Tal here, solidarity coordinator at Refuser Solidarity Network. A new public letter has just been published by dozens of current and former officers in Israeli military intelligence. These are not fringe actors. They are veterans of Israel’s most elite intelligence units, and they are refusing. Refusing to serve a government they call anti-democratic. Refusing to take part in a war they describe as political, not defensive. Refusing to obey orders they say are morally bankrupt and strategically disastrous. Now is the time to support them and others like them. Your donation today will help us provide this wave of refusers with the tools, mentorship, and infrastructure to get organized, build capacity, and become independent organizers in a lasting anti-war movement.
"When a government acts out of foreign interests, harms its citizens, and leads to the killing of innocent people, the orders it issues are manifestly illegal, and it is our duty not to obey them. … This is a war intended to maintain the rule of Netanyahu, Smotrich, and Ben Gvir, and we refuse to take part in it. We can no longer serve Netanyahu’s war for political survival. Some of us will refuse publicly, through statements in the media and on social networks, and many others will do so in other, non-public ways–'gray refusal'.”
This letter marks a rupture in the military consensus. These are people who know the system from the inside: analysts, field researchers, linguists, tech experts, and cyber operatives. And they are saying what many understand but few dare to say: This war is not about rescuing hostages or defending Israeli civilians. It is about preserving a collapsing government.
They are exposing the truth. That the return to combat was a political decision to sabotage a hostage deal. That the hostages who have died were not killed by Hamas, but by Israeli bombs. That the war is not only unjust, but illegal. That refusing to follow orders is not only a right, it is a duty in the face of mass starvation and genocide of the Palestinian people.
Some of these refusers are going public. Others are refusing quietly, behind the scenes. All of them are entering dangerous terrain, legally, socially, and emotionally. This is where we come in. We know that public refusal is only the beginning. What happens afterward is just as important. We help refusers become organizers, provide legal defense, press strategy and capacity-building, connect new refusers with movement veterans, and turn them into a political force that lasts beyond the news cycle.
Your donation makes this work possible. These intelligence officers took a small risk. What comes next depends on what we build around them. Let’s meet this moment with everything we’ve got.