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RSN Supports...
Yesh G'vul, an Israeli group supporting soldiers with the difficult decision to refuse.
New Profile provides education and support for nonviolent solutions.
Combatants for Peace brings together ex-soldiers from both sides for speaking tours.
Events
"What Happened to Abir?"
Combatants for Peace U.S. Tour, January 16 - February 2, 2008, with Bassam Aramin, Yonatan Shapira, and Elik Elhanan
Breaking the Silence, an exhibit featuring photographs and other testimony of IDF soldiers, will be in Philadelphia in February and Cambridge in March.
RSN Store
BREAKING RANKS: Refusing to Serve in the West Bank and Gaza Strip explores the personal and political acts of refusal by Israeli reservists. Read it and pass it along to friends and family. Receive Breaking Ranks for free by making a contribution to the RSN or purchase it from the RSN Store.
RSN News
An Open Letter to Defense Minister Ehud Barak:
Here's the Truth You've Been Running From
By Bassam Aramin, Combatants for Peace
Honorable General Ehud Barak, you don't know me personally. I am a seeker of peace, and I struggle with all my strength and ability for the realization of a just peace that will bring calm and prosperity to Palestinians and Israelis together. I have suffered personally from your criminal occupation and I have paid a heavy price. Firstly, I was imprisoned when I was 17 years old and wasted seven years of my life in your barbaric prisons. Secondly, have you perhaps read or heard about what happened to the young girl Abir Aramin? She was a ten-year-old whom your soldiers killed with a rubber bullet from a distance of 15 feet on January 16, 2007 in front of her eleven-year-old sister Areen. Despite this I, the father of Abir - may she rest in peace - believe in the right of the Israeli person, as in the right of all people, to exist and to live in peace and security. So why do you not believe in our right to enjoy these same things, sir?
Where was the democratic nature of your state when your heroic soldiers killed my daughter before the eyes of her friends at the entrance to her school in Anata? Where were your democratic ideals when you closed the investigation file into Abir's murder for lack of sufficient evidence, this despite the fact that the crime is clear and was committed in front of more than ten witnesses? Was Abir really a threat to your soliders, sir?
New Profile 2008 Annual Report
Every year different New Profile teams come together in order to produce our annual report. The first team gathers facts and figures of last year's activities from our members and compiles an outline in Hebrew. It is then given to another team which translates it into an English outline, A third team, using this outline, compiles the comprehensive English report which you now receive. The task, however cumbersome, is truly reflective of how New Profile functions as an organization and how we adhere to our organizational commitment of sharing responsibility and power.
At the time this report was being complied and written, New Profile was - and is still being - confronted with new challenges, some very complex and unexpected, and others that are integral part of a growing movement. Most notable is the present threat of being taken to High Court as our status as a nonprofit organization is being questioned.
TWO LETTERS FROM THE SHMINISTIM: A NEW GENERATION
The Shministim letter 2008-an invitation to a meeting 6/27/08
Shalom,
We, shministim and year of service volunteers, who refuse to join the Israeli military and take part in the Occupation, repression and violence, invite young women and men who believe that another way is possible to take part in a meeting in which we will discuss ways to act together.
Friends who do not intend to enlist and consider refusal are very much invited on Friday, June 27th. Our political and social power depends on our ability to organize. As a group we will be able to make a difference. The meeting will take place at 12:00 in the "Left Bank" in Tel Aviv, 70th, Ehad Ha'Am St.
Second letter:
This coming Thursday, 6/26/08, the international day of identification with victims of torture and abuse will be observed all over the world.
The Knesset chairwoman, Dalya Itzik, decided that the Israeli Knesset will not commemorate the international day and will not discuss the issue "due to the multiplicity of events and commemoration dates in the Knesset". As against this type of blindness, we are obliged to observe the day and call upon all Israeli citizens to commemorate it with us.
The report of the Committee Against Torture in Israel that will be published next week will demonstrate that Israeli soldiers' abuse of Palestinian detainees is not "exceptional." It is a widespread phenomenon, clearly and patently illegal, that the IDF, the Defense Ministry, the Knesset, and even the State's Auditor try to ignore and have done nothing to uproot.
We invite you to observe the day and show your support for the victims of torture and abuse everywhere and discuss the harsh findings of the report and ways to motivate the Israeli authorities to act against the phenomenon of abuse against detainees. The discussion will take place this Thursday, 6/28/08 in the Zionist Organization of America House in Tel Aviv, 26th Iben Gvirol St. at 19:30. Admission is free and we are looking forward to meeting you.
For further details: 02-6429825. (The Shministim are Israeli high school seniors.)
CFP Receives Peace Abbey Award
Combatants
for Peace is being awarded the Peace Abbey Courage
of Conscience Award, in response to nomination by Andrea
LeBlanc of September 11th Families for Peaceful
Tomorrows. Founding members of C4P, Bassam Aramin and
Elik Elhanan, are speaking throughout the San Francisco
Bay Area to ask U.S. citizens help to press the Israeli
government to reopen the case of Mr. Aramin's daughter
and build a playground at her school in her memory.
[Read more]
CFP Tour Press: Santa Cruz Sentinel
Talk features former Israeli and Palestinian fighters
by Shanna McCord, 1/30/08
Combatants for Peace Receives Award
Search for Common
Ground honored Combatants for Peace with the 2007
Common Ground Award.
[Read more]
Yesh Gvul Calls for Investigation of Shehadeh Bombing
In July, 2007, Yesh Gvul, a major Israeli refuser
group supported by RSN, launched campaign calling for a
full investigation of the 2002 assassination of Hamas
leader Saleh Shehadeh which also killed 14 civilians
when Israel dropped a one-ton bomb on their Gaza
apartment building.
RSN has endorsed Yesh Gvul's campaign, which will include advertising on the internet and in Israeli newspapers as well as a major press conference and other actions on July 22, the fifth anniversary of the incident. RSN believes that the Israeli High Court's decision represents a major breakthrough in exposing IDF attacks on civilians.
Panel might probe 2002 killing of Hamas commander Shehadeh
By Yuval Yoaz | Haaretz | 2007.6.18
The ruling handed down at Sunday's hearing rested on an earlier decision issued in December 2006 by a panel headed by then Supreme Court president Aharon Barak. That ruling upheld the government's right to assassinate terrorists, but said that if an assassination resulted in the death of innocent civilians, the decision and its execution must then be 'objectively' examined to determine what went wrong. While the court did not clarify what it meant by this, legal experts believe an inquiry committee set up by the Defense Ministry would suffice. [Read More...]