#idf conscripts

[news4dzhozhar]

Another short clip of another former IDF soldier angry with politicians who continue to send conscripts to war & provide no psychological support once their service has ended and they are "damaged goods" with PTSD.

[nando161mando]

[? / Israel]

Conscription protesters are repeatedly assaulted. A police officer makes feeble gestures to stop the violence.

This is part of a long campaign against conscription (and other state efforts) which has been met by both police and civil violence.

[slicedblackolives]

IDF when they have to take on someone older than 16 who isn’t an unarmed medic treating patients: *instadeath*

[an-onyx-void]

Plan to end ultra-Orthodox students’ military exemption sparks row in Israel | Israel | The Guardian

[fairuzfan]

Hey, so I just saw your "Normalize making IDF soldiers social pariahs" post (the replied on it were turned off so I couldn't say this there). I am by no means disagreeing with and I am definitely not saying that this applies to every IDF soldier or even the Canadian cyclist mentioned, but I really do want to point out that conscription is a Thing in Israel and nobody has a choice whether or not they serve - and also that there are hundreds, if not thousands, of current IDF soldiers who are willingly serving who hate the war in Palestine as much as we do

TL;DR - Deciding to treat an entire group of people as social pariahs is what got us into this mess in the first place - the actions of one doesn't speak for the group

you can dodge a draft, muhammad ali did it and went to jail. Tal in israel did it and he went to prison for 30 days. i dont really have any sympathy for idf soldiers. i dont super care that theyre conscripted, if they actually really did disagree enough they would leave the army. Here's a testimony from a former IDF soldier who left the IDF after they realized that they were participating in the murder of children and families. To emphasize, I think IDF soldiers who participated in the IDF and are taking active steps to counter their past should not be treated like social pariahs.

joining the army is not treated with the scorn it should be. like at all. so if we show people that you cant live in peace if you participated in the harassment and murder of palestinians, then less people will be willing to put themselves in "danger" and not join the army. because even if they weren't committing the most obvious form of genocide now, they still harrass and accost palestinians as their least lethal form of intimidation that they regularly participate in, even outside of gaza.

What got us into this mess is the colonization of palestine and racism. You can choose to be a soldier or not.

[applesauce42069]

IDF service is mandatory for israeli citizens. it is compulsory. you will be conscripted when you turn 18. there are exceptions and not everyone has to serve but these exceptions do not apply to the "average" person. if you are a child in israel you grow up with the expectation of serving in the IDF. this is presented as correct and necessary to you. most people do not see a problem because they are taught not to. i will also assume that most young israelis do not know what the IDF actually does until they join. not everyone who joins the IDF will have active service or be put behind a gun, but they will do some work for the IDF.

this is obviously fucked up. i think it also maintains the stasis that israeli society finds itself in. the leadership demands that the current system keep going, and if you're israeli the current system 100% has involved or still involves members of your family or perhaps even you. it creates a collective complicity. if you condemn the IDF and its actions it means you're condemning your own family. you can react to this with disgust and push away from it and therefore face social consequences or you can double down and justify and deny.

i do not take any of this lightly. the only reason why i do not have to serve in the IDF is because i was born abroad and live abroad. there is one piece of paper that stands between me having to choose between the IDF and Israeli military prison.

so no, the 18 year old teenagers who choose to go to prison rather than serving the IDF are not doing the "bare minimum." they are more personally impacted by everything going on there than most of you keyboard warriors will ever be and they are doing more and facing more consequences for it than you.

when they refuse to serve they are not only, on an individual level, refusing to take part in the IDF but they are challenging the entire system of conscription, the whole military complex of the IDF. perhaps others will see what they're doing and join them. perhaps they will demand a new norm. perhaps this will lead to changes that are helpful to everyone.

because despite the odds these teenagers are able to recognize what the IDF is doing and why it is wrong and then shoulder the very real personal consequences of LITERALLY GOING TO PRISON for refusing to take part in it.

[neotrances]

remembering that twitter swiftie that went to jail instead of serving in the idf. that girl had more backbone and moral conviction than anyone of those ‘oh wah i was conscripted and forced to kill a fuckload of people, don’t blame me’ shitheads. don’t try to play it off like you had no choice, you could have taken the jail time instead of turning into murderer

a swiftie has more backbone than some of u

[lizardsfromspace]

I'm not actually sure what Very Online types think should happen in Palestine and I don't think they're sure either bc what is this

We shouldn't praise a teenager resisting the draft too hard bc. Bc...? I struggle to even parse what's being said here. It's guff about how "the bar is really this low" and then a reminder of how "we are seeing what is happening to Palestinians...and this is what people are uplifting?" but like. What does that mean though

They want Israeli oppression of Palestine to cease, but we can't be happy that a teenager refused to join in that oppression? So what should we do. Should we not encourage teens to resist the draft in a country with mandatory military service, heavy propaganda, and that has organized society to heavily stigmatize resisting military service? No, genuinely, what do they want people to do? We need the occupation to end, but also can't support anyone who's fighting for that to happen, since uhhh is the bar really this low??? Would it have been better if he joined the IDF

(do people not know Israel has mandatory military service? I've seen people agreeing with this by saying "refusing to join is the bare minimum, deciding to enlist is horrific". But they're not enlisting, it's conscription. Do they think this person enlisted then withdrew or something...? And why would that not be worth celebrating???)

The answer is ofc this person hasn't really thought about any of this. It's just raging id and an idea that engaging in online discourse is what's truly helpful. It's like the people who treated Hozier as if he was some pro-genocide goon for saying there needs to be "peace" in a statement far more condemnatory than most, since...I still don't know. "How can you talk about peace when one side's oppressing the other?" Well ending that is what peace is, definitionally speaking. How else will it end but with a treaty

The scenario here seems to be, we need the genocide and occupation to end. But also we can't support any Israelis trying to stop it, and should be sus of activism in general. Also we can't talk about "peace" in any way. We just need to post about how it should happen

Anyway when people pointed this out they instantly locked replies and said the "kumbaya libs found it 💔"

It reminds me of those people who swarm any story about Russian anti-war activists by saying it doesn't matter unless they personally assassinate Putin. Like cool. I guess people in the oppressor state should just do nothing to oppose it then if they can't fix anything. Screaming at someone who refuses to join the military that it's actually very problematic that they aren't joining in the oppression, when there's so much oppression to oppose instead of praising them for refusing to join the oppression

[fursasaida]

"What is described here is not 'use of human shields', but rather a much more severe crime: forced conscription of a civilian to act as a suicide bomber on behalf of the IDF. That being said, there is ample evidence that the IDF is also using human shields in recent weeks"

this man was arrested by the IDF, had explosives and a camera strapped to him and a leash put on him, and forced to walk down tunnels so soldiers could check for Hamas fighters via the camera - and detonate him if they saw any. (Presumably of they saw anyone at all, given their disinterest in making any distinctions.) After they let him go they specifically chose "someone younger" to do the same - a 15 year old boy.

The horror is unimaginable.

Note: this is from eyewitness testimony, via a translator, via Mouin Rabbani. Rabbani notes it has not been further verified. The thread does include commentary regarding what makes this account credible. The Arabic account this is translated from is here.

[sayruq]

Here's more of what's been happening on the ground. (Once again I'm not an expert in war).

Palestinian fighters are still waging war on the state of Israel

It is clear that Hamas and other groups have access to anti aircraft weaponry and long range missiles, partly from looting Israeli bases but partly from (and this is unconfirmed) from the Russia-Ukraine war. It's not unexpected for weapons to end up smuggled into other countries during a war.

On the other hand, Israel went from swearing it would invade Gaza on the ground to doing just about anything but that

It's understandable why Israel would hesitate even with its 300,000 strong army

IDF is made up of mostly conscripted soldiers who normally act as civilians once they've served their 2.5 year mandatory conscription. Not only that, IDF acts more like a police force than an army. Its soldiers simply don't have the training or mentality to fight militia groups in their home turf.

America itself doubts its capabilities no matter how it words it. This is a country that has yet to win against a guerilla army so it has experience when it comes to this

Edit:

Edit 2: above Hamas states the obvious

In my previous post I highlighted how disorganised the Israel military was in response to Operation Flood Al Aqsa.

This hasn't changed in the days. Israel is behaving more like a cornered animal lashing out than the so called 'strongest army in the Middle East.'

It has been dropping bombs on Syria, Lebanon and Egypt aimlessly, more out of anger than calculated strategy

Its efforts to pushing back against the Palestinian militia isn't going well either

in addition to naked, barbaric cruelty towards Gaza because it is not producing results elsewhere

The tweet below is important as Russia is an Israeli ally. The Israeli right wing has been very favourable towards Putin, even willing to disagree with the US and EU policies on Russia. However Israel repeatedly bombing Syria is quickly souring Russia on the country. While Putin doesn't want to go against Israel at this point, he has become increasingly critical of the country in the past couple of days.

Saudi went from making a half-hearted 'both sides need to stop statements to cutting ties with Israel (ties Israel and America have worked very hard to form) to outrightly condemning Israel's treatment of the people of Gaza.

Naturally, with all of this happening, Israel has responded, not with ceasing the bombardment of Gaza, but by killing and assaulting journalists covering the genocide.

so that it could committ war crimes without it being documented and seen by the world. War crimes such as announcing that they'd bomb a hospital in Gaza and giving doctors and nurses just hours to evacuate their patients.

This, btw, is part of the reason they cut electricity so that Palestinians can't post their own genocide on social media. Israel brutality is costing them allies but they have no intention of stopping.

Despite all of this, there has been a great deal of support for Palestinians globally

In short, this war is not going the way Israel thought it would. They didn't crush Hamas and the other Palestinian military groups immediately after the battle of Re'im. In fact, they're still struggling against those groups right now. They've been humiliated in front of the world after being revealed to be paper tigers and as such, they're going after Palestinian civilians in increasingly horrific ways.

The Palestinian resistance is still optimistic and they're still carrying out their plan. There's still hope for a future without apartheid.

[deepspaceboytoy]

Needless to say I would pay literally any amount of money to watch a bunch of combat-battered IDF conscripts have to gun down Itamar Ben-Gvir and a pack of rabid pro rape protestors in the opening salvo of the Israeli civil war

[boreal-sea]

I see a lot of posts noting that wishing for the deaths of innocent civilians is bad, no matter if they're Palestinian or Israeli. This is 100% true.

But...

I also don't want anyone in the IDF to die.

I also don't want anyone in Hamas to die.

Like, I genuinely mean it. I don't want anyone else to die, even if they are combatants.

Service in the IDF is mandatory. The government of Israel forces teens who are barely adults to serve in the military. Personally, a military full of forced conscripts is a military full of innocent civilians. Many IDF soldiers never would have chosen that life. You cannot dehumanize and demonize people who are victims of their government.

Hamas recruits soldiers of all ages into its ranks through propaganda. It treats all of its civilians as theoretical soldiers, as martyrs in waiting. Resisting Hamas as a Palestinian is a recipe for physical abuse and even losing your life. Coerced service is not true service. Many Hamas soldiers are just desperate people who want a better life.

Are there a lot of Islamophobes in the IDF, and a lot of antisemites in Hamas? Yep. I am not here to call these people innocent. I am here to remind you they are people, despite their flaws. Despite their status as "combatants", they are still individual human beings. Their lives and dreams matter.

They deserve to put down their guns. They deserve peace, too.

[laineystein]

i personally don’t support war and find blindly serving any military awful. I don’t mean to be rude i just wonder why you think that defending israel is the only way to garuntee jewish safety? that feels like taking responsibility off of other countries and leaving diaspora jews vunerable. im really just anti military but this conflict has been awful and i hope for the safety of all jewish people israelis muslims and palestinians but no safety to a government of right wingers

I admire your bravery in reaching out when I don’t have anon turned on. Few would, so good on you.

First off, I’m not serving blindly. None of the soldiers I’m serving with are serving blindly. We all believe in what we’re doing and we’re going to keep doing it until the mission is done and all of our people are safe again. I could get into the nuances of conscription and reserves but I’m not going to. With confidence, succinctly, none of us are serving blindly. (I’m also employed by the IDF outside of reserves so I assure you that I, in particular, love my army and believe in what we stand for.)

I don’t *think* that defending Israel is the only way to guarantee Jewish safety. I know it is. We are a country surrounded by homicidal antisemites. Hamas has stated that they will continue doing what they did on October 7th until we cease to exist. There is no peace for the Israeli or Palestinian people with Hamas still in power. So we’re destroying their tunnels and we’re rooting them out and we’re here for our hostages. Let’s play devils advocate - if Israel didn’t exist do you all honestly think that Hamas and all other Iran proxies would just allow Jews and the Western world to live in peace? Because they wouldn’t. Y’all should be grateful that we’re here because if we weren’t, they’d be killing Jews elsewhere. Don’t let them fool you into believing this is about land. They. Hate. Jews. And Israel is the only place in the world where Jews can truly defend themselves. My grandfather survived the Holocaust BH and he always says that they didn’t have a way to defend themselves in the camps. They weren’t organized. They didn’t have weapons. They didn’t have the upper hand. Well now we’re organized and we’re armed and we’re trained. Never again will we be helpless - thanks to Israel.

“That feels like taking the responsibility off of other countries” - what responsibility? To protect Jews? To persecute Hamas? Feh! None of that will ever happen. Not once has any other country *saved* the Jewish people. And, actually, often times people are turning a blind eye to our persecution - like most of the world did on and after and ever since October 7th. Like they did during the Holocaust. Like they have every time Hamas and PIJ indiscriminately fire rockets at Israel. As I said, never again will our safety be in anyone else’s hands because the world has shown us time and time again that they do not care.

“Leaving diaspora Jews vulnerable” is an insane way to blame the victim. WE WERE ATTACKED. But do you think we needed to be attacked for people to hate Jews? No, this has just empowered them to do so out loud. There has always been a correlation between anti-Israel hate and violence against Jews in the diaspora. In May of 2021 when 4000+ rockets were fired into Israel, goyim in the diaspora took this as permission to act out their antisemitic fantasies. Again when WE WERE ATTACKED. Don’t forget - People were celebrating our massacre before Israel even set foot in Gaza. Don’t let the world fool you into thinking that Israel defending ourselves has created antisemitism in the diaspora, it’s only encouraged it.

I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt here and assume you are not Jewish. I don’t know how to explain this conflict to you - a conflict I have lived my entire life (like my parents and grandparents before me). I don’t know how to share my pain and grief and the pain and grief of my tribe in a way that will make sense. But I’m done needing to justify my existence as a Jew. Israel is done justifying its existence as the homeland of the Jewish people. History has shown us that our survival is our responsibility and I/we won’t apologize for it. The same people that are too cowardly to stand up for us when our people are killed and raped can keep their mouths shut when we defend ourselves.

And it seems like maybe you didn’t read this post that I shared today which really would have answered a lot of this without me needing to go on a sleep deprived rant.

[girlactionfigure]

Two things to understand about the Druze and Hezbollah:

1. There is a reason the Druze community is so beloved in @Israel and remains fiercely loyal to the state – unlike those who fought the Jews or fled in 1948, the Druze who found themselves within the newly drawn borders made a decision to link their destiny to that of the Jewish people and demanded they be conscripted to the @IDF  just like them.

To this day they remain the only non-Jewish citizens with mandatory conscription, serving at a higher proportion than even Jewish Israelis. They are also uniquely intelligent, with 4 out of the top 6 high schools in Israel belonging to the Druze community.

Who are these Druze citizens who for decades have fought shoulder-to-shoulder with Jewish, Muslim and Christian Israelis in all of Israel’s wars? They are an Arab/Arabic-speaking sect that originated from a branch of Shia Islam, although today they are not considered Muslims and maintain their own monotheistic religion that was influenced by Christianity and many others along the way.

When the ignorant masses of the world attack Israel in word and in deed, they are attacking Jews and Arabs in equal measure.

I have spent time with members of the Druze community since October 7. They can tell you the name of every single soldier who fell in battle since. They are a very close-knit people who cherish their land and those who’ve made the greatest sacrifice for it. They are an inseparable part of the State of Israel.

We owe them everything.

2. Hezbollah is not a terrorist organization. They are the Lebanese government. They sit in parliament. They run ministries. They control the country. Hezbollah is Lebanon. Lebanon is Hezbollah.

The citizens of Israel's north – Arabs and Jews – have been suffering quietly under daily rocket fire for 9.5 months as they deferred to the urgency of the southern front. That urgency has steadily been transferred from south to north, punctuated by yesterday's horrific attack on these beautiful Druze children.

The rules for state-on-state war are not the same as when fighting groups like Hamas who control an independent territory such as Gaza. Although we have no quarrel with the Lebanese people, when Hezbollah attacks it means Lebanon has attacked. There is no obligation to try and limit the fighting to Hezbollah-specific targets – all of Lebanon is fair game.

Don’t act surprised when Beirut becomes a battlefield and Lebanon goes dark.

We owe the Druze and all of Israel whatever it takes to ensure our children can be children in this land we share in blood.

[the-ind1gen0us-jude4n]

So, how do we feel about the fact that for decades, Holocaust survivors and their descendants call what Israel is doing to Palestine a genocide? Or, are we just supposed to ignore that?

So, How do you feel about the fact that the Holocaust survivors who are against Israel are not only in the minority, but are the ones who are tokenised and given the most attention by the crackhead media? And how they are the ones called "Good Jews" and are pareded around by the pallywood community for their words?

How do we feel about the fact that there are PLENTY (one might even say MOST) of holocaust survivors who are not against this war which Israel didnt start? I know a holocaust survivor, and they have been hit VERY HARD by october 7th, after all that was like a repeat of the holocaust.

The ones who don't support this war can have their opinions, sure. But it shouldn't take away from the fact that most holocaust survivors are not against Israel, and how many aspects of the modern state of Israel were FOUNDED BY HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS.

The definition of Genocide is the DELIBERATE EXTERMINATION of a group of people. Israel wouldn't have 21% of its population be Arabs if it wanted to exterminate the Arabs in Israel. They even get plenty of benefits like the fact they are exempt from conscription, and they are the arab muslims are the only ones allowed to enter the AL AQSA mosque in Jerusalem. There are Arab Israelis who CHOOSE to serve in the IDF, the same force who is "allegedly" committing genocide against the same people who are joining them.

I would kindly ask any Goyim to PLEASE STOP TOKENISING AND POLITICISING HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS!