Alhanan said 80% of Israeli reservists lost confidence in the army’s moral principles

By Hadi Yahmid, IOL Correspondent

PARIS, March 21 (IslamOnline.net) – The number of Israeli reservists who refuse to do their military service in the occupied Palestinian territories are on the rise due to the illegal army practices, an Israeli reservist said Saturday, March 20.

In an interview with IslamOnline.net, Erlik Alhanan, 27, said a growing number of reservists are skeptic about the “moral principles” of the army.

He said some 600 -- aged between 21 and 50 -- soldiers from different cross-sections of society are defying orders to be deployed to the occupied Palestinian territories. 

Born in Al-Quds [occupied Jerusalem], Alhanan said army officials are “treading carefully on the issue and playing it down”.

“An army general told the Knesset [Israeli parliament] earlier this year that there were only 20 Refuseniks,” he said. 

Alhanan said at least 80 percent of reservists have lost confidence in the declared moral principles of the Israeli army due to the practices in Lebanon and the crackdown on the Palestinians.

Israelis, he added, no longer trust frequent mobilization calls “to protect Israel”.

‘Illegal, Immoral’

He said that a “small but increasing percentage” of soldiers started speaking their minds out about “illegal and immoral operations of the Israeli army inside the occupied territories”.

“It runs counter to the code of ethics of the Israeli Defense Army and what we have learnt inside the military institution. They do not practice what they preach,” he told IOL.

He made up his mind gradually after he came to realize that the “operations of the Israeli army [against the Palestinians] do not contribute to defending the state of Israel”.

He said that during his obligatory military service in southern Lebanon he realized that confrontations with the Lebanese resistance movement Hizbullah “have entered a vicious cycle that has nothing to do with defending the state of Israel or protecting its northern borders”.

“At the end of the day, it is nothing but occupation of other’s land,” he said.

He noted that the Israeli army’s practices against the Palestinians stokes up “terrorism”.

“I am convinced that when I, as an Israeli, took part in such operations, I in the meanwhile create another kamikaze, who blows himself up in Israel.”

Alhanan said his Ashkenazi family has adopted the peace approach since 1997, when his 14-year-old sister was killed in a Palestinian operation. 

The name Ashkenaz was applied to Jews living along the Rhine River in northern France and western Germany. The center of Ashkenazi Jews later spread to Poland and Lithuania.

He said his family was convinced that their daughter was killed by “the occupation and the endless cycle of reciprocal violence in the occupied territories”.

Alhanan said his Russian mother joined a self-styled Israeli group called “Families For Condolences” and his Hungarian father refused to join the right-wing group “The Committee of Terror Victims”.

“To make Israel a safe place, we must first end the occupation of Palestinian territories, which, in turn, will end terrorism,” he said.

Alhanan took part on March 13 in a Paris rally against a separation wall Israel is building in the West Bank.

Twenty-seven reserve and active duty airmen signed a letter  last September addressed to Israeli Premier Ariel Sharon, refusing to carry out “immoral and illegal” raids on Palestinian civilians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

They warned that the occupation of Palestinian territories was eating at the moral fabric of the state of Israel.

Last November, four former heads of the Israeli Shin Beth interior security services warned of the “disastrous”  consequences of Israel's continued occupation of the Palestinian territories.