43% of Israeli teenagers support refusenik stance

[Violet_Crumble]

A relatively large proportion of Israeli teens - 43 percent - support refusal to serve in the territories or refusal to eject settlers, compared with 25 percent of those aged 18 and older, according to a survey conducted by the Israel Democracy Institute two months ago.

The survey, entitled Democracy Index-Teenage Positions, is part of the institute's annual Democracy Index, and its findings are being published here for the first time. The complete survey, which comprised 1,200 adults and some 600 teens, will be presented to President Moshe Katsav next week.

"The teenagers' support for refusenik positions is a warning light that demands attention," said the surveyors, Prof. Asher Arian, Pazit Ben-Nun and Shlomit Barnea.

The survey found that teens are more supportive than adults of refusenik positions of all kinds. While 75 percent of adults said a soldier must not refuse an order to evacuate settlers, only 57 percent of teens agreed with that statement. A slightly smaller gap was found regarding the refusal to serve in the territories: 71 percent of adults compared to 57 percent of teens said soldiers cannot refuse on grounds that they object to Israel's policy toward Palestinians.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/430541.html

[bemildred]

1. This is what will destroy Israel.

Not military might, but refusal, loss of interest in the enterprise.

[Gimel]

2. I don't think so

This will make Israel stronger as a free nation. All the accusations of hatred in the Israeli society are false.

[newyorican]

3. All the accusations of hatred in the Israeli society are false.

Including that one?

[bemildred]

4. I made no such accusation.

I said that people lose interest, they move, they tune
out, they refuse military service, the dodge taxes, they
stop having children. People will not work and sacrifice
for a cause they no longer feel is worthy. The government
does not propagandize for national unity for nothing, and
when you have a large portion of the young disaffected you
have a big problem, it doesn't even matter how they are
disaffected, it means they won't support the status quo.
But hey, what do I know, enjoy your new "strength".

[Gimel]

5. Counter currents

So you propose that Israelis will move elsewhere? That Israel will cease to exist because people stop having children?

The "refuseniks" are young people, prior to military age. Surveys show that as they mature, they become more interested in politics. Young people in Israel are apathetic. It shows that the charges of "indoctrination" are baseless. There is no effort to indoctinate Israeli youth to regard Palestinians as "inferior". Israelis are taught to think and to be individuals thinking for themselves. They have to be to survive in the cultural environment. This does not indicate that they are going to leave the land.

Surveys pick up on trends. Each trend has an opposing trend.

It's not a new "strengh". It is as old as youth itself.

[bemildred]

6. I proposed nothing.

You admit they are apathetic.
Believe what you like.

[Gimel]

8. Present simple tense

You state it as a fact, whereas I see no need to link all of these together, or link them to this article about a survey.

What you said:

I said that people lose interest, they move, they tune
out, they refuse military service, the dodge taxes, they
stop having children.

I didn't mean to suggest that you were making an accusation. I was referring to accusations that have been made recently on this forum, which I know you have been reading and participating in. Israeli teens do not seem to be showing that much involvement in politics or current developments in the conflict with the Palestinians, according to this report.

I think this is a necessity, given that overly fixated on conflict would be an unhealthy tendency, and it is an indication of success for educators and parents that the children are growing up with normal teen-age attitudes, despite the constant threats the society faces.

They are not bigoted.

[bemildred]

10. We don't seem to communicate well.

I was addressing a certain issue. You brought in
various things that were not pertinent in my view,
perhaps because you are there in the middle of it, but
nevertheless they interfered with what I was trying to say.

For example, I was talking about, roughly, apathy and
lack of commitment, as demonstrated in this support for
refusal and personal autonomy, and you brought up hatred,
which is a different thing entirely and somewhat destructive
to the subject as I was conceiving it. Thus I felt it
necessary to point out that that was not what I was talking
about.

I will not go through the whole list. I can understand that
I am outside the mainstream in terms of how discussion
usually proceeds here, and you spend a lot more time at
it than I do, so I have no personal animosity about this.

Nevertheless, I will defend the integrity I what I want to
say, and we will probably have better discussions if you
keep in mind my quirks. Most especially, if you make it clear
that I have been understood first, I will be much more receptive
to the addition of related issues of interest to you.

[Gimel]

11. From my view

The young people have other things on their minds, like finishing their exams, getting a profession, finding themselves in a world that is both inviting and scary. There is a lot of escapism into mod styles, movies, videos, friends, as well as a percentage with drug problems, social or family problems.

They are not news junkies, but do watch TV news and do get courses in high school on current events.


P.S. I will try to relate to your postings more carefully.

[bemildred]

12. You disagree with my interpretation.

You think this is less significant than I do. I must admit
you are there and I am not. I expect we could both dredge
up a good deal of "evidence". But let's not. Thanks for
considering my point of view.

[bemildred]

7. Israel will rue the day it put that violent half-wit in the PMs office.

He has the fecal touch, everything he touch's turns to shit.
He shares that with Bush, and they have both had their hands
deep in the current situation in Israel.

[Gimel]

9. There is a qualification

Surprisingly, teens of all political stripes assented to the refusal to evacuate settlers at similar rates - around 40 percent. In general, the survey found that teens are largely tolerant of ideological refusal motivated by reasons that are contrary to their own views.

The teen aged respondents are saying that they support the right of refusniks (and that is for operations in the territories, not the army service itself).

They agree that a person who has serious qualms about removing settlements, should not have to take that duty when in the army, and likewise for serving in combat units.

[The Magistrate]

13. That Last, Ma'am

Is the fly in the ointment here. It seems more youths agree a soldier who does not want to remove settlers should not have to, than believe a soldier who does not want to police Arab Palestinians should not have to. Sooner or later, this is going to come down to Israeli soldiers removing Israeli settlers in the Jordan valley....

[bemildred]

14. My point, Sir, is that you cannot run an army that way,

or a country, and it was not always thus in Israel, which
once had a marvelous cohesiveness and sense of moral purpose,
all carried out in the context of a vigorous social debate.

[The Magistrate]

15. That Is True, My Friend

Soldiers must do what they are damned well told, or the whole thing falls apart. As one of the old Prussians put it, a soldier's only words should be "Command us, Master, where we might die."

But Ms. Gimel seems to have a good point, that youth are always somewhat prone to testing limits and questioning allegiances, as a part of deciding their identities are their own. Further, a good deal of this may simply be the result of the disinigrating effects of modernity. Japan, for instance, is nowhere near as cohesive as it was thirty years ago, and that without the stress of decades of indefinite war.

[bemildred]

16. That is true, and it's a mushy business.

Japan, on the other hand, has been at peace for some 60 years,
and Israel has been at war for almost as long.

I must confess in ranting about this that I am thinking of a
number of other stories, but it must be said the the authors
of the story seem to think it's an alarming result too.

People (like me) say that there will be change in Iran because of
disaffection of the young from the "islamic revolution" there,
and similar attitudes in this country forced the end of the VietNam
war, I would be most surprised if this does not have consequences.

The only populations in Israel and the territories that seem
engaged are the settlers and the Palestinians, and that is not
a healthy situation. This piece was fascinating in that regard:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=124x70469