUR: Nil Gov no longer wants to enforce the occupation.

NIL GOV, RESERVE 1ST SGT. INFANTRY: In one word, they are not free, and you are not free also just by being their occupier. The fact that you can stop any car along the road if there happens to be a roadblock, take any person out of these cars, line them up against the side of the road, look through their luggage and make them feel like they are worthless, and your gun is pointed at them and they are just nothing and you have all the power. And something like that happens day after day, year after year, for -- what -- 35 years now. This is what I object against.

AMANPOUR: Ben-Ami Gov is Nil's father, a highly decorated retired air force colonel. He has fought in every war since '48. It took him a long time to accept and support his son's actions, but he says he has now come to the conclusion that Israel's occupation and settlements are a historic mistake.

BEN-AMI GOV, AIR FORCE COL. (RET.): At the same time, I am against the actions of the Palestinians. I am against the terror. I think that the terror is bad, has no moral justification. But at the same time, I looked at these guys and I said, they are touching at the most sensitive consensus and ethos of the Israeli existence, and this is the army. For us, the army, the defense forces was always outside any argument, of any discussion, and we always looked at the army as the savior of the existence of Israel. If they take the courage, if they are ready to risk their future, their career and everything, and including to go to jail, in order to shock the system, I must support them.

AMANPOUR: Indeed the point of their action, says Amit Mashiah, is to try to stir up an internal debate, even now in this moment of national crisis.

AMIT MASHIAH, RESERVE STAFF SGT. ARTILLERY: We serve as a pressure group. We are a constant reminder to our leaders that there is no military solution to this problem.

AMANPOUR (on camera): Do you think it will work, given your relatively few numbers?

MASHIAH: We believe there is no other solution. We believe that eventually an agreement will be achieved. We believe that both leaders today are incapable of achieving that agreement, and therefore they drag their people into this bloodshed.

N. GOV: I think that by refusing, I state that there is an option for the Israeli people and for the Palestinians to act differently than the way their government asks them to act. This is a message for both people. We don't have to do, we don't have to go on with this fighting. I expect Palestinians to act the same way as much as they can.

MASHIAH: If you want to live in Israel, it's because you care, because there are places that are far less difficult to live in. And I think what unites all of the Israeli people is that they care. They care about their country, they care about society, and we do as well. And this is exactly why we believe that our fight is crucial for Israel's future.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: Well, they're risking everything, willing to go to jail. Is this just the beginning of the journey for the refuseniks? We go back now to Jerusalem, where our CNN's Jerrold Kessel is now. He's joined there now by the "Jerusalem Report" editor David Horovitz.

JERROLD KESSEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Thanks very much, Fredricka, and thanks very much, David Horovitz, editor of the "Jerusalem Report." Thanks for joining us.

I just want to -- before we get to the refuseniks, we have got an interesting development today with the attack on the Jewish settlement in the West Bank. Four Israelis, including a young child, killed there. How much of an effect do you think this will have, if we try to assess Israeli mood and dissent and support for Ariel Sharon's policies? Will this affect the growing confidence that Israelis have had since Mr. Sharon launched this mission, this operation? Will it erode that? Will it erode the support, the belief that that mission was important?

DAVID HOROVITZ, EDITOR, "JERUSALEM REPORT": I think it has been a very fragile rebuilding of confidence. I don't think Israelis think, oh, that's it, we've solved terrorism. I think there's been a sort of slight reemergence of people into the streets and into the restaurants. But they didn't delude themselves that the attack were over, and I think this will be seen by most Israelis as almost inevitable. I don't think it will hugely erode their support for the operation or for Ariel Sharon, because at the roots of it, you see, is this huge overwhelming mainstream Israeli sense of betrayal by Yasser Arafat. And unless they see really a change of policy from the Palestinian leadership, a real effort to thwart terrorism, I don't think they are going to feel significantly more comfortable.

KESSEL: Is that why when we heard in Christiane Amanpour's report of these mainstream people themselves who were saying that they were trying to shock the system, these reserve officers, by saying, wake up, there's something wrong in the occupation. But the effect is not being felt. Why? Because of this lack of belief in Yasser Arafat rather than a lack of belief in Ariel Sharon?

HOROVITZ: Yeah, I don't think they're mainstream people. I think they're very marginal people. We're talking about a few hundred people at a time when there was a call-up of tens of thousands, and more people that were called turned out. I think most Israelis feel that these people, these refuseniks, if you like, are tragically misguided. They feel that if they want to oppose the occupation, then do this through the political process. Most Israelis think that the 18 months, 19 months of intifadah is not merely against the occupation, which they feel the last Israeli government actually tried to end. They think it's an effort to end Israel, and they believe these soldiers are really playing into Israel's enemy hands.

KESSEL: So is it likely to be a growing phenomenon, even if, say, you get more attacks like the attack today, which means that perhaps this massive military operation in the West Bank in the Palestinian cities was not all that successful?

HOROVITZ: I don't think you're going to see a huge increase in people doing that. I think you are going to feel -- if particularly if the Palestinians -- you see, if all along they had targeted merely settlements, then I think you would have had an incredible debate in Israel about the issue of occupation and so on. But the very fact that most of these attacks were taking place -- and suicide bombings -- taking place in Netanya, in Tel Aviv and Haifa -- that convinced most Israelis that there was no other conclusion for them to draw, other than this was an effort not merely to end the occupation but to end Israel.

And unless they see a real shift on the Palestinian side and from the international community -- they want to to see the international community instead of badgering Ariel Sharon to bring out the troops to stop trying to prevent bombings, they want international pressure directed at the Palestinian leadership. They want the international community to say to Yasser Arafat, you cannot pre-arrange attacks on civilians. Then, if there were a shift on the Palestinian side, then I think you'd start to feel a real debate inside Israel.

KESSEL: But did you feel these offices and these refuseniks are traitors?

HOROVITZ: I'm sure some people do. I think most people feel -- I mean, we're not really interested here in banding around demonic terminology. Most Israelis think they're misguided. They think they're foolish. They're misunderstanding the full picture here.

KESSEL: Yet we do sense that, you know, polls show that Ariel Sharon has maybe two-thirds of the Israelis behind him. That's much up from before the operation started. That has been consistent through this military operation. And yet there's a good deal of dissent, because two-thirds isn't 100 percent, it's not even 90 percent. In other words, there is a good deal of dissent. How is that reflected?

HOROVITZ: Well, these are very interesting statistics, but they seem to be contradictory, because as you've rightly said, there has been a 65 to 30 approval rating for Sharon in one of the recent polls. At the same time, there was a majority in Israel in the same poll saying, we want to go to an international conference based on the Saudi peace initiative, which of course calls for Israel to dismantle all the settlements and pull back to the '67 borders. So that doesn't make sense.

Most Israelis support Sharon, and yet most Israelis are saying, go back to the '67 borders. It only makes sense when you understand that key point: Israelis desperate for peace, most Israelis favoring ending the occupation, few Israelis believing that this can be achieved with Yasser Arafat.

KESSEL: So if there are those dissenters out there from the Sharon policies, how does it express itself? Clearly not, you say, by the refuseniks, even if they might grow in small numbers, but not by people choosing not go into the army. Will that dissent be reflected in any way, politically -- or what?

HOROVITZ: Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't get carried away. There is a small proportion of the country that maybe sees options that it feels the Israeli government didn't take. I don't think there will be any real strong debate in Israel, unless or until there is a sense that there is someone to talk to on the other side.

The moment that happens, I think you'll see it. I think -- you just got to look at recent history. Israel in '99 voted out Netanyahu, under whom they felt safe, in favor of Barak to try and make peace. They feel Arafat rebuffed them; they moved back to the right again. If they feel Palestinian leadership emerges that really wants reconciliation, two-state co-existence, they again will swing toward moderation.

KESSEL: Quickly, finally that dissent comes if the United States says to Israel we, as George Bush, President Bush, has said time and again, I'm acting as Israel's friend, you need to do this that and the other. Will the dissent come to the floor then and challenge Ariel Sharon's policies then?

HOROVITZ: I think it might, but I think more Israelis are saying to themselves, what is wrong with the Americans? Why, instead of pressuring us, and they are supposed to be our allies, are they not pressuring Arafat? Because by pressuring us, what are they really saying? They're saying you have to absorb these suicide bombings without response. Most Israelis simply don't understand that.

KESSEL: Thank you very much, David Horovitz of "The Jerusalem Report."

And I think you have there, Fredricka, a fair sense of the fact that while there may be dissent from Ariel Sharon's policies to a limited level, doesn't seem to be in any way, as David Horovitz was saying, that this will come to reflection until the Israelis sense that there's dissent from the kind of policies they see Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian leadership pursuing on the Palestinian side. That does seem to be the dominant Israeli perception.

WHITFIELD: All right. Thank you very much, Jerrold, as well as David. Appreciate it.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com