TEL AVIV, October 7, 2009 (WAFA)-  A growing number of Israeli Jewish youth facing mandatory military conscription -- the Shministim -- are breaking the chain of conventional cooperation with the occupation. Refusing to participate in a system they agree to be immoral as well as illegal, these young people exemplify complicity with their ethical values rather than their state's colonialist policies. The rebel news said.

The Shministim have also started linking up with American military resisters to strategize and build an international movement of opposition to the state-sponsored violence of occupation -- from the West Bank and Gaza to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Since 1970, groups of Shministim -- Hebrew for 12^th-graders -- have emerged, turning against the overwhelming current of generational militarism. Writing public letters to Israeli heads of state, Shministim cohorts refuse to participate in the system of occupation, and, more broadly, vociferously challenge a national attitude of supremacy and racist entitlement over historic Palestine's indigenous population.

After witnessing brutal violence carried out by Israeli occupation soldiers against Palestinians in the West Bank village of Bilin, 19-year-old Shministim member Maya Wind says that 'the only moral option for me was to refuse.'

Not surprisingly, the Israeli government does not concur with Wind's revelation. Shministim refuseniks face draconian jail sentences in repeated cycles until they reach 21 years old or manage to secure a discharge on the basis of medical or mental health.

Israeli youth who refuse to cooperate with Israel's military occupation are sent into a lengthy and relentless labyrinth of court martials and consecutive jail terms in what Israeli lawyer Michael Sfard, representing Shministim, calls a 'price tag' meant to deter other young Israelis from non-participation. 'Otherwise,' he says, '[the Israeli government's] argument says, everyone -- of ideological or personal reasons -- will refuse to serve.'

Wind said that the political and ultra-religious environment in her high school led her to question the reality behind the ideologies of her government and her fellow students. 'A lot of my classmates were settlers, including extremists from [settlements in] the West Bank ... there were a lot of questions that surfaced for me. I didn't even use the word 'occupation' back then.' Through a discussion group with Palestinians in Jerusalem, Wind said that she awakened to a different reality than the one offered to her inside Israeli-Jewish society. 'I figured I needed to learn more. Through a conversation with a Palestinian girl, I started to question more. I started going to the West Bank.'

Wind was sent to jail during the third week of the Gaza massacres, and spent several weeks behind bars. Sentenced four times, she spent a cumulative two months in detention and another 42 days in a military prison altogether. She was subjected to a 'humiliating' array of psychiatrists and psychologists sent by the military to determine her mental fitness, required to serve in the army. Wind says that all of the Shministim were labeled mentally unfit by these health professionals, therefore giving Israel the excuse that the problem was not with the policies or the morality of the military, but with the Shministim themselves.

Netta Mishly, also 19 years old and from Tel Aviv, was active in several political groups from early adolescence and supported by parents who encouraged her to think critically. She said that her decision to refuse was made clear during her activity against Israel's wall in the West Bank. 'After I was there, and I saw how the soldiers attack civilians without any security justification, after I saw how the state steals land from [Palestinians] For me, not going to the army was a decision I came to after visiting the West Bank for the first time.'

She said that her life changed completely after returning to school. 'I kept hearing the same line [in class] that we need to defend ourselves, and we need to go to the army. I couldn't believe this anymore because I saw how the soldiers act on the ground. I connected with other activists and we started thinking about how we were going to take this difficult step, and we decided to keep working in the same tradition that started before us. We drafted a letter to the government, saying that we wouldn't take part in the terrible crimes that Israel is doing in our name. After that, one by one, each one of us went to jail.'

Mishly was sentenced to a week in detention at the military base because there was 'no room' in the regular prison (during the December-January attacks on Gaza, hundreds of Palestinian citizens of Israel who participated in protests were rounded up and thrown into Israeli jails, on charges of treason and incitement). After the trial, one of the highest-ranking Israeli military decided they could re-try Mishly and she received another 20 days. 'When you make the decision not to go to the army, you don't know where [the punishment] is going to end,' she said

Maya Wind offered her declaration of conscience to the military court. 'We can no longer term our military a 'Defense Force,'' she asserted. 'A defense force does not conquer lands of another people. A defense force does not assist in the building of settlements on those lands. A defense force does not permit settlers to throw stones at Palestinian civilians, nor does it deny them access to their lands and source of livelihood. None of these are acts of a defense force.'

 Maya added 'The occupation has no defensive advantages. On the contrary, the pointless occupation of millions of people only leads to radicalization of opinions, hatred and the escalation of violence. Violence is a cycle that feeds into itself. This cycle will not stop until someone stands up and refuses uncompromisingly to take part in it. This is what I am doing today.'