#Israeli youth say no to #military – Workers World

19.7.17

Israeli youth say no to military – Workers World: Ben-Abba added that she refused “to participate in a system that uses violent means to oppress another people, has imposed an occupation upon it for 50 years, and is imposing a siege, the consequences of which are yet to be seen.”

Previous Israeli draft resisters include Aiden Katri, a transgender political activist who was sentenced to prison in March 2016. She called for “an alliance of the victims of oppression.” She has since been released. (972mag.com, March 30, 2016)

In a long statement released prior to her jailing, Katri explained that “as someone who believes in gender equality, I cannot ignore inequality in other issues. Arabs and Jews live in this country as two different classes; Israelis and Palestinians live under two different legal systems. It would be absurd to strive for justice in the context of injustice. I struggle against my oppression — my gender oppression as a trans woman and my ethnic oppression as a Mizrahi Jew [Jews from the Middle East], and if I turn a blind eye to an oppression of another people this would be hypocrisy.”