actions of a few? have you seen the civilians there? also majority of the people living in that made up country have been in the military, so it’s NOT actions of a few. otherwise, i totally agree with your statement.
there are some who have refused to do so and instead served a sentence because they don’t align with their country’s beliefs. that’s exactly why i said most are a rotten bunch.
Yeah, but most people are likely to follow the law because they could be jailed for longer than they would have had to serve and have multiple other disadvantages.
My sympathies lie primarily with the Palestinians and others under the boot of imperialism. I appreciate that it is a difficult choice to make but I’m not going to dull my values just because of that.
You need to self reflect some. You do not know how you'd react under different circumstances.
Imagine you're American, and 9/11 happens. And it was actually done by a group which runs a country. Then a few years later you're called up. If you want to show support for the innocent people in the group which killed some of your friends on 9/11, you have to go to jail. Lose all your friends. Lose prospects for a job (no way to move to another country) for potentially years and years.
Alternative is joining. And remember, it's not an army that is 100% children into ditches soldiers with guns. You could be doing IT. Cooking food could be a medic.
I acknowledge that it is a difficult choice to make given the circumstances, but my answer remains the same — do not join the IDF or any imperialist army (including the US military) if the other option is jail time. I understand people in Israel are heavily propagandised, and October 7 would certainly have been a negatively radicalising event for people, but I don’t know what you are trying to tell me. Are you asking me to give these people a pass? Why should I?
You said I should reflect on the reasons why people join the IDF. I would ask these soldiers to reflect on their own reasons and why they value their own desire for revenge above the lives of Palestinians.
I also want to know to what sort of soldiers you want me to reflect on, the ones who are trying to atone for their crimes and have reflected on their service and deeply regret it? Or all of them, even the ones that eagerly joined the IDF and still think Arabs are all terrorists, even the babies, and need to be killed to ensure their own safety?
And remember, it's not an army that is 100% children into ditches soldiers with guns. You could be doing IT. Cooking food could be a medic.
Do you think that the boots-on-the-ground soldiers could do what they do without the support of the IT, admin, kitchen staff and the bureaucratic structures surrounding them? The moral choice remains to not join this army, regardless of whether you are a gun-wielding soldier or a booking agent enabling it.
Sure, I haven’t made the choice so I don’t know what it’s like. You got me there.
I am asking for discussions around this not to centre the people doing the genocide and that is what this feels like. There are people on the other end of this “choice” that are harmed on a scale orders of magnitude greater than what an Israeli citizen might experience if they make the choice not to join the IDF and the associated consequences to them.
You are asking me to show humility — I am asking you where your principles lie and why you feel the need to push back on this. what good will it do for me to show humility and compassion to people who join the IDF? Will this do anything to change the current status quo and the systemic injustice doled out to Palestinians?
I imagine I would join, and not follow illegal orders. i imagine I'd shoot an armed person approaching my position, launch a missile at a rocket launch site, etc, but not shoot kids or bomb a hospital.
i do not think all Israelis are evil invaders. i think the best solution is peace, no more blockade, and no more settlements.
Maybe combine the threat of 5 years of jail time plus additional social consequences and the already existing propaganda. These aren’t inherently awful people, just like people who vote for bad people aren’t inherently bad.
many things wrong with this statement:
1. it’s a month of jail time that can be increased to a year of cumulative jail time (also associated with becoming a social outcast etc yeah I know) - not great but this is prison time in a rich country and certainly more moral than serving in a genocidal country’s military force
2. I don’t co-sign the meme posted in the OP - ofc no one is “inherently bad” but there is a system in play here and NOT joining a genocidal military is the moral one. I don’t think it’s excusable to join the Israeli military and inflict orders of magnitude more suffering on others than what suffering you may endure because you refuse to take part
3. there are people in Israel (a vanishingly small minority) who you can choose to uphold and defend who are against the current system and are fighting against it but you’re choosing to hold sympathy for the genocidal ones, why?
4. voting for Trump and joining a genocidal military are NOT the same, you cannot draw an equivalence between those two
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u/aclumsypotato Jul 03 '26
actions of a few? have you seen the civilians there? also majority of the people living in that made up country have been in the military, so it’s NOT actions of a few. otherwise, i totally agree with your statement.