Why I won't serve Sharon

It is remarkable how easily one learns to live with occupation. When I was born, the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories was already three years old. When I became 18 the occupation was still in full force, only by then the Palestinians had had enough of it. That was the first intifada. I was there, along with many others, ready to serve as the iron fist to crush the Palestinian resistance. Elsewhere people our age contemplated going to university or travelling around the world, but I and many young Israelis found ourselves in the narrow alleys of Jebaliya and other refugee camps. We should have known better, but almost without exception we didn't.

Nearly eight years later I was still serving in the occupied territories, this time as a reserve soldier. I was manning a roadblock, stopping Palestinians from entering Israel en route to their low paid jobs in the Israeli "slave market". I remember talking to a friend, trying to justify why I'd collaborated with a policy that denied a Palestinian father the only means of bringing food to his children.

No more. No more excuses. We members of Courage to Refuse, reserve soldiers who have vowed not to serve in the occupied territories, will not set foot beyond the 1967 line unless it is in civilian clothes and as invited guests.
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Fenced off in Gaza

The line stretches as far as the eye can see, a never-ending column of cars snaking through the sand in the baking midday sun.

Many here have waited for as long as 36 hours to cross the Israeli army checkpoint which cuts the north of the Gaza Strip from the south.

Young and old, they have slept in their seats or in the sand beside their cars.

An elderly woman from Rafah had a heart attack at the Abu Holi checkpoint; a pregnant woman gave birth to a baby that died.

For Gazans, the checkpoint is a symbol of the bitter humiliation of the Israeli occupation.
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