Will Israel’s next generation refuse to defend the homeland?

It wasn’t too long ago, in the midst of almost-daily protests against Israel’s most right-wing, extremist government ever, that we heard the voices of young people, already serving in the military, who vowed not to fight, should war erupt. Alongside them were students who would soon be drafted but who also reaffirmed their commitment not to support this government by refusing to serve.

Most of us knew that these were simply threats that would dissipate in the air the moment we would find ourselves in an existential war, where every last man and woman was needed to fight. That is exactly what happened in the wake of Oct. 7. Everyone scurried to do their part. Even those Israelis who were abroad wasted no time boarding costly flights because they knew they were needed. Ordinary civilians and outsiders also stepped up to the plate, volunteering to do the jobs that went undone due to so many who were called up to fight.

Perhaps that is why it is so shocking to hear about one particular 18-year-old Israeli who was recently imprisoned for refusing to serve in the IDF. Tal Mitnick, a Tel Aviv resident chose to sit in jail for 30 days rather than enlist, citing the very libelous claims used by pro-Palestinian demonstrators and all of our detractors. Accusing Israel of being an occupying force, Mitnick “arrived at an army recruitment center just to announce his refusal to enlist, due to his being a conscientious objector.” 

Mitnick, who was accompanied by a number of other conscientious objectors, was given an especially long sentence, for first-time refusers, most likely as a result of the present circumstances under which the country finds itself. He said in a statement: “I refuse to believe that more violence will bring security. I refuse to take part in a war of revenge. I grew up in a home where life is sacred, where discussion is valued and where discourse and understanding always come before taking violent measures. In the world full of corrupt interests in which we live, violence and war are another way to increase support for the government and silence criticism.”

While Mitnick and his friends might see him as a principled young man, who is standing on his convictions, I see something completely different. This is the portrait of a young man who arrived at the age of manhood without the ability to distinguish good from evil. Nor does he possess instinctive values of self-defense and moral obligation. 

Israel does not fit the profile of having violent propensities. To the contrary, we are a country that has done all we could, including being willing to give up our rightful land in order to secure peace. We have made compromise after compromise in the hope of avoiding the loss of life which is always the result of war. 

But in our case, we initiated no wars. Each one was fought when violence was enacted upon us, threatening to end our existence. The Jewish psyche detests war, but also knows that it is a necessary evil if we are to continue living.

To state that fighting a war, that began with a bloody, savage massacre that burned families alive and perpetrated unspeakable acts of torture and brutality, the likes of which we haven’t seen since the days of the Holocaust, is tantamount to revenge, only shows moral ignorance and a clear misunderstanding of instinctive human reaction.

Failure to forcefully deter such detestable acts, from ever happening again, is to show less regard for life than what is displayed in the animal kingdom when another creature threatens a particular species.

By Mitnick’s thinking, terrorists who enter his home and kill the members of his family would never experience retribution, because, according to him, it would represent a similar act of violence. So, what would prevent them from coming back and taking over his entire home, land and all for which he has worked? Mitnick would basically give them the keys to his kingdom, not to mention a wink and a nod to kill others, because that is what they do.

While claiming that he grew up in a home that valued life, how much more can one do, to safeguard life, than to make sure it is not threatened? In order to preserve life, one must be willing to defend it. This is one of the most basic of all principles, without which, makes one vulnerable to constant attack. There is no grounding without a comprehension of the most elementary instincts of human behavior. If a society can’t figure out bad people from good ones or crime from decency, then it is doomed to fall.  That is why we enact laws that are meant to protect and guard what is sacred and cherished.

Mitnick, in a lame attempt to justify his actions and appear to exude virtue, uses the already prolonged fight which has not yet fully yielded the return of all hostages – as if that was within our control. He points to the regrettable error of hostages who were mistakenly killed as they ran out into the scene of a battlefield, an action that has already been analyzed and picked apart to understand how such a thing could happen.

Despite one set of parents who lost their son in that terrible tragedy, letting the shooters know that they are forgiven, Mitnick acts as judge and jury – irascibly condemning the mistake as if it had been purposely intended.

Most disturbing is the revelation that an additional “200 high schoolers, who are supposed to be on the path to being drafted shortly to the IDF announced in August that they will refuse their call-up, not only because of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposed judicial reform, but also because of the ‘occupation.’”

We are in a post-Oct. 7 era, which has left the issue of reforms in the dust. In fact, a recent report stated that the High Court of Justice has ordered the annulment of the law to cancel the Reasonableness Standard in a draft ruling.” Consequently, no one, at the moment, is considering the threats to our democracy as a justifiable reason why they would not defend the homeland.

However, for these same 200 high schoolers, to complete 12 years of Israeli education and emerge from a system that didn’t make it immeasurably clear to them that we are not an occupying force but, rather, those who have returned to our ancestral homeland after 2,000 years of dispersion, attests to something seriously having gone amiss within our educational system as well as in the home of these students. 

Israel is at a crossroads, once again, facing many enemies who seek her demise and who wouldn’t hesitate, for one minute, to pull the land from under our feet, appropriating it for yet another violent enclave to add to their collection. Will this next generation of young Israelis fight for their Jewish homeland or will they be those who enabled the dream to die, as a result of their convoluted perceptions of what constitutes morality?

Am Israel Chai (the people of Israel live) only when we, ourselves, fight for that right as God commanded us to do in each and every battle! “For the Lord your God is the one who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies to give you victory.” (Deuteronomy 20:4)