I am a war refuser, I spent 21 months in an Israeli prison at the age of 18, and today I serve on the board of Refuser Solidarity Network, supporting others who resist war. As the crisis in Gaza and the West Bank continues, groups resisting Israeli oppression are stepping up to continue our struggle.
You can help - please support resistance to the Israeli attacks in Gaza and the West Bank here.
I have been a peace activist for nearly 30 years, since I was just 13 years old. Throughout my life as an organizer against the occupation, I have experienced periods of intense political hardship, but nothing comes close to the unbelievable loss and pain of the last two years of genocide and horror.
Like you, in the last two years, I witnessed the massacre of 70,000 Palestinians against the will of the global majority. I also witnessed the collapse of the Israeli peace camp after the atrocities of October 7th. During these difficult two years, Refuser Solidarity Network supported, amplified and in some cases incubated the central groups within Israel who resisted and refused heinous war crimes. In confronting the worst crime in Israel’s history, a genocide, we also worked to grow the biggest wave of refusal by soldiers in Israel’s history, a wave that you helped create with your donations and support. Now we need to make sure that this wave does not stop.
I truly believe that we now have an opportunity to end the occupation. Internationally, more than ever, the demand of justice for Palestinians became a majority demand, one that now defines a generation of young activists, so popular that it is likely bigger than international resistance to Apartheid in South Africa in the 1980s.
And Israeli citizens, possibly for the first time, understand their vulnerability. They understand that the status quo in the West Bank and Gaza are not sustainable. Israelis learned the hard way that the siege of Gaza and the occupation in the West Bank are a ticking bomb. And even though this vulnerability is currently exploited mainly by ultranationalist and right-wing politicians, in the long term it offers a real opportunity: to end the occupation.
As someone who just spent six years researching and teaching strategy of social change at the University of Michigan, I know that theory and research on social change say this type of crisis is also a huge opportunity. During the genocide, a significant momentum was created. But now is the crucial time: as the world shifts its gaze from Gaza, we need you to help us.
Today we are asking you to join us by contributing to our campaign: we need to raise $50,000 to support the next wave of refusers. Our call is urgent: support our work by giving to our end-of-year campaign, we are trying to raise $50,000, and are currently only at $35,000.
In 2002, I was imprisoned by the Israeli government at the age of 18 for refusing to serve in the Israeli army. Amnesty International declared me a prisoner of consciousness as I moved through dozens of cells over the years I spent behind bars. For two years, I was forced to internalize that I was a second-class human as prison guards, politicians and military courts made an example out of me and my fellow refusers.
Yet, prison was a period of intense invigoration and pride for me. I refused to bend, and my peers’ and my imprisonment stirred the hearts of many who would go on to join the refuser movement. Upon my release, I helped lead Refuser Solidarity Network, becoming its global coordinator. From a very dark moment in my life, the seeds of something larger than myself were planted.
In my 30 years as an activist for peace and justice, the last two years of a livestreamed genocide were the hardest two years I’ve ever had to bear, more so than my 21 months in jail as a teen. To see the process that Israel is going through, that my family is going through, that my friends are going through, the normalized support for war crimes and genocide, has left me devastated. As a father to two children, I can only shudder at the impossible thought of losing a child. Over 20,000 children were killed in Gaza.
These were two years from hell, and yet I am proud of the work we have done thanks to you: we supported, amplified and trained war resistance groups in Israel, including the two main groups of soldiers and veterans that started to organize war resistance during the genocide. The period after the war is critical: this is when new groups collapse or thrive. Because we organize for the long term, and towards an end to the occupation and Aperthaid, now is when we have a real opportunity to prevent the next war, the next genocide. And it’s something you can help us with.
We cannot react to wars when they knock, we need to build a resistance front that stops them before its too late, and we need your help to do this crucial war.
My two years in prison were very dark, at times hopeless and scary. At other times empowering and full of hope.
The support I got from Refuser Solidarity Network, from people like you, was extremely helpful and important.
On behalf of war resisters, past and future: Thank you!