Israeli servicewomen train to become army instructors. Some former recruits have spoken out against the military action in the occupied territories. Photograph: IDF/Polaris Images

It was a single word scrawled on a wall at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem that unlocked something deep inside Inbar Michelzon, two years after she had completed compulsory military service in the Israeli Defence Force.

The word was “occupation”. “I really felt like someone was speaking the unspoken,” she recalled last week in a Tel Aviv cafe. “It was really shocking to me. There was graffiti saying, ‘end the occupation’. And I felt like, OK, now I can talk about what I saw.”

Michelzon became one of a handful of former Israeli servicewomen who have spoken out about their military experiences, a move that has brought accusations of betrayal and disloyalty. It is impossible to know how representative their testimonies are, but they provide an alternative picture of the “most moral army in the world”, as the IDF describes itself.

Concerns about Israeli army culture were raised last week following the publication on Facebook of photographs of a servicewoman posing alongside blindfolded and handcuffed Palestinians. The images were reminiscent of the Abu Ghraib scandal in Iraq. But the former soldier, Eden Abergil, said she didn’t understand what was wrong with the pictures, which were described by the IDF as “ugly and callous”. – http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/17/israel-soldier-facebook-palestinian-prisoners

Israel is unique in enlisting women at the age of 18 into two years of compulsory military service. The experience can be brutalising for the 10% who serve in the occupied territories, as Michelzon did.

“I left the army with a ticking bomb in my belly,” she said. “I felt I saw the backyard of Israel. I saw something that people don’t speak about. It’s almost like I know a dirty secret of a nation and I need to speak out.”

Michelzon, now 29, began her military service in September 2000, just when the second intifada was breaking out. “I joined the army with a very idealistic point of view – I really wanted to serve my country.” She was posted to Erez, the crossing between Israel and the Gaza Strip, to work in the radio control room.

“There was a lot of tension, a lot of shootings and suicide bombings,” she said. “Little by little you understand the rules of the game. You need to make it hard for the Arabs – that’s the main rule – because they are the enemy.”

She cited a routine example of a Palestinian woman waiting at the crossing. Michelzon called her officer, asking permission to allow the woman through. She was told to make such a request once the woman had been kept waiting for hours. “I felt very alone in the army. I couldn’t talk about the things I felt were misplaced,” she said. “I didn’t have strong views but I felt uncomfortable about the talk, about soldiers hitting Arabs and laughing. I thought everyone else was normal and I was the one who wasn’t. I felt an outsider to the group experience.”

At the end of her service, in June 2002, Michelzon said she felt the need to escape and took off to India. “I went through a breakdown little by little,” she said. It was only when she returned to enrol in university, and two years of therapy, that she began to consider her “duty” to speak out. She also came across Breaking the Silence, an organisation of army veterans who publish testimonies from former soldiers on life in the occupied territories to stimulate debate about the “moral price” of the occupation.

Michelzon gave evidence to the group and two years ago appeared in a documentary, To See If I’m Smiling, about the experiences of young women in the army. The film, she said, was criticised by all sides. The left focused on “the bad things we did and not on the fact that we wanted to start a discussion. We wanted to put up a mirror and tell Israeli society to look itself in the eyes.

“From the right, the reaction was, why are you doing this to your own people? Do you hate your country? But I did it because I love my country. We had to fight to say we want to talk about the political situation.”

The psychological impact of military service on women is undeniable, according to the testimonies of Michelzon and others, particularly those who serve in the occupied territories. “If you want to survive as a woman in the army, you have to be manly,” she said. “There is no room for feeling. It’s like a competition to see who can be tougher. A lot of the time girls are trying to be more aggressive than the guys.”

Her experience is echoed by that of Dana Golan, who served in the West Bank city of Hebron in 2001-02 as one of about 25 women among 300 male soldiers. Like Michelzon, Golan only spoke out after finishing her service. “If I had raised my anxieties, it would have been seen as a weakness,” she said.

Golan, now 27, said the “most shaky moment” of her military service came during a search for weapons in a Palestinian home. The family were awoken at 2am by soldiers who “turned their whole house inside out”. No weapons were found. The small children of the house were terrified, she recalled. “I thought, what would I feel if I was this four-year-old kid? How would I grow up? At that moment it occurred to me that sometimes we’re doing things that just create victims. To be a good occupier, we have to create conflict.”

On a separate occasion she witnessed soldiers stealing from a Palestinian electronics shop. She tried to report it, only to be told “there were things I shouldn’t interfere with”.

She said that she also saw elderly Palestinians being humiliated on the streets, “and I thought these could be my parents or grandparents”.

Israel is discomfited by these testimonies, she said, partly because of the universality of military service. “We grew up believing the IDF is the most moral army in the world. Everyone knows people serving in the army. Now when I say we are doing immoral things, I am talking about your sister or your daughter. People do not want to hear.”

The IDF is proud that 90% of its roles are open equally to men and women. “Serving in a combat unit where you have daily contact with people who might do you harm is not easy – you have to be tough,” said Captain Arye Shalicar, an army spokesman. “It’s not only a female thing, it’s the same for everyone. In the end, a combat unit is a combat unit. Sometimes things happen, not every deed is 100% correct or fair.” The army, he said, has procedures for reporting misdeeds which soldiers are encouraged to follow.

Both Michelzon and Golan have no regrets about speaking out. “For two years I saw people suffering and I didn’t do anything – and that’s really scary,” said Michelzon. “At the end, it felt like the army betrayed me – they used me, I couldn’t recognise myself. What we call protecting our country is destroying lives.” – http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/22/israel-female-soldiers-gaza-occupation

Wellington on Thursday, 12 August 2010 – 5.15pm to 6.30pm, St John’s in the City hall, corner Willis and Dixon Streets, Wellington

Constantine directs the provision of health care, education and community services which care for the predominantly Muslim population of Gaza. In particular, the services focus on mothers and babies, vocational education and the provision of psychosocial health services to an increasingly traumatized population.

Constantine Dabbagh was born in Jerusalem in 1938, and in the midst of fierce fighting in 1947, fled as a refugee to the Gaza strip. During his life he has worked for United Nations Peace Keeping Force in Gaza, and for the United Nations in the Republic of Congo (now Zaire). He has consistently advocated non-violence amidst living conditions that clearly have become a humanitarian crisis. His personal and professional dialogue of justice, peace, security, mutual understanding and reconciliation has involved him in critical negotiations between political factions within Palestine, and the Palestinian Authority and the international community.

During the Israeli Defence Forces action in Gaza during January 2009, the major health clinic and central office of the Middle Eastern Council of Churches was destroyed by an Israeli rocket and remains in ruins as a direct result of the blockade of Gaza. No building materials are allowed to enter, and the reuse of rubble is the only source for reconstruction. The offer of a volunteer Australian work team to rebuild the clinic has been rejected by Israel, and necessary entry visas denied.

Efforts are being made by moderate Christian and Muslim leaders to achieve a peaceful resolution of the conflict and to convince the Israeli Government to end the current blockade of Gaza.

Constantine’s visit is sponsored by Christian World Service (CWS) and brings you the chance to hear at first hand about life in Gaza under siege and the work of the Department of Service to Palestinian Refugees. For further information please contact CWS, 0800 74 73 72.

Human Rights Watch arms division adviser Mary Wareham said on Sunday that the ban was “a victory for the campaign”, in which New Zealand was “involved from the get-go”. But there was still work to be done on ridding the world of the bombs which had a massive impact on civilians — especially children — with states like the USA and Israel yet to sign up to the convention, she said.

To find out more about cluster munitions see www.stopclusterbombs.org.nz and HRW

Readings: Isaiah 2. 1 -5. Romans 12. 9 -21.

This week we remember Hiroshima. On Monday 6th August 1945 at 8.15 on a sunny morning the crew of Enola Gay dropped Little Boy on Hiroshima. 70,000 people died, many more later. The death toll was a complete cross section of that society in that town at that moment; men women and children, babies at the breast, babies yet to be born, lawyers, clergy, civil servants, housemaids, pets and plants, all gone in a flash. The only human group under–represented was the military. The only group over-represented was Christians. Hiroshima was one of the Christian centres in Japan.

But Hiroshima was only the logical conclusion of what had gone before. Tactics that had been used by both sides at, for example, Coventry and Dresden. A conscious, deliberate tactic of 20th century war. What proved different with the atomic bomb was the legacy of radioactivity.

Last month Britain showcased the unmanned bomber plane Taranis, named after the Celtic god of thunder. It has cost $320 million so far. The American equivalent is called The Reaper. Robot tanks have been active on the Pakistani border for six years. The grim reaper two. To reap, a serviceman or woman in Nevada, 12,000 K away gazes into a screen, flies the plane, and decides who is a terrorist and who is an innocent villager. It’s a 9 -5 type of job. “Good day at the office dear?” “Well a bit dull really, no hits. Let’s go out to dinner and a movie.” Mistaken identity is bound to happen in that distant land. The robot itself cannot discriminate, it has no mercy. Up to last year 14 al-Queda leaders and more than 600 civilians had been killed, making 97% of deaths collateral damage. Robot weapons are a fast growing and lucrative industry.

This all seems a far cry from our two readings tonight. Isaiah with his vision of a future where people live as their creator wants them to live. People at peace with each other with no preparations for war, the destructive sword recycled into a productive plough. St. Paul writing to the churches in Nero’s Rome is not only telling diverse congregations how to find unity amongst themselves, but in our passage in particular, he is guiding them into how to relate to people outside the church. They are not to shut themselves away but to be part of the wider society. Where this causes misunderstandings and persecution they are to respond with a blessing not a curse. They are not to be overcome by evil but to overcome evil with good. Of course not every persecutor is going to accept that goodness, so Paul says ‘as far as possible be at peace with everyone’. Paul is basing his words on Jesus.

Jesus lived in a violent society and many of His contemporaries wanted Him to be a violent military Messiah. He refused. Isaiah had given a vision of peace but it was Jesus who said, let’s do it, this is how peace can be found, how the vision could come true. So he really said ‘You heard that it was said, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, but I say don’t use violence to resist evil’ Mat. 5 38,39 (N. T. Wright trans) And again He said ‘Love your neighbour as yourself’ and in His parable of the Samaritan two enemies become neighbours, brought together by the compassion of one and the need of the other. Later His ride on a donkey into Jerusalem proclaimed that He was the King of peace.

The 6th commandment ‘Do not murder’ is surely changed to do not kill as it is moved to the positive statement ‘Love your enemies’.

Of course some people persist in being our enemies but the point that Jesus and St. Paul make is that we don’t respond in the same way as our persecutors are behaving. We don’t enucleate an eye for an eye, but we respond in a different, more creative and loving way, even if it means personal suffering. We are to bless not curse, and overcome evil with goodness.

This happened with the passive resistance of the people of Parihaka. They ploughed the disputed land and as each ploughman was arrested, another took his place. 1879 was known as the year of the plough, Isaiah would have been pleased. When exasperated settlers finally marched into and destroyed part of the village they were first greeted by women and children with food. I think we should make more of Parihaka and proportionately less of Gallipoli. Surely Parihaka shows a better model for nation- building, a better way to respond to a violent threat? Both Parihaka and Gallipoli were heroic defeats; but the non-violent methods of Parihaka have had wonderful success in the last 50 years, the fall of the Berlin wall without bloodshed being but one example of many. We need to be told more about non violent ways of achieving political change.

Whatever we may think of the practicality of the sentiments and methods of Jesus the early church followed them for 300 years. Their ‘respect for life’ meant not killing other people and they met the purges of their enemies with what we would call non-violent resistance, even if it meant martyrdom. Even in that situation enemies were to be loved and blessed, they were not to be killed, good was to overcome evil. So Christians did not deliberately kill. A soldier converted to Christ was expected to leave the fighting force. I suppose our unarmed Army Chaplains are a ‘Last Post’ played for that tradition.

To quote a third century document about entrants for baptism, certain people were excluded, these included ‘brothel keepers, gladiators, idol worshippers, soldiers, and magistrates who used the power of the sword’ (quoted by Hornus). Nowadays I’m sure we would expect an adult baptismal candidate to have given up brothel keeping and idol worship and we might even add tobacco manufacturer and drug dealer, but we have no qualms about someone in the armed forces. That contraindication has been deleted.

It all changed in the fourth century when the empire became officially Christian including the Roman Army. Many people must have been ‘nominal’ and the state needed an ethical base for its ‘Christian’ army. Saints Augustine and Ambrose and others provided the criteria for this. Wars were not to be unrestricted mayhem, and that was good, certain conditions were to apply, but it was nevertheless a licence to kill and the Church has been in Bondage to it ever since. It was a significant departure from the way of Jesus, Paul and the early Church. The ‘Justified War’ theory is still alive and well. Last month the Investing Advisory Body of the Church of England brought out its new investment policy: no more investment in firms manufacturing indiscriminate weapons, they said, landmines, cluster munitions (thankfully internationally forbidden from today) and nuclear weapons, these are forbidden – but it is legitimate for the Church to have stocks and shares in companies making weapons compatible with the ‘just war’ theory. Regrettably no ploughshares on offer.

No further investments in landmines, good, but modern warfare does not fulfil just war criteria anyway. 90 years ago 90% of casualties were fighting men, and only 10% of casualties were civilians who unhappily got in the way. In the wars of the last 80 years that figure has been reversed and now 90% of war casualties are civilian, as at Hiroshima, on the Pakistani border and in Iraq. There must be protection of civilians and discrimination between combatants and civilians. Civilians are never to be the targets of warfare. The weapons used in war must discriminate between combatants and innocents. These are essential elements in the Justified war criteria. Without civilian protection a war is not a just one. The licence to kill has been made invalid and redundant by the facts of modern war. The just war does not pass its test. That wonderful hymn tune by Sullivan, St Gertrude, desperately needs new words. Christian soldiers have to either make major changes to modern warfare or opt out completely as they did in the early church.

In March the defence was used in the case against Adrian Leason, 45, Peter Murnane, 69, and Sam Land, 26, who a jury found not guilty of burglary or wilful damage at the Government Communications Security Bureau base.

Justice Minister Simon Power outlined five options which will be looked into and reported back to him in September:

Shifting the burden of proof
Amending the definition of ‘claim of right’ so a defendant would have to prove they have a ‘claim of right’, rather than the prosecution needing to prove they do not.

Adding a reasonableness element
Amending the definition of ‘claim of right’ so a defendant would have to show that at the time of the offence their actions and/or beliefs were reasonable.

Amending the offences that have ‘claim of right’ as an element
Amending some or all of the 14 offences in the Crimes Act that have ‘claim of right’ as an element to ensure the defence is not wider than appropriate.

Adding a property interest criterion
Amending the defence of ‘claim of right’ so only a defendant with a legal claim to the property concerned could use the defence.

Repealing the defence
Remove the ‘claim of right’ defence from the Crimes Act so the defence is not available to any defendant in future.

Dylan Rimoni, 3, died on April 18, 2008, in Aucklands Starship childrens hospital after his life support was turned off. An autopsy showed he died from head injuries.

His carer, Patricia Angela Pickering, 38, is charged with murdering the boy after bashing his head against a hard surface.

Pickering, who is on trial in the High Court at Auckland, also faces two charges of grievous bodily harm and one charge of assault. She has denied all charges.

Yesterday, Crown prosecutor Philip Hamlin told the court Dylan was given to Pickering to care for because the boy was in need of a mother and Pickering wanted a child. He had been removed from his birth parents care after allegations of neglect and abuse.

Although it appeared a dream come true for both Pickering and the boy, the reality was quite different, Mr Hamlin said.”This child was beaten for a long time. He was hit, cut and maltreated over the period he was in Ms Pickerings care. In the end he was dead, in her arms, effectively.

“The jury was shown a cupboard door with two dents in the wood that the Crown claims were caused by the boys head hitting it with force.Evidence had been given to the court by Pickerings neighbours, who heard angry yelling at the house. One neighbour had heard Pickering yell: “Shut the f… up, shut up”. Another heard her say: “If you do not shut your mouth, Im going to punch your head.”

For the full story see Boy died after carer bashed him with door | Stuff.co.nz.

The serious incidents that took place on 31 May between Israeli forces and activists on a flotilla heading for Gaza once again put the spotlight on the acute hardship faced by the population in the Gaza Strip.

Under international humanitarian law, Israel must ensure that the basic needs of Gazans, including adequate health care, are met. The Palestinian authorities, for their part, must do everything within their power to provide proper health care, supply electricity and maintain infrastructure for Gaza’s people.

“A 57-year-old woman has pleaded guilty to manslaughter over the death of her three-year-old grandchild.

Joanne Jasmine Tahuri, 57, of Marton,  was on trial in the High Court at Whanganui for the murder of her granddaughter Cherishsiliala Tahuri-Wright, known as Cherish.

The Porirua three-year-old died in Wellington Hospital on February 19 last year.

The Crown had alleged Tahuri hit her hard enough to cause a subdural haematoma, or brain bleeding, two days earlier.

The prosecution case had not ended when Tahuri entered the guilty plea to manslaughter yesterday.

A sentencing date has not been set yet.

Earlier the trial heard Tahuri appeared ‘‘flighty’’ while caring for Cherish’s three-year-old cousin. ‘‘You could hear her [Tahuri] giving him [the cousin] a bath and he would be crying and she would be telling him to shut up, ‘‘ Mrs Stokes said. ‘‘He was always crying during bath time, sometimes she would use the F-word as well. They were very loud.’’

Mrs Stokes said that on at least one occasion she had seen Tahuri give the cousin an open-handed smack for running away from her.

Forensic scientist David Neale, who examined Tahuri’s house in Marton, said he found blood on walls inside and outside, as well as on a towel and bed. Most appeared to have been diluted with water, but a blood pattern on one of the inside walls was not.

“In my opinion this is not just due to dripping. There has been some force behind creating the blood in this pattern.”

Under cross examination, he said: ‘‘It could be blood that accumulated in the airway or from a lung wound  a cough, for example, with blood in the mouth.’’

via Cherish trial: Grandmother admits manslaughter | Stuff.co.nz.

By Jonathan Manthorpe, Vancouver Sun May 19, 2010

While Thailand’s “Red Shirt” rural poor have been in bloody confrontation with troops in central Bangkok for nearly three months, there have been similar rebellions all over Asia by people who believe they have been left out of, or excluded from, the region’s economic miracle.

On Monday, India’s Maoist rebels known as Naxalites ambushed a bus and killed 24 civilians and 12 special police officers. Early in March, guerrillas of the Philippines’ Maoist New People’s Army killed 11 soldiers in an ambush.

At the beginning of this month, 100,000 Maoists from rural Nepal invaded the capital Kathmandu and brought the city to a halt as they demanded the government be replaced.

The Maoists, who won power in 2008 elections after a long civil war and subsequently withdrew from a coalition government, are now preparing for May 28, when the political dispensation expires.

And, of course, in China there have been the usual “mass incidents,” which average over 250 a day, as rural and urban poor protest the predations and sheer thievery of corrupt Communist party officials and their entrepreneur allies.

Some of these uprisings are holdovers from a previous age. The Philippines’ rebellion by the New People’s Army, for example, is about to celebrate its 41st anniversary and has its roots even further back than that in the fight against the Japanese occupation during the Second World War.

What these uprisings have in common, however, is a reaction to the massive inequality and disparity between the poor and the wealthy elites that have grown up since Asia set out on market economy reforms 30 years ago.

Even where there have not been sustained insurrections, such as in Indonesia and Malaysia, there has been civil unrest in protest at inequity and the perceived efforts by ruling cliques to limit democratic reform.

Organizations such as the Asian Development Bank have warned again and again of the potential in many regional countries for social upheaval stemming from the gap in investment between the urban and rural areas.

In several reports over the years, the bank and other international organizations have catalogued dangerously widening rifts between the expectations and quality of life between the cities and the countryside.

In most cases, these divides have arisen because the political classes and their allies have been fixated on crude economic growth and the benefits to their partisan interests.

There has been little attention to institution-building or ensuring benefits flowed to the most vulnerable and disadvantaged members of society.

In India this neglect has led to the Naxalite insurgency, which started as a peasants’ revolt in the West Bengal village of Naxalbari 40 years ago, becoming by far the greatest security threat to the nation.

We hear a lot from India about Muslim terrorists, homegrown or from Pakistan, and separatists in Kashmir. These do not begin to match the threat posed by the Naxalites who now operate in 20 of India’s 28 states and control large areas of eastern India.

Much of the area under Maoist control is densely wooded or mountainous and home to tribal and other low-caste peoples who are losing their land to development. But increasingly the Naxalites are moving into urban areas, especially in Bengal, where they find a sympathetic audience.

This week’s ambush, coming soon after the killing of 75 reserve policemen by the Naxalites last month, has prompted Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to order a review of the government’s strategy of countering the uprising.

His government has also said it will begin peace talks with the rebels if they will halt all attacks for 72 hours. Until now the policy has in theory included firm policing and development projects for the rural poor. The reality has been harsh policing and very little focus on development by either the central or state governments.

Last month there were several reports from India and from the Philippines’ capital Manila that the New People’s Army has sent experienced guerrilla fighters to help train the Indian Naxalites. The reports stem from information obtained – doubtless none too gently -by Indian police from two captured Naxalites in the western state of Gujarat.

There have also been reports of Filipino NPA members being spotted in Thailand, though no obvious link to the Red Shirts has been observed yet.