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<h1 class="title" id="page-title"><small>Israel jails Druze
conscientious objector for the sixth time</small></h1>
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<span property="dc:date dc:created" content="2014-03-31T19:54:51+00:00"
datatype="xsd:dateTime" rel="sioc:has_creator">Submitted by <span
class="username" xml:lang="" about="/users/maureen-clare-murphy"
typeof="sioc:UserAccount" property="foaf:name" datatype="">Maureen
Clare Murphy</span> on Mon, 03/31/2014<br>
<b><small><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/101469">http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/101469</a></small></b><br>
</span> </div>
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<p>Eighteen-year-old <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/omar-saad">Omar Saad</a> was
recently handed down a sixth prison sentence for his ongoing refusal to
serve in Israel’s occupation army.</p>
<p>“I declare that I will refuse to serve in the army even if I’m
jailed sixty times,” Saad stated in Arabic on his <a
href="https://www.facebook.com/omar.saad.395">Facebook page</a> on 23
March.</p>
<p>The anti-militarization group New Profile is <a
href="http://www.newprofile.org/english/node/421">encouraging</a>
letters of support to Omar Saad, as well as letters to the Israeli
authorities calling for Saad’s release, and letters to the media to
bring attention to Saad’s imprisonment (<a
href="http://www.newprofile.org/english/node/421">see here for more
details</a>).</p>
<p>Saad, a violist, was first jailed in early December last year after
he and his siblings performed a musical protest outside of an Israeli
military induction center in the Galilee, where the majority of
Palestinians in present-day Israel reside. He has since been handed
down six consecutive sentences of twenty days’ imprisonment.</p>
<p>The Israeli authorities also denied visiting rights to Saad’s
attorneys until these arbitrary restrictions were successfully <a
href="http://adalah.org/eng/Articles/2259/Military-Prosecutor-General-withdraws-decision">challenged</a>
by Adalah: The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel.</p>
<p>Saad is a member of the Druze religious minority, which, unlike the
majority of Palestinian citizens of Israel, are required to serve in
the military.</p>
<p>However, <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/content/israel-tried-brainwash-us-says-druze-pioneer-who-refused-army-service/13047">growing
numbers</a> of Druze youth are <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/content/growing-numbers-druze-refuse-serve-israels-army/12285">refusing</a>
their conscription orders, facing jail time for doing so.</p>
<p>Before he was first jailed last year, Saad <a
href="http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/i-refuse-take-assault-rifle-and-point-it-another-human-being-2013-12-04">told</a>
Amnesty International: “I don’t want to be part of the Israeli army
because the Israeli government is responsible for the occupation [of
the Palestinian Territories]. As an Arab Druze I consider myself part
of the Palestinian people — so how can I be part of the army that
occupies my people? I won’t sell all my beliefs and my identity to
anyone.”</p>
<h2>Divide and rule</h2>
<p>Not only are growing numbers of Druze youth refusing to serve in the
Israeli army, they are also calling for the abolishment of compulsory
service for the Druze community. Members of the community across
generations state their opposition to conscription in this video:</p>
<p>As Jonathan Cook <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/content/israeli-army-recruitment-plan-aims-incite-christian-muslim-tensions/12645">reported</a>
for The Electronic Intifada in 2013: “The Druze community … has been
conscripted into the army since the 1950s. As a consequence, Israel
designated the Druze a national group distinct from the rest of the
Palestinian minority, and created a separate education system to
inculcate ‘Zionist values.’”</p>
<p>Now Israel is undertaking new efforts to enlist youth from the
Palestinian Christian community, numbering 125,000 persons or
approximately nine percent of the Palestinian population with Israeli
citizenship, into the army. Like it did with the Druze community, Cook
writes, Israel is attempting to exploit sectarian differences to
isolate Christians from the rest of Palestinian society and break
Palestinian communal solidarity.</p>
<p>Nadim Nashif, director of Baladna: the Association for Arab Youth,
wrote for The Electronic Intifada <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/content/palestinians-must-resist-israels-efforts-foment-sectarianism/13269">last
week</a>:</p>
<blockquote>Many from the 1948 community (Palestinian citizens of
Israel) see that preserving our Palestinian identity is our main
struggle. Unfortunately, as in neighboring countries, the Palestinian
community has not been immune to the phenomenon of sectarianism.</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>Sectarianism is further provoked by the “divide and rule” policies
of the state which refuse to recognize us as a single Palestinian
minority, avoid police intervention in cases of violence against Arabs
and consistently discriminates against us in many other ways.</p>
<p>Participating in a military that commits egregious crimes against
our own people in Gaza, the West Bank and inside Israel, will not
improve the circumstance of Palestinians. Participating in the military
apparatus fractures our identity and contributes to an immoral system
that abuses the rights of our own people.</p>
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