Conscientious objection

The Broken Rifle is the newsletter of War Resisters' International, and is usually published in English, Spanish, French and German.

This is issue 58, May 2003.

This issue of The Broken Rifle was produced by Andreas Speck, Sergeiy Sandler, Shani Werner, Huwaida Araf, and Peretz Kidron, with help from Alberto Estefania, Tikiri, and many others, who provided the information used in this issue.

This issue was made possible through the financial support of American Friends Service Committee, Objecion Fiscal, and The Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust.

There is a lot of material available on conscientious objection to military service in Israel.

This is only a brief selection of materials, mostly available on the internet.

War Resisters' International

WRI publishes material on Israel regularly.

The most important WRI publications are:

Panorama- the Palestinian Center for the Dissemination of Democracy & Community Development

www.panoramacenter.org

Ramallah panorama@panoramacenter.org Tel: +972-2-2959618 Fax: +972-2-2981824

Jerusalem: walid@panoramacenter.org Tel: +972-2-6281151 Fax: +972-2-6283351

Gaza: panoramag@panoramacenter.org Fax: +972-8-2839188

Huwaida Araf

The International Solidarity Movement (ISM) was founded to support and strengthen the Palestinian nonviolent resistance to Israeli occupation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The Palestinian people, who have been dispossessed since 1948 -- over 750,000 driven from their lands for the establishment of the Israeli state, and approximately 3 million who have been living under Israeli military occupation in the West Bank and Gaza since 1967 -- over the years have adopted various means of struggle in an attempt to regain their homeland.

Peretz Kidron

Andreas Speck

The situation of Druze conscientious objectors does not receive much attention - neither from the media, nor from the peace movement inside Israel, nor from abroad.

The Druze form a minority within the Arab population of Israel. When Israel introduced military service in 1949, it was supposed to be compulsory for all Arab and Palestinian men.

Israel is the only country with conscription for women. Shani Werner, a woman activist with the Shministim and with New Profile, takes a look at women's draft resistance.

Shani Werner

Israel is the only country in the world that practises conscription for women. It is thus also the only country in the world where women's draft resistance exists.

Support to Israeli conscientious objectors is needed War Resisters' International Executive, 23 February 2003

The Executive Committee of War Resisters' International, the 81-year-old international network of pacifist organisations with 90 affiliates in 45 countries, expressed its grave concern about the situation of conscientious objectors to military service in Israel during its Executive meeting in London this weekend.

Yesh Gvul have found over the years that an effective way of supporting jailed refuseniks, is by having them adopted by support groups from outside of Israel.

Sergeiy Sandler

CCPR/CO/77/LUX
15 April 2003

(...)

7. The Committee notes, on the one hand, that the State party grants financial assistance to the Christian and Jewish communities only and, on the other hand, that the criteria (such as membership of a religion recognized worldwide and officially in at least one European Union country) may give rise to problems as far as their compatibility with the provisions of articles 18, 26 and 27 of the Covenant is concerned.

CCPR/CO/77/EST
15 April 2003

(...)

15. The Committee is concerned that the duration of alternative service for conscientious objectors may be up to twice as long as the duration of regular military service.

The State party is under an obligation to ensure that conscientious objectors can opt for alternative service, the duration of which is without punitive effect (articles 18 and 26 of the Covenant).

(...)