Support the Israeli-Palestinian Refuser Movements!

Dear friend, Yes, it's that time of the year. You are, no doubt, hearing from many groups, asking for your support. We hope that you will be able to extend some of that financial assistance to the refuser movements in Israel. It has been a challenging year, with both raised hopes and deep disappointments. The bottom line is that the peace process has gone nowhere, with Israel flagrantly rejecting President Obama's demand to freeze settlement activity. As is so often the case with this conflict, there is little good news to report. On the other hand, the refuser organizations have maintained and in some cases increased their levels of activity and impact. We believe that the refusers remain among the most important voices and activists inside Israel (and, increasingly, among Palestinians as well, through Combatants for Peace). You will find detailed information from two of the refuser groups in this message. In addition to New Profile and Combatants for Peace, we also continue to support Yesh Gvul and Shministim. You can also find out much more by visiting www.refusersolidarity.net and then clicking through to the websites of the groups. We hope that you will continue your support of these organizations with an end of year, tax deductible contribution. You can do so very easily with your credit card by visiting http://www.refusersolidarity.net and clicking on the Donate Now button. If you would like to direct your contribution to a specific refuser group, be sure to select that group's name in the "RSN Project" field. You will also find instructions on our website for donating by check. Many thanks in advance for your support, The RSN Board of Directors Appeal from Combatants for Peace Combatants for Peace's body of work is intended to bring together growing numbers of people from both sides and ultimately to foster the recognition that violence and the occupation are ruinous for the future of all. At present, Combatants for Peace (CFP) has three primary activities: binational groups, in-house workshops, and an alternative Memorial Day Ceremony. Binational Groups The core project of the movement, all grassroots activism is organized from the local bases of five binational peace-building groups built from within local communities on both sides. Five Palestinian communities are paired with five Israeli communities, and together, they form five binational groups that meet regularly to dialogue and host events together. The groups currently functioning include: Tel Aviv and Nablus, Tel Aviv and Tulkarm, Jerusalem and Ramallah, Jerusalem and Bethlehem, and Be'er Sheva and Hebron. Israelis and Palestinians rarely have the opportunity to meet each other in a social arena on equal terms, and binational meetings provide that space as an arena for both dialogue and action. In addition to regular monthly meetings, the regional groups initiate and conduct a range of activities aimed at strengthening the bonds between the members of Combatants for Peace at large, including joint olive harvests, tree plantings, public demonstrations, and tours for Israelis in the West Bank that expose them to the realities lived by Palestinians there. Occasionally, groups have traveled together for educational tours abroad, including a peace-building seminar in Ireland. Because the groups have the mandate to shape the nature of their activity based on the wishes of the members and the conditions in their region, activities have been creative and diverse. From protest theater performances for binational audiences in the northern West Bank to a documentary film project in the environs surrounding Jerusalem, CFP members are constantly innovating new ways of drawing attention to the problems of and misconceptions surrounding the occupation of the Palestinian territories. Since the summer, CFP's Tel Aviv-Nablus group has brought more than 150 Hebrew and English speakers into the Palestinian territories to show the realities of life under occupation that are impossible to understand to the full extent if one's perspective comes only from the outside. Members are enthusiastic about expanding on these tours if they are able to acquire the financial support needed to hire more buses and pay for the time of the professional tour guides. Its Jerusalem-Ramallah group has begun training to complete a documentary film project, in which members from both sides record personal stories from their own peoples which they can share then with members from the other side of the wall, as well as documenting vignettes of the occupation--from situational (for example, documenting what it means to wait at a checkpoint) to personal (for example, filming a discussion between an Israeli member and a Palestinian member about their perception of the "other" before joining CFP.) The group is dedicated to the project, but they must wait for more funding for specific video-recording equipment before they can create a final project. Additionally, the Tel Aviv-Tulkarm group has continued their protest theater performances and planned and rehearsed a performance meant to be enacted at the opening of a controversial theater in a settlement in the West Bank. It was meant to be a demonstration against the use of public funds to promote the arts in illegal Israeli settlements inside of the occupied territories, but unfortunately had to be canceled at the last minute because it fell on the same night as the start of the massive forest fire that ravaged the Carmel region of northern Israel in the beginning of this December. In addition to these activities, in the last month, members of the binational groups joined with other CFP supporters to attend a CFP fundraising concert featuring speeches by CFP leaders and performances by three prominent Israeli singers. The event was considered a success by all in attendance--both as a fundraiser and as an event celebrating non-violence as the most effective way to end the occupation. In-House Workshops Each month CFP hosts 4-5 in-house workshops in which a small group Israeli members tell their personal stories to Palestinian audiences, and a small group of Palestinian members tell their stories to Israeli audiences. The purpose is to take the awareness and understanding built on the humanization of the "other" that occurs in these workshops and channel it through CFP's network to the general publicâ€"sending a message about the importance of nonviolence. The workshops effectively form a wide base of support for a nonviolent political solution by creating an ever-widening network of Israelis and Palestinians who know each other personally as human beings, and will be there to support and sustain a peaceful relationship. In the last few months, CFP has hosted a variety of speakers, including Israeli professors who are active members of the Israeli left and two performing artists currently living abroad who were able to speak about the conflict with the unique perspective of Israelis who left the country in disillusionment, only to be drawn back in out of a strong desire to work towards a sustainable peace both for their own people and for Palestinians whom they had come to respect as friends and partners in suffering. Alternative Memorial Day Ceremony CFP's Memorial Day Ceremony allows the movement to project its message in a powerful way while at the same time receiving media and public attention, promoting the recruitment of new activists and further exposing and branding CFP as a significant actor at the forefront of peace organizations in the region. It represents an alternative to the official Israeli Memorial Day, a day on which Israel honors its war veterans through official memorial services held in the presence of Israel's leadership and military personnel, and private remembrance gatherings in cemeteries. The event commemorates both Israeli and Palestinian victims of violence in light of the belief that the joint pain and loss can break down walls rather than perpetuate them-- that ultimately, there is no distinguishing blood from blood. The alternative ceremony aims at removing boundaries between Israeli and Palestinian societies by commemorating the victims of violence from both sides together. It challenges the consensual narrative as cultivated by the state-choreographed ceremonies and offers an alternative that denounces war and contests legitimisation of violence. The alternative Memorial Day ceremony has gained substantial recognition over the years. It is the largest event produced by CFP and is one of the most noted events of the Israeli progressive movement. Beginning with 200 participants in 2006, the last ceremony, held on April 18th 2010, had approximately 1,300 participants. This year, CFP has already recruited two professional producers amongst its core of volunteers to begin planning the next ceremony, and with enough support, plans to expand its capacity by moving into a larger theater. Appeal from New Profile Dear RSN and Supporters, We are grateful for this opportunity to thank each and every one of you for your ongoing and meaningful support, both morally and financially, during the past year. The following is a short compilation of what you have helped us achieve. November 3, 2010 marked another significant victory for New Profile, this time in the Israeli High Court. A three judge panel decided to dismiss a petition to deny New Profile its non-profit status. The petition, filed by the right wing nonprofit organization, "The Forum for the Equal Sharing of the Burden", ("the burden" implying military service), was subsequent to its earlier request, in 2008, to the Fellowship of Societies Registrar to revoke our official status. This was the last stage (at least for the present) in a failed attempt to criminalize New Profile's work. Earlier, in April 2009, the police raided several of our members' homes and summoned them and others for investigation while also confiscating their computers and the personal computers of other family members. However, all investigations by the State Prosecutor's Office into New Profile's activities were closed in November 2009 for lack of culpability and lack of evidence. Later, in January 2010, we received notification that the Registrar's office had also concluded its investigation with the same conclusions. Whatever the difficulties, this challenging period did not discourage New Profile from its activities or from critically analyzing Israel's militaristic society as part of our ongoing work to create a truly democratic civil society In Israel. Our work, a central part of which is providing support to refusers, continues to expand. The accusations against us attracted the attention of the wider public and brought to mind a quote from Brendan Behan: "There is no such thing as bad publicity except your own obituary." The media coverage on New Profile, both good and bad, generated a new interest in our activities, apparent by the large number of hits on our website and the quantity of letters of support we received. The show of support we experienced at that time was unprecedented and continues until this day. It has also prompted a growing number of invitations to talk about the movement and our activities, especially with the international community. In 2010 our Refusers' Counseling Network continued to receive requests for guidance and counseling. On a monthly average, the Network received at least 15 requests by email and through our hotline, while during February, July, and October, the months with higher induction quotas, we received many more. Most of our counseling work happened on the Counseling Network's internet forum, which had 1262 new topics opened between January and November. Also, many people approach our individual counselors directly. Between January and November, 19 refusers received legal assistance from lawyers affiliated with three different law firms that work directly with New Profile. This is almost twice the number of refusers who received similar assistance in 2009. Additionally New Profile's Legal Aid team advised many other refusers and their families, providing them with moral support and information. A notable trend is that fewer people are considering refusal openly on the grounds of opposition to the Occupation in recent years. The Shministim, www.shiministim.com , the signatories of the Seniors' Letter, who openly refuse to be part of a military mechanism that occupies another people, are an exception to the rule. This in no way means that there are fewer refusers altogether, though. But it would seem that refusers are more cautious, often choosing a less costly way of avoiding military service, which then frees them to openly resist the Occupation by other means. Equally notable is the growing number of potential conscripts living abroad who turn to us for assistance. These expats, having reached the eligible induction age while abroad, are required to return to Israel for military service if they spent a few months in Israel when they were 16 or 17, or if one of their parents recently moved back to Israel. In refusing to conscript they face incarceration immediately upon entering Israel again. In 2010 the Counseling Network received requests, on the average of 4 every month, for information on refusal or postponing conscription, from people living abroad. In the meanwhile, military and civilian authorities (including the Ministry of Education) are making increasing efforts to coerce and isolate individuals who are considering refusing to perform military service and to discourage criticism, descent, and refusal on several levels. Among other things, there has been a steady and sharp increase in military presence in Israeli schools. Enlistment percentages among the graduates of Israeli high schools have been published with great fanfare (and very little critical comment) in the Israeli mass media with the aim of pressuring school principals and municipal boards to devote even more time and resources to recruitment. Critical voices, on the other hand, are silenced. The few educators who dared to speak out against the military surge in Israeli schools were publicly denounced in the press. Additionally New Profile activists have been officially banned from entering Israeli schools by a personal directive from the Minister of Education. We are the only organization in Israel to be subject to such a ban, (suggesting that we must be doing something really right after all). New Profile continues to maintain close working connections with all the refusal movements in Israel which include Yesh Gvul, Combatants for Peace, the Shministim, and the Druze Initiative Committee. Within the framework of this larger network, information and legal updates relevant to refusal are shared, referrals are made, and occasions for shared learning are created. Of late, New Profile and the Druze Initiative Committee in particular have begun to work together in order to provide better legal and counseling support for Druze refusers. New Profile's successes in 2010 are largely due to two main factors â€" our activists and our supporters. In spite of the intimidations, the distractions, and attempts to persecute and prosecute, we have pulled through it all and are able continue to focus on our goal to demilitarize Israeli society. At the same time with this dedication and ongoing encouragement we are able to continue to support young people's choice to refuse to perform military service and embrace efforts to change present-day policies that promote the draft. We would like to thank RSN and all our supporters for standing by us, keeping the faith, and providing us with generous donations that contributed directly to our work with refusers. Additionally we are grateful for the opportunity RSN provided us this year, enabling us to send one of our members to the US on a three-week speaking tour. Having this occasion to speak about New Profile and our work, bringing a new awareness to many communities, strongly advanced our growing supporter base.