Israelis refuse to serve in the Army because “Zionism is genocide and apartheid”

Briefly, Yuval Peleg, 18, and Yona Roseman, 19, responded to the call for the event “Young Israelis refuse to serve in the Army and explain why”, held this Thursday (12) afternoon at the Journalists Union in the State of São Paulo: “because Zionism is repression, genocide and apartheid”.

Describing all types of persecution she suffered for being alongside Palestinian communities, making the voices of those who are segregated heard, Yona Roseman recalled that she started “fighting against the Zionist government of Benjamin Netanyahu and apartheid some time ago”, but that tension has increased in recent years. “When October 7, 2023 and the genocide arrived, the oppression of the Palestinian people increased in the West Bank, in Gaza and within Israel itself, and then I discovered how much violence was intrinsic to the dynamics of this domination and intolerance”, he reported.

“The police detained me eight times”, reported Yona, saying that she was kept in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day for up to three weeks. After all, it was necessary to serve as an example and for young people to respond to the irrational logic of the government, eager for bloodshed. In the case of the imprisoned Palestinian population, “of which there are around 10 thousand prisoners in Israel, the situation is much more serious”, he asserted, because they simply do not have access to rights.

Nazi rhetoric from Zionist leaders

Yuval Peleg said that only very recently “before serving” did he begin to become aware of the scale of the problems and, therefore, the significance of his activism. “But after the images of October 7th, we were no longer able to stand still in the face of all that Nazi rhetoric from the Zionist leaders”, stressed the young man, describing that, when confronted with all that, the threats began.

“A few days ago they held a demonstration in Tel Aviv where few people showed up and within five minutes they were dispersed by the police. An activist was arrested and subjected to humiliation and torture”, reported Pelag, for whom it became clear that “fascism is deepening, reducing freedom of expression”. “As I have already stated in several acts: Zionism is a disease and Israel is a terrorist state”, he assured.

The vice-president of the Writers’ Union of the State of São Paulo and international editor of the newspaper Hora do Povo, Nathaniel Braida, pointed out that “Israel’s supremacist, colonialist and apartheid consciousness tries to portray the aggressor as a victim seeking to justify and, therefore, legitimize, the most heinous crimes committed against the Palestinians”. The first Jew to refuse to slaughter the Arabs in the Yom Kippur war (1973), Braia reiterated the importance of young people rebelling: “they give us hope for the future”.

“We fight against the oppression of the Jewish people”

Anti-Zionist Jew and member of the Vozes Judaicas collective, Alex Deloya defended the multiplication of events like this across the country, to increase awareness of what is at stake in this war. “We fight against the oppression of the Jewish people, as Zionism uses the false narrative that it guarantees our security. This needs to be unmasked”, he emphasized.

Hailing the initiative of the entities, as well as the determination of Yuval and Yoná to face with courage “the oppression of the colonial state of Israel”, the secretary general of the Palestinian Latin American and Caribbean Confederation (Coplac), Emir Mourad highlighted that “there can only be a fair and true peace when the aggression, occupation and war policy imposed by the Zionist regime and American imperialism, today once again exposed in the offensive against Iran, cease”. For Mourad, “as long as this axis of violence continues attacking sovereign peoples and sustaining Israel’s impunity, talking about peace will only be covering up the continuity of injustice.”

Addressing young Israelis, the president of the Palestinian Arab Federation of Brazil (Fepal), Ualid Rabah, assured that “we will never allow some of our people to do what the worst of you did to our women, children and elderly people”. “Free Palestine! Sovereign Brazil! Judaism without Zionism”, he concluded.

Among other entities, they participated in the organization of the event, held in the Vladimir Herzog auditorium, from SJSP, Messarvot, Central Única dos Trabalhadores (CUT), Equality Museum (Paraná), Federal University of Paraná (UFPR) and the Aressala News Agency.

Watch the full event: