JERUSALEM: Israel has disqualified its foremost human rights group as a volunteer option for youths who choose civilian national service over military conscription, officials said yesterday, citing the group’s criticism of the Gaza offensive.
The government move against B’Tselem, while unlikely to affect the group’s operations, reflected growing anger within Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s rightist coalition at Israeli activism it sees as stoking pro-Palestinian sympathy.
Hoping to close ranks with minority Arab citizens and ultra-Orthodox Jews exempted from the draft for ideological reasons, and to accommodate pacifists, Israel has been sponsoring alternative service in public bodies like education and health.
Civilian national service volunteers have their living expenses covered by the state and later become eligible for benefits akin to those extended to discharged soldiers.
The government’s National-Civic Service Authority said it would stop providing staff for B’Tselem after the group argued that some military strikes in Gaza, where 1,945 Palestinians, mostly civilians, have died in a month-old war, were illegal.
B’Tselem currently has one national service volunteer, authority director Sar-Shalom Jerbi told Israel’s Channel 2 TV.
“The volunteers represent one camp, in that they want to contribute to the country, to society and to their community,” Jerbi said. “B’Tselem crossed the line in wartime (by) campaigning and inciting against the State of Israel and the Israel Defence Force, which is the most moral of armies.”
B’Tselem director Haggai Elad, responding in the broadcast, described the ban as politically motivated and undemocratic.
“We act out of a deep commitment to the values of the society we are part of,” Elad said.
REUTERS
