Shimri here. I am a war refuser, I spent 21 months in an Israeli prison at the age of 18, and today I serve on the board of Refuser Solidarity Network, supporting others who refuse. In the past few weeks we are seeing an unprecedented wave, hundreds of soldiers that are refusing the war in Gaza. Such waves ended Israeli wars against the Palestinians at least twice in the past. Refuser Solidarity Network is aggressively supporting these groups, providing financial, legal and organizational help. We have done so for over 20 years, and will continue to do so in the weeks and months to come, until this war ends. You can help us and the refusers groups end this war.

RSN Chairman of the Board Shimri Zameret, second from right, stands among fellow Israeli draft refusers amidst the Second Intifada, 2003.

I am writing this to tell you some of the stories of these new refuser groups. Refusal Solidarity Network is proud to be the only international group supporting this wave of resistance. Beyond funding for lawyers, for press and social media campaigns, we are helping them to build an infrastructure of mentorship and support, often provided by older military refusers to the new refusers. We are helping them build a community of resistance to the war. Refusers numbers are currently growing exponentially, and if they continue to grow, they will end this war (as refusal movements have done in the past). It’s our moral duty, therefore, to both Palestinians and Israelis, to help these new refuser groups in any way we can.

I want to tell you a bit about these groups, although we will no doubt tell you more about them in the coming weeks and months, as they take shape and continue to expand and take action.

One such group includes over 40 reserve soldiers “(Michtav Hamiluimnikim”) who signed a public letter declaring refusal to military service shortly before the invasion of Rafah, a large city in the Gaza Strip. They were interviewed widely by mainstream press in Israel and the world, including a front page story in Haaretz daily, an interview to the Guardian and the Washington Post, and a long CNN piece. Another group of soldier refusers is being organized as I write this, a refusal statement calling to end the war. Invitations to sign their new refusal letter are circulating widely on social media and whatsapp groups, as well as face-to-face in anti-war vigils across Israel. While the number of signatories of this new refusal statement is not public yet, it is already clear this will be one of the biggest groups of soldiers refusing in Israel’s history. And they need our help.

Another group we are supporting is AniSiravti (“I refused” in Hebrew), a new initiative of older reserve refusers who are running social media campaigns with video statements of past and present soldiers declaring their refusal of the occupation, apartheid and war on Gaza. Last week, a member of the group, a middle school teacher and former military refuser called Ofer Shor, was targeted by the mayor of the city where he lives, an ultra-nationalist politician which wrote a letter to the Israel’s Education Ministry trying to get Ofer fired from the school where he works because a video of Ofer published online on the group’s page stated that he would refuse today, as he has done in the past. After the incitement by this right-wing politician, Ofer was met with riots and threats to his safety by students and teachers at his workplace. With your backing, Refuser Solidarity Network is supporting the campaign AniSiravti is running in support of Ofer, a campaign involving legal action, social media and press actions, a campaign protecting Ofer and amplifying his courageous act.

As someone who researches and teaches strategy of social change and war resistance in the University of Michigan, I know that historically, such waves of refusal were front and center of war resistance movements that ended Israeli wars and Israeli atrocities (This happened at least twice: in 1982, helping to end the Israel-Lebanon war and in 2002-3, helping to end the second Intifada). Reservists are the backbone of the Israeli military, having been called up in great numbers to fuel Israel’s war effort: reports suggest that the majority of Israel’s over 400,000 reservists have been called up for service since the war’s outset. The Israeli army relies on reservists on all fronts: from ensuring the army’s day-to-day functioning to flying Israel’s warplanes in order to bomb the Strip. The army cannot carry on with business as usual without them, which is why theirs is such a powerful act of resistance, an act we should support.

If you read all the way to the end of this email, I want to say a few words about the most effective kind of support you can give the refusal movement. The best kind of support is one that, like the Refuser Solidarity Network, is there for the long haul, for years and decades to come. Even small monthly plans are what helps us and the Israeli refusal movement to plan and work for the long term, for the long years it will take not just to end this war but end Israeli rule over the Palestinians. This is our goal and we will, eventually, achieve it. So please set up a monthly support plan if you don’t already have one. And please consider increasing the level of your gift if you already have a plan. I am asking this so directly because, with all honesty, this unprecedented war and wave of war refusal is forcing Refuser Solidarity Network to fundraise and spend more money than ever before. We truly need your help to end this war.