WORLD WORLDWIDE EUROPE ITALY SICILY - news journal UPDATE - (en) Italy, Sicilia Libertaria #456 - Desertion! The NOs of yesterday, today and tomorrow. An interview with Atalya Ben Abba of the RSN (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 "What is a rebel? A man who says no, but whose refusal does not imply a

renunciation. He is also a man who says yes, from the moment he makes
his first gesture of rebellion. Albert Camus ---- During wars, between
stories of death, conflicts between states, power, oppression and blood
money, something happens... it happens that inside some human being,
something awakens... sometimes what awakens them is a physical or
psychological trauma, a bereavement, sometimes political visions that
contrast with the propaganda of the moment, sometimes simply
understanding the value of one's own life and that of others, other
times a familiar figure who shows us a different path, or millions of
other reasons that I won't list here; but here in the minds of soldiers
or potential soldiers, the NO grows more and more, with thoughts,
energies and emotions: I don't fight for you, I don't kill for you, I
don't believe in you anymore. Just as the violence of states and
powerful people is repeated throughout human history, so are the NOs,
desertions, and resistances that sometimes even lead to revolutions.

Desertion during the Russian Revolution of 1905-1917 was undoubtedly the
one that had decisive consequences both on the army and on society. This
phenomenon was not only a "no" to fighting but a much broader and deeper
"no": it was a NO to that government, to that dictatorship and, at the
same time, as in Camus's phrase, a YES to a new revolutionary
experience. The scale of the desertions was so vast that it
significantly weakened the armed forces, compromising the country's
ability to defend itself, in which strikes in the arms industry, major
women's demonstrations, and revolts by organized soldiers, who then
joined revolutionary groups, contributed to the collapse of the Tsarist
regime.

Desertion is still a major phenomenon today, affecting both the
NATO-Russian war on Ukrainian soil and the Israeli state's genocidal
aggression on Gaza.

According to Israeli media reports, increasing numbers of people are
deserting from military service. The Times of Israel and several other
outlets have reported a decline in troop numbers of between 15% and 25%,
attributing this mainly to burnout from the long periods of service
required.

There is much more to it than that. Desertion is a phenomenon that is
difficult to pin down in precise numbers, most often because governments
tend to hide it, unless there is some major benefit in showing this
clear political and structural weakness.

Israel's criminal army, of about 170,000 soldiers and about 465,000
reservists, is beginning to feel the legal, media and moral blows of the
convictions of the International Criminal Court (ICC) which on November
21, 2024 issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and
crimes against humanity.

In addition, the work of the Refuser Solidarity Network (RSN), which
since 2003 has supported over a thousand individuals who have publicly
refused to be part of the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian
Territories, is beginning to yield important results. Last year we
interviewed Mattan Helman, director of the Network, this month we tried
to understand with Atalya Ben Abba, also of the RSN, what it means for a
woman to defect under the Israeli regime, also asking her to reflect on
the current situation following the truce to the genocide in Gaza that
began on January 19.

Atalya, who comes from a Jewish family of German origin, tells us about
her experience in prison, which lasted 110 days, after refusing to join
the Israeli army. She explains how prison demonstrates the patriarchal
and racist attitude of the Israeli state in which, although women of
Ethiopian origin represent a minority of the population, almost half of
those detained are Ethiopians. This type of situation is found in other
prison systems such as the Italian and American ones, which have very
high rates of "foreigners" and populations of African origin. Being a
conscientious objector, she explains, can lead to further difficulties
in a patriarchal society, such as the Israeli one, where the voice of
women is worth less than that of men, because one does not feel taken
seriously and listened to. Despite the imprisonment where all convicted
women were put in the same sector without differences in the seriousness
of the crimes committed, as instead happens in male prisons, her
detention with other women was positive from a sisterly point of view.
Atalya explains to us that she experienced a climate of support and
understanding, in her opinion not so common in male prisons.

Atalya lost many friends because of her choice and her relationship with
her mother was also very difficult at first. She has been part of the
RSN since 2017 and also tells us about important collaborations between
the RSN and other organizations such as the Feminist Deserters
(Mesarvot) and the Peace Fighters, a grassroots movement of Israelis and
Palestinians, working together to end the occupation and bring peace,
equality and freedom.

During her years of activism Atalya has slept in the homes of some
Palestinians in the West Bank to try to protect them with other comrades
and talk to the settlers when they came to attack Palestinian
communities. We know that about 14 communities have had to leave the
West Bank since October 2024. She tells us that many of these settlers
are teenagers, often on drugs, pushed by Israeli adults in their violent
actions. One could consider what is happening a form of abuse on Israeli
children.

The current situation: Atalya sees Israel's presence as a colonial
entity that has been carrying out genocide on the Palestinian population
for a long time, under the influence of the American government that
interferes in Israeli politics. She tells us that the night of the
agreement was followed by enormous levels of violence by settlers
towards Palestinians. But in this climate there is also an
ever-increasing number of reservists who are refusing to return to the
army and participate in the genocide: about 170 people have written
letters publicly to show their objection.

Finally, I asked Atalya if she has ever reflected on the difference
between her and her peers who have joined the army, what makes someone a
deserter and someone not? He takes some time and then tells me: "I
thought about it a lot, you know... for me it was the presence of my
brother, older than me, who had already deserted, through him I
understood that I had an alternative, because you know... many of my
friends, who regretted having served in the military, told me that they
didn't know they could have had different choices".

Gabriele Cammarata

https://www.sicilialibertaria.it/
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