IDF sentences conscientious objector to five days in prison

Noa Gur Golan will spend five days in military prison for refusing to serve in the Israeli army.

By +972 Magazine Staff

Conscientious objector Noa Gur Golan outside the Tel Hashomer induction base, July 12, 2017. (Ido Rimon/Mesarvot)
Conscientious objector Noa Gur Golan outside the Tel Hashomer induction base, July 12, 2017. (Ido Rimon/Mesarvot)

The Israeli army sentenced conscientious objector Noa Gur Golan to five days in military prison Wednesday, after she announced her refusal to serve due to the violence of the IDF.

Gur Golan arrived at the IDF induction center in Tel Hashomer on Wednesday morning accompanied by family members and activists. Following her sentence, she will once again be asked to show up at the center, where she is expected to continue to refuse induction, and will likely be sentenced again. She is being supported by Mesarvot — Refusing to Serve the Occupation, a grassroots network that brings together individuals and groups who refuse to enlist in the IDF in protest at the occupation.

Gur Golan, 19, from Netanya, refuses to serve in the IDF due to her pacifist beliefs in nonviolence, and because she believes that she must actively work to reduce violence and bring about peace. She has previously stood before a conscientious objectors committee, which rejected her request for exemption. Gur Golan demands to be recognized as a conscientious objector, rather than a pacifist (whom are more easily granted exemption from the committee), and is willing to pay the price.

In her declaration of refusal, she wrote the following:

When I was young, I always dreamed of being a pilot in the IDF. Today I am 19, and I am pained by the thought of taking part in a belligerent organization. The values upon which I was raised — obeying the law and giving back to society — must exist alongside other values, in which I believe with my entire heart: the sanctity of every life and opposition to violence. I view my refusal as an active step, an alternative to the violent reality we have gotten used to living in. For the sake of real security, I believe there must be another way.

Last month, the army released conscientious objector Atalya Ben-Abba from military service after spending a total of 110 days in military prison for refusing to be drafted. Ben-Abba was released on grounds of unsuitability, after her request to be recognized as a conscientious objector was rejected a day earlier.