February 26,
2024
In partnership
with
On Sunday
morning, 18-year-old Israeli conscientious objector Sofia Orr arrived at the
army’s recruitment center near Tel Aviv and declared her refusal to enlist in
mandatory military service in protest of Israel’s war on Gaza and long-standing
occupation. The second Israeli teenager to publicly refuse the draft for
political reasons since October 7 — following Tal Mitnick who did so in
December — Orr was sentenced to an initial 20 days in Neve Tzedek military
prison, which will likely be extended if she continues to refuse to enlist.
“The current
atmosphere is much more violent against my beliefs, so obviously I’m more
afraid, but I think that in these times the most important thing is to express
a voice of resistance,” she told +972 and Local Call in an interview last week.
“I choose to refuse because there are no winners in war. We’re seeing it now
more than ever. All people, from the Jordan River to the [Mediterranean] sea,
are suffering from this war, and only peace, a political solution, and the
presentation of an alternative can lead to real security.”
Orr explained
that she had already decided to refuse her mandatory conscription long before
the war began, because of “the occupation and oppression that the army enforces
against Palestinians in the West Bank.” The Hamas-led October 7 attacks, she
said, “showed us once again that violence only leads to more violence and that
we must solve this peacefully rather than through more violence.”
Approximately 30
left-wing activists, most of them teenagers, accompanied Orr to the recruitment
center. They held a protest in support of her decision to refuse, arousing the
interest of several ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students who had come to get exemptions
from military service.
Thousands of
Israeli teenagers are exempted from the draft every year, primarily on
religious grounds, but only a handful declare themselves to be politically
opposed to military service. In addition to variable prison time, conscientious
objection can shrink career prospects and result in social stigmatization.
Nonetheless, Orr
was one of 230 Israeli teens who signed an open letter in early September,
prior to the war, announcing their intention to refuse their draft orders as
part of a wider protest against efforts by Israel’s far-right government to
restrict the power of the judiciary. Connecting the judicial overhaul to
Israel’s long-standing military rule over Palestinians, the high schoolers —
who organized under the banner of “Youth Against Dictatorship” — declared that
they would not join the army “until democracy is secured for all who live
within the jurisdiction of the Israeli government.”
With the vast
majority of the Israeli public fully supportive of the army’s assault on Gaza
in the wake of October 7, and with left-wing activists facing heavy-handed
police repression and doxxing for taking a stand against the war, the stakes
for conscientious objectors have been raised even higher. In the following
interview, which has been edited for length and clarity, Orr explains why she
never wavered in her decision to refuse.
How did you come
to the decision to refuse military service?
I’ve always felt
more of a commitment to people than to states, but [my opposition to the draft]
started to become clear to me when I was about 15. I started asking myself
questions: Who would I actually be serving in my military service, and what
would I be helping them to do?
I understood
that if I enlisted, I would be taking part in and normalizing a decades-long
cycle of violence. I realized that not only could I not do that, I had to do
everything I could to put an end to it and resist it.
By speaking out
about what enlistment means to me, I hope it gets other people thinking about
their enlistment, and whether they believe it does good. I do this with
empathy, solidarity, and love for all Israelis living in Israel and for all
Palestinians living in Gaza and the West Bank, regardless of nationality or
religion — simply out of the belief that every human being deserves to live a
life of security and dignity.
You formed your
opinions during years in which many liberal Israelis were protesting against
the government — at the “Balfour” protests in Jerusalem in 2020, and the
“Kaplan” protests in Tel Aviv in 2023. Were you active in those movements?
Those protests
were important, but they didn’t focus on what I believe is the root of the
problem. So it was very important for me to go there and expand the discussion.
Israeli society tries very hard to ignore the occupation and the Palestinians,
thinking that this problem will pass. But it isn’t passing, as we see now. The
problem doesn’t go away just because you stop looking at it. It stays, and
continues to grow until it finally explodes.
What has been
the reaction to your decision, among friends, family, and schoolmates?
Most people
think I’m weird and don’t understand what I’m talking about. They say I’m naïve
and selfish, and sometimes also that I’m antisemitic, a traitor, and that they
wish me all kinds of violent things. Luckily, that’s not among my most
immediate circles, but I have received responses from both friends and
relatives that were not easy.
It got much
worse after October 7 with the wave of “’disillusioned” — people who before
October 7 believed there was a possibility of a [peaceful political] solution,
and after that lost hope in the possibility. But October 7 only proved that a
political solution is necessary, otherwise the violence will just continue.
There is an
unprecedented desire for revenge in Israeli society. Do you see your refusal as
an attempt to persuade the public or as a declarative action in the face of
this wave?
It’s important
for me to do this even if I don’t convince anyone. It’s the right thing to do.
But I don’t know if I would have done this publicly if I didn’t have some hope
that people could hear and listen and that there was still room for
conversation. It’s very important to reach Israeli society, especially the
young people who stand where I stand, and show them why I chose what I chose.
Do you have
friends or acquaintances who are currently serving in Gaza?
Inside Gaza —
no. But I have many friends who serve or served in the army. I want the best
for them too. I want the state to stop sending soldiers to die. I want them to
be able to live a normal life — but they don’t see it that way.
Did meeting
Palestinians help you arrive at the decision to refuse?
My views were
already relatively consolidated even before I started meeting Palestinians, but
that helped to make it tangible: to meet people who we grow up being told are
our enemies, and to see that they are ordinary people just like me, who want to
live their lives just like me. There’s a serious problem of dehumanization, so
these encounters are really important. The moment you stop believing that
Palestinians are people, it’s much easier to dismiss the idea that their lives
are worth something, and to kill them without thinking twice.
Do you have
concerns about going to prison, especially in the current climate?
“Yes, without a
doubt. The current atmosphere is much more violent and extreme against my
beliefs and my decision. So it goes without saying that I’m more afraid of both
the prison time and the external reaction. But that’s also what makes it more
important to me. In these times it is most important to express this voice of
resistance and solidarity, not to stand idly by.”
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