Hello everyone,

My name is Yasmin Eran Vardi, and I am the new coordinator for Mesarvot Network. I’m 21 years old from Jerusalem and a long time activist against the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories. I refused the military draft myself, risked imprisonment, and received an exemption from military service in 2019 after a long journey claiming my case in front of the army’s “conscientious” committee, which sometimes recognizes some conscientious objectors.

Yasmin Eran Vardi, Coordinator for Mesarvot

Over the years, as an activist I participated in Mesarvot’s youth group, which is a part of Mesarvot activity to support young conscientious objectors. I also accompanied Palestinian farmers and shepherds in order to provide support against attacks by Israeli settlers, with a group called Ta’ayush. Today, I focus my activism on documenting violations of human rights by the Israeli army in the Palestinian Territories.

I want to share with you that we were recently invited to testify by the United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC) regarding the situation of conscientious objection in Israel. We explained to the UNHRC that what sustains the occupation of the Palestinian Territories is the increasing militarism in Israeli society, reinforced by the media, but mostly by the educational system which makes sure to put pressure on teenagers to enlist to military service.

The Israeli army and state policy work in violation of international law in many ways. We need to make sure the information from our fieldwork supporting refusers spreads across the globe. We ask for your help to do this. By donating only $10 a month, you will be a driving force in our ability to share this information with the world.

According to UN resolutions, the committees exempting refusers and conscientious objectors should be non-political civil committees that base their decisions on the personal testimony of the objector. This is definitely not the case in Israel. The committee is an army body composed of soldiers and only one civilian. It does not accept the objector’s self testimony, requests witnesses, and inspects the refuser’s social media. Moreover, it does not accept objection based on political circumstances such as objection to serve the occupation.

Not only that, refusers like us stand for recurring trials for our objection to service and are sentenced to multiple incarcerations. Those who refuse to wear army uniforms during their prison stay are punished a second time, for not identifying with the army’s values, and are sent to prison isolation. We are teenagers! It is not right to send 18 year olds to prison isolation for not wanting to practice violence and for resisting war!

This is but a partial list of the everyday violations committed by the Israeli army and we hope the UNHRC will take this information and raise much needed questions towards representatives of the state of Israel.

We need to increase our voice in the international arena in order to have more international bodies push Israel to form human policies that recognize basic human rights. We ask for your support and contribution in helping us sustain our work by contributing $10 a month. By doing so you will help us sustain our core activities such as supporting refusers and making sure the information from our field work will be delivered to citizens worldwide and in Israel, and to international and national bodies such as the UN and Israeli authorities.

We hope that over time by exposing this information in and outside Israel we will start seeing a much needed change in Israeli policy.

In solidarity,

Yasmin