Ben,
My brother-in-law faced a similar dilemma some years ago when he returned to Italy for medical school. It took quite a bit of wrangling for him to stay out of uniform. Of course the Italian Army is a different world than the IDF (I’m sure you’ve heard the joke about Italian tanks having one forward and three reverse gears).
I suspect you’ll feel a good deal of pressure to change your mind once your feet are on the ground in Israel. However, I’d ask you to keep Bertrand Russell’s WW1 experience in mind. No, try not to think of his imprisonment, think instead of how he held on to his humanitarian convictions while his countrymen labeled him a traitor.
There is a British saying, “Many are thought brave who were simply too afraid to run away.” Unfortunately, a hundred thousand courageous young Tommies chose to run through a storm of bullets for every brave man who chose to stand his ground against that war. Russell himself commented that it takes more courage and discipline to maintain one’s pacifism than it does to kill out of fear.
At the end of WW1 there were some 25 thousand miles of trenches dug across northern Europe and 9 million lay dead. Sir Fabian Ware calculated that if the 921 thousand British and Empire dead were to parade abreast down Whitehall, the parade would last three and a half days.
With the (admitted) luxury of hindsight, we may ask; what did these brave lads exchange their lives for? What did their ultimate sacrifice bring to the world? The first thing we’re told today about WW1 is that it was the war that never should have been. A complex network of alliances turned a local tragedy into an international conflagration. As it turned out, the brave young men who ended up gassed or with a bullet through their brow were only setting the stage for far greater horrors to come.
It’s sickening that these young men were called upon to kill each other out of a perverse sense of nationalism. If they had died in a “war to end all wars” then we might come to accept the heroic exchange of their lives for an everlasting peace. But that’s not what happened. The fact that these men marched dutifully forward to kill each other instead of courageously refusing to kill, only brought a greater calamity to the world; The Second World War, or more accurately, World War One; Part Two, is estimated to have claimed from 35 to 60 million victims. By all rights these men, women, and children should join Fabian Ware’s parade-of-corpses down Whitehall Street.
Philosophy can take pride in such men as Russell and Schweitzer. These men understood that it matters a great deal how we act in this world, and it’s of critical importance that we think before we act. These great men lived their philosophy. Russell was called a coward and a traitor. I suspect you might have to endure similar characterizations. Ben, your steadfast conviction might require courage, but far more important than the possession of courage itself, is the proper choice of what to be courageous about. We wish for example, that the Nazis had not fought so courageously. The same goes for the Palestinian suicide bombers. If only men were not so courageously willing to sacrifice their lives for immoral beliefs! The courage to do evil is no virtue.
None of us can be certain that our daily decisions are the correct ones. Kierkegaard’s well-known statement, “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards,” says as much. I would like to draw your attention to an article which appeared in the 22nd of July issue of The Atlantic Monthly. This article is a brutally honest assessment of the life and times of Mahatma Gandhi. The issues facing Colonial India were no less complex than those which face Israel today. Even saintly men such as Gandhi were forced to compromise and live with doubt; how much moreso for we; mere mortals. You may read this article at:
theatlantic.com/issues/22jul/candler.htm
Thinking men make decisions they believe they can live with. Long after the voices of those that either criticize or praise you have died away, the one voice that you cannot ignore will remain.
“For love of domination we must substitute equality;
for love of victory we must substitute justice;
for brutality we must substitute intelligence;
for competition we must substitute cooperation.
We must learn to think of the human race as one family.” Bertrand Russell
Ben, to my mind your stand is one based on compassion and reason. I believe what you are doing is correct and that your courage is well placed. Your actions are an inspiration.
I wish you all the best,
Michael
