Activity Report

2009

June 2010 Table of Contents

Introduction...... 4 The criminal investigation into New Profile’s activities...... 6 Intimidation (by Mirjam Hadar Meerschwam)...... 9 Youth activities...... 12 The bond between the military and the Ministry of Education...... 12 Matriculation in IDF studies – a flyer...... 15 Youth groups...... 17 Summer seminars...... 18 Supporting refusers...... 20 The counseling network...... 20 Legal aid network...... 23 Continued work with the Shministim...... 26 Imprisoned conscientious objectors alerts...... 28 Learning together...... 28 “Study War No More…” our exhibition...... 28 Lectures and workshops...... 30 Study circles...... 31 Working with mothers...... 32 Organizational structure...... 33 Monthly general meetings...... 33 Discussions on paid work in New Profile...... 33 Archives...... 34 Internships...... 34 Outreach...... 35 Checking our email and hotline...... 35 Encounters with the media...... 35 Website...... 36 The listserve team...... 36 2 New Profile abroad...... 36 Networking and cooperation...... 37 Coalitions against Israel's military attack on and blockade of Gaza...... 37 Protesting the War on Gaza – partial list of demonstrations...... 41 Report on child recruitment practices...... 41 Partnerships with organizations...... 42 The HEKS/EPER Open Forum Project – Dialog towards Peace Coalition...... 43 The Nisan Leadership Development Program...... 43 Adrid – Committee for the Internally Displaced Palestinians in Israel...... 43 Swedish Fellowship of Reconciliation (SweFOR)...... 43 Olympia-Rafah Mural Project...... 44 Our partners and networks (partial list)...... 45 Donors (partial list)...... 46 Acknowledgements...... 46 Addendum – media list...... 46 English...... 46 Hebrew...... 47 Visual media...... 48

3 Introduction

Every year, as we write out our annual report, we say, “This year was undoubtedly our most challenging”, and 2009 was no exception to the rule. As you will read in the pages below, not only were our continued activities against the militarization of Israeli society demanding, we in fact managed to increase them. We found that in spite of all the critical political events during this year, some of which were specifically aimed to interfere with our activities, we were able to maintain work on our regular projects. We kept steadily in stride with the fast pace of the events of the day which most notably included: • The war and ongoing blockade against Gaza

• The election and formation of an ultra right wing government led by Benjamin Netanyahu, which has since led a public and legislative campaign to delegitimize the work of human rights and (left-wing) social change movements in Israel in general.

And pertaining more specifically to our own work: • The police investigation into New Profile’s activities, the subsequent interrogation of several New Profile members, and the confiscation of their private computers and some of those of their family members.

• The attempt to discredit us and the threat to strip us of our NGO status by the “Forum for an Equal Share of the Burden”.

• The banning of New Profile from public high school premises by the Ministry of Education.

Having survived these critical obstacles, New Profile, now into its twelfth year, is recognized as one of the movements that may effect social change in Israel. We continue to produce and express our unrelenting critical analysis and to insist on our right to voice a different opinion. Through our perseverance and belief that change is possible, and having stood up against the serious obstacles of 2009, we find that we have gained more acceptability

4 internationally and to some extent nationally. We have strengthened our networks and have become a source of reference. Yet, not unlike a large family, throughout all these challenges, we faced new internal tests too. The police investigation brought with it an intense need for containment and as much mutual support as possible. By rallying together, we confirmed the power of grassroots movements and how they are capable of shaking the pillars of the establishment. Throughout 2009 we continued to review our internal processes and provided congenial settings that stimulated shared brainstorming. We held a weekend retreat to discuss feminism and to provide a space for free dialog. We held a workshop on consensus decision-making. We held several meetings on how an organization such as New Profile, some of whose members receive salaries (in this case, almost everyone who works in the projects directed at youth), and with a majority of volunteer activists, can maintain a just balance that is acceptable to all. This led to a discussion on fair employment, part time employment and organizational efficiency; an ongoing dialogue in 2010. We believe that cooperation with politically like-minded individuals and organizations outside Israel is vital to our activity. The need for this is especially underlined by Israel's dangerous tendency, which sadly increases and deepens each time it engages in more military violence to maintain the illegal and unjust occupation, to consider itself internationally isolated and surrounded by enemies. Working together with supportive critics of Israeli policies worldwide we believe we maintain and build the basis for political and social change in our region. And already 2010 is proving to be as challenging as 2009. However it is important for us to note that nothing of what New Profile accomplishes can be done without your kind and ongoing support. We truly appreciate your interest and backing. Thank you all.

New Profile Activists, June 2010

5 The criminal investigation into New Profile’s activities

The attempt to criminalize New Profile officially began in September 2008, with Israel's Attorney General's announcement of a criminal investigation into the movement’s activities. New Profile was accused of incitement by encouraging refusal to serve in the military, charges made against us because we provide legal and practical information about draft refusal options to individuals who are considering not enlisting into the military and turn to us for advice. The charges were brought on the initiative of the “Forum for an Equal Share of the Burden”, an organization supported by the military, which had earlier initiated a campaign entitled “A True Israeli does not Dodge the Draft”. In response to their campaign we created our own campaign, “Think before Enlisting”, reflecting New Profile’s ongoing effort to create a new public discourse by encouraging critical thinking and raising public awareness of the effects of militarism on society. We suspect that it was the visibility of this campaign that prompted the demand that New Profile be closed down as a nonprofit organization and that our members be prosecuted for allegedly illegal activities. On April 26th 2009, the eve of Israel's Memorial Day, Israeli police raided the homes of six New Profile activists in different parts of Israel, summoning them for interrogation. This dramatic action was deliberately staged and designed to coincide with the day when the Jewish Israeli collective mourns its military dead. The attempt to criminalize and demoralize New Profile continued over the next week when six additional present and former activists were summoned for interrogations, albeit in a less dramatic fashion. The police demanded that the activists hand over all computers located in their homes, impounding, among other things, the computers of detainees' partners, and in one case also of a fourth grade pupil, the daughter of one of the interrogated New Profile members. Family members' computers were returned that same day, after the activists were released on bail. But the personal computers belonging to our members were only returned after 30 days. When our interrogated members were released on bail, they were officially subject to restraining conditions. All were ordered not to be in touch with any New Profile members during the next 30 days. Our lawyers appealed against these limitations, 6 which were clearly aimed to paralyze our activities, and they were consequently modified to restrict only those under investigation from communicating with one another. New Profile is a registered and recognized non-profit association and, we claim that the accusations against us and our members were ludicrous and aimed to undermine our activities and influence on Israeli society. New Profile has always acted openly and publicly, in accordance with the law. Therefore the use of a criminal investigation in this context was inappropriate, and, being essentially a form of legal harassment, stands in opposition to the freedom of expression. The criminal investigation is part and parcel of the sharply increased scapegoating, intimidation and harassment of Israeli citizens. While such actions have long been aimed at expressions of dissent by Palestinian citizens of Israel, more recently following the opposition to the War on Gaza, joined by increasing protests and acts of civil disobedience by Jewish citizens of Israel, we witness a proliferation of oppression beyond the ethnic boundary. These acts are part of a visible, systematic attempt to silence dissent and political opposition in Israel in general. All this ridicules Israel’s boast of being the only democracy in the Middle East. While the criminal investigation and the political events of the day were a difficult challenge for us all, many forums, organizations, and thousands of individuals rallied around us in support. Many sent us letters and personal donations. Others wrote letters of protest. Large public events in support of New Profile were also held. Here are some of these expressions of support: • The Coalition of Women for Peace, of which New Profile is a member, organized a protest at a central Tel-Aviv police station. The police arrested and held overnight eight of the protesters, for which they were subsequently reprimanded in court.

• The Coalition also initiated a newspaper ad, "We're All New Profile", signed by twenty-six civil society organizations and published in the daily newspaper Haaretz.

• The Students' Forum of the Political Science Department at Tel-Aviv University initiated and produced a public event focusing on freedom of speech in the context of New Profile's persecution by authorities; the meeting was addressed by former High

7 Court Judge, Dalia Dorner, by Talia Sasson, formerly of the State Attorney's office, by Prof. Martin Sherman and by New Profile member, Rela Mazali.

• The U.S.-based organization, Jewish Voice for Peace, called on supporters to write Israel's Attorney General in protest and within 24 hours, 5,000 letters were written.

The Coalition of Women for Peace demonstrate in support of New Profile in front of the Dizengoff Police Station in Tel Aviv. “The Raging Grannies” confront a policeman. (Photo by Activestills)

• A letter of protest, signed by 50 representatives from international feminist groups, was sent to Israeli President Shimon Peres. In it they stated their concern regarding the harassment of New Profile and asked him to demand that Attorney General Menachem Mazuz stop the investigation. The letter described the actions taken against New Profile as a threat to a law-abiding organization that aims to promote peace between Israel and Palestine. The letter was endorsed by Nobel laureates Mairead Maguire (Ireland) and Shireen Abadi (Iran), and Naomi Tutu (South Africa), daughter of Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu.

• The American Friends Service Committee, a major Quaker organization in the U.S., itself a Nobel Prize laureate for its worldwide defense of human rights, petitioned the

8 U.S. Foreign Secretary, Ms. Hillary Clinton, on the eve of the Israeli Prime Minister's visit in Washington, urging her to broach the subject of this criminal investigation as a facet of Israel's denial of the right to freedom of conscience.

• Finally, the investigation against New Profile has also been mentioned as an example of silenced dissent in Israel in the Goldstone report.

Below we place a short piece written by Mirjam Hadar Meerschwam, a feminist writer and one of the New Profile activists investigated by the police, which documents and reflects on her experience.

Intimidation (by Mirjam Hadar Meerschwam)

My computer, today, is still at Tel Aviv police headquarters where it stayed after my two- hour interrogation last week. I am not given, I believe, to conspiracy thinking but the thought crossed my mind, comically rather, whether I’d ever written anything unkind about my neighbor or his family. This morning, when I brought my girl to school, the neighbour on our left just came out of his house. We greeted each other. I have known for years that he does something vague “in computers” and has lived abroad, doing something vague in diplomatic service. Following the “raid” on our house by two non-uniformed policemen, Miki and Eytan, at 7:15, last week, just as I was helping our daughter to get dressed for school, it occurred to me that our house, in a regular, boring suburb, is actually surrounded by “security” related individuals and organizations. On the left, there’s D., whom I just mentioned, and on the right it’s Y. who has a fairly senior job in the military industries and stopped being friendly once he understood our family were leftists. Very near is the ugly “duplex” – an ungainly two-family house which after standing empty for years was recently let to a nameless firm. Its windows are still as shuttered as they were during the empty times, and its front yard remains a garbage strewn desert as before – but casually dressed young men carrying various types of briefcases and rucksacks come in and out. It is common knowledge by now that this is what they locally call a “shoo-shoo house”: the army’s secret services use civilian property, everybody knows that. Nobody asked or informed us. At the bottom of the road is a huge, pastoral looking area – disenchantingly protected by electronic fencing and a number of forbidding guard dogs. This no-go park

9 belongs, again, to Israel’s military industries: they develop explosives here – underground. At times our buildings shake with the impact. Much has been said and agitated about the way these underground adventures have affected our environment – there are fearful rumors about cancer incidence. Meanwhile work has not stopped. I’ve often thought and spoken about these things, one way or another. For instance during the recent attack of the Israeli army on Gaza, when the Israeli public was told about the cruelty of Hamas who presumably placed themselves squarely among Gaza’s civilian population. But this morning, in the context, now, of my own and my friends’ recent interrogations I thought specifically about the more subtle work of intimidation, delegitimization, social ostracizing. An Israeli feminist antimilitarist group and registered non-profit organization, New Profile, the group of which I am a member, is these days subject to an unprecedented attack carried out by means of the state and the police. New Profile addresses itself to Israeli society. It is our aim to raise public consciousness to what militarism is and how it affects civic society. We also give moral and legal support and information to young people who contact us having decided not to enlist in the military. This is information about the army’s own accepted and legal routes toward exemption. Typically, such information is not part of the eye-catching display in my son’s former high school. On that poster the various army units vie to win the favors of the not-yet recruits with promises of their various “challenges”. Across the entrance hall, facing it in sinister unselfawareness, the national flag gives permanent honor to a list of former pupils who lost their lives in military service. I am 52 years old, I work as a freelance translator and writer. I was born and raised in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. My partner teaches psychology at the university, and works as a psychotherapist. I have two children and live in a small town north of Tel Aviv. It is simple: even if you are as convinced as I am of being innocent, of being on the right side of the law; even if you have nothing to hide – now the police has picked you up as if you belonged to a dangerous underground network, now you have been interrogated by a man whose questions were formulated and asked as if you were a felon, now your computer has been confiscated as if it carries texts that encode a national threat. Words you and your friends formulated thoughtfully are stated back to you in a flat, accusing voice: you realize they are a half or quarter sentence that fails, even grammatically, to 10 articulate what they accuse you of. But their ineptness is not what worries you – it is the arrogance that allows them this deep, enraged misreading. No wonder that nearly a week afterwards your “surrounded” position in the street flashes out at you. If you were given to such sentiments you would feel alone in the street, horribly alone. Intimidation, I am learning these days, is when you find that the law can turn against you: This does not come as a surprise to me: I live in a security-dominated country in which Palestinian citizens already live under a different interpretation and dispensation of the same law that still mostly protects someone like me. But now that I have been interrogated by a man called Amichai (literally: “My people live”) my knowledge has an added dimension: It takes a while into my interrogator’s list of questions until I figure out that this exchange is not conducted under the usual rules of conversation, of civilian communication. Nothing in my life has prepared me for this: every word I say not only freezes immediately (later I’ll have to sign the protocol and it feels as though I sign my words away, cut their lifeline) – it can and may well be used against me. In view of the misreading I mentioned before, I stand warned: even grammar stops counting here. Painfully, in Israel citizens are trained not to ask certain questions. This is what New Profile tries to open up to public consciousness. Questions about cancer incidence in your neighbourhood (“Our army is the most moral army in the world.”, “a people’s army”), questions about class, ethnicity and gender, and their interrelations with conflict and the abuse of power – the way these categories are blindly assumed to “order” the world, so that “the world” can then order you efficiently, without entering undue discussion or soul- searching. On the day after our brief detentions (some eight fellow New Profile members were subjected to the same treatment, and even today, as I am writing this, another member of New Profile is being examined at police headquarters), a friend, a successful academic, and non-activist dropped in and told me that she was delighted with the “progress” her newly enlisted son was making in the army. Only two weeks into a military service he was not at all sure he could cope with. On the eve of the national holiday, the new conscripts, who were all hoping to go home for a short break, had been lined up by their commander. Though they would soon be dismissed, he said there was just one little problem: two volunteers were needed to stay behind in camp. My friend was pleased because her son was one of the volunteers. Her self-centered, messy, irresponsible adolescent had undergone a sea-change in two weeks. “The army,” she says, “is what will straighten him 11 out. And you know what, he came home, because it turned out to be a test, this thing about volunteering!” My heart and head ache for all of us. The machine works efficiently and fast, even on intelligent, privileged middle class boys. Capable, educated mothers are gratefully applauding it for teaching their children to become adults and law abiding citizens. The workings of authority and order make short shrift with doubt, reflection, and personal vulnerability. Israel, as Hannah Arendt envisioned at the state’s inception, has condemned itself to being (in) a state of perennial, iron fear. Ramat Hasharon, May 2009

Youth activities

Our work with youth is one of New Profile’s central long-lasting projects. The ongoing development of these activities reflects the increasing antagonism in Israeli society towards those who dare question accepted political norms, and in particular those who may be considering not serving in the military. In these conditions, there is a growing need to provide physical spaces for people who think differently to meet and talk together freely without feeling threatened. New Profile’s youth activities respond to the continuous requests by young people who are looking for safe alternatives for open discussion, evaluation, and critical analysis of Israel’s policies and the events of the day. Over the years New Profile's activities for youth have been developing at a steady pace, but in 2009 it has faced a particularly challenging context. This year has seen the most extensive effort by both the military and the Ministry of Education to increase and deepen military presence in the Israeli school system. This also included blocking our access to school audiences. Nevertheless, our regular youth work carried on.

The bond between the military and the Ministry of Education

New Profile continually questions the excessive influence of the military on Israeli society and advocates demilitarization, and in particular the demilitarization of the education system. In our charter we state, “We refuse to go on raising our children to

12 see enlistment as a supreme and overriding value. We want a fundamentally changed education system, for a truly democratic civic education, teaching the practice of peace and conflict resolution, rather than training children to enlist and accept warfare.” And indeed, many aspects of our work have always been concerned with documenting and trying to counteract militarism in education in Israel. It is our aim to generate and stimulate a new public discourse; we encourage critical thinking that questions the effects of militarism on society. Moreover designed to encourage public debate, our work also reflects our claim that the Israeli military is far from being, as it presents itself, an “army of the people” and actually contributes much to shaping a divided, unequal, sexist and racist society. While the Israeli education system has always been highly militarized, recent years have seen growing attempts to make military presence in Israeli schools more overt and blatant, and 2009 marked the greatest escalation of this trend to date. Four worrying events relating to the Ministry of Education in particular, are worthy noting as they directly affected our work (we included a more detailed documentation of some of these developments in a document submitted with a number of other organizations to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child; see the section devoted to this project under “Networking and cooperation”). The military and the Ministry of Education have already developed in the past several programs in which senior military officers entered high schools in order to increase the rates of enlistment in general, and enlistment to combat unit in particular, among the schools’ graduates. These efforts greatly intensified in 2009, as the new Minister of Education, Gideon Sa’ar explicitly named increasing military presence in schools as one of his top priorities. And while so far none of these programs has been made mandatory for all schools in the country, the informal pressure on schools to join is vast. In one case, a school principal who decided to keep his school out of such a program was personally attacked in the media by the IDF Chief of Staff, Gabi Ashkenazi. In another case, the Ministry of Education organized a national conference, inviting 600 high school principals to hear a lecture by Ashkenazi about the importance of conscription. Members of New Profile went to the event, held at the National Theater in

13 Jerusalem. Standing on a nearby public sidewalk, they attempted to engage in dialogue with the participants as they arrived, offering alternative information about military involvement in schools. They also distributed flyers (an English translation of the flyer is reproduced below). Although the encounters and protest were, of course, totally nonviolent, our members were ordered away from the premises by private security guards and threatened with arrest.

High school students march with army cadets during a Memorial Day ceremony in a school in Haifa (Photo by Activestills)

Another initiative announced by the Minister of Education in 2009 was a new system of incentives to be operated in Israeli schools. One criterion for schools and even individual teachers to receive additional funding now depends on the percentage of graduates who enlist in the military and into combat units. Another development was connected directly with our own work. The highly respected Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) organized a series of panels to be held in several high schools in Israel, dedicated to human rights and civic freedoms, including the freedom of expression. Having just experienced a criminal investigation designed to silence us and close us down, New Profile was invited to participate in the 14 panels. Immediately after the first panel, the Minister of Education sent a direct order to schools throughout the country, barring New Profile from taking further part in any such future events. The panels themselves have subsequently been disbanded, as the other participants withdrew in protest. And while de facto it has always been next to impossible to gain access to schools and raise issues that go against the grain of the political mainstream in Israel, New Profile now has the honor of being the only body explicitly and officially banned from entering Israeli schools. These moves are symptomatic of the intense processes of militarization that are increasingly constricting the space for free civil debate and generally silencing dissent in Israel. Part of a declared government policy to stem a growing non-conscription movement, such educational policies dangerously aim to ensure future conscripts’ uncritical, blind obedience – the same type of blind and uncritical obedience, needless to say, that produces military actions such as witnessed in Gaza in December-January 2009.

Matriculation in IDF studies – a flyer

Side A of the flyer (Design: Dorothy Naor/Ruth Kantor)

15 Matriculation in IDF Studies – 5 Credits Military Education (Excellence Track) Not In Our School!

School principals – You are about to hear from the IDF Chief of Staff what you must do to truly motivate the students in your schools to enlist for combat service. This "Chief of Staff Conference for High School Principals" is one link in the chain of Israeli militarist education which starts from kindergarten. The contents the school system chooses to inculcate are designed to shape a mindset that considers the option to wage war as a reasonable and logical choice. They foster reverence for military power, glorification of the Jewish nation and disregard for the life of men and women of Arab nationalities. At the same time they cultivate fear of another Holocaust. This combination of veneration of military force, nationalist indoctrination and manipulation of fear helps to maintain and entrench a state of war and of inequality between various groups of citizens in this country. The threat of Israeli society turning into a militarist society is becoming more and more real! One alarming sign is when the school system opens its gates to armed and uniformed men and women, allows itself, to varying degrees, to be run by them, and puts responsibility for ethical education into their hands. This, among other things, is what the German writer Erich Kästner – on whose delightful books generations of our children have been raised – wrote in his anti-war poem, "Knowest thou the land where the cannons bloom?": "No one is born a civilian there" and "… in every other person there hides a little boy playing with his tin soldiers". It is not enough – we believe it is positively dangerous – to declare that we are one of the leading democracies in the world and, needless to say, the only democracy in the Middle East. In fact we raise our children from early on to become soldiers whose loyalty to the state is judged by their readiness to assault whoever that state marks as the enemy. The army, whose one function is to protect citizens in emergencies, has become part of our lives in school, in cultural events and in advertising. Holding out the perennial threat of war, the army has become our society's consolidating agent. When an education system rallies and unites by means of a military ethos this means it has lifted all moral bars and legitimates disregard of and indifference to the suffering of other people. When

16 children are educated to mythologize and hero-worship the soldier, "Combat for all!" becomes a slogan that targets civil society itself. When a society gives less and less space to civic and humanist studies and simultaneously admits increasing amounts of military personnel into the schools, it comes perilously close to being a militarist society. While children may learn what it takes to act bravely on the battlefield, civil courage will erode, and along with it critical thinking – both of which any life-affirming society would want to imbue in its young generation. Is this the society we want to live in? We, in New Profile, say "No more!" We demand in-depth change for Israel's education system: We demand an education system that offers civic, democratic education, a practical education for peace and conflict resolution through political negotiation to replace education for military service and the unquestioning acceptance of war.

Youth groups

New Profile’s youth groups project offers Israeli adolescents a free and safe space for studying social and political issues they care about and for open deliberation about their own actions and decisions, including the decision of whether or not to enlist. Our youth groups have been operating in several parts of Israel for many years now, and are among our top-priority activities. The groups themselves are usually active in the course of the school year or parts of it (although some of the groups also continue working during the summer). Outreach strategies for include approaching people who have previously turned to New Profile for consultation regarding conscription, promotion within the existing groups by asking them to inform others, handing out invitational flyers outside school gates, and posting invitations on New Profile’s website. In the 2008/2009 school year there were groups in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Be’er Sheva, and the Sharon region. Activities were resumed for the following 2009/2010 school year in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa, and the Sharon region. Altogether, approximately 60 adolescents took part in meetings of our youth groups in 2009. In 2009 there was extra emphasis on diversity in methodology in addition to the focus on different geographical locations. The Sharon area group this year is a pilot theater 17 group, in which the participants deal with militarism through acting. The group is directed by two trained facilitators who are also actors, and uses Theater of the Oppressed as its main method. These theater techniques allow the participants to challenge the notions of security, including gender security and examining ways in which militarism stresses forms of oppression. The theater group includes both Palestinian-Israeli and Jewish-Israeli participants. Plans also included launching a second pilot group which would specifically challenge the topic of military and militarization in its effect on immigrant communities. The group (which started working already in 2010) is aimed for Russian speaking youth and holds its meetings in Russian.

Summer Seminar (Photo: Haggai Matar)

Summer seminars

Between 2005 and 2008 New Profile sponsored a week-long alternative summer camp for young people held in the Abie Natan Forest, near the Neve Shalom/Wahat al Salam community, as an initiative by young activists. The idea was to create a safe and fun place for teenagers to deal with such complex issues as the occupation, feminism, ecology, militarism and more.

18 In 2009 it was decided that instead of the usual week-long summer camp, there would be three shorter seminars in three different parts of the country. There were several reasons for this change in venue, most notably that we felt there was a need to address the different issues young people face in their respective ares. This approach proved very successful and we were able to reach more individuals from places which we had not reached in the past. The seminars were attended by 96 young people aged 14–19, some of whom attended more than one seminar. In addition each seminar had a different target group and a different focus. The first seminar, held in the north of Israel, took place at the boarding school in Kibbutz Ein Hashofet, near the town of Yokne’am. The target group was youths living in the Galilee, who are often isolated from the main arenas of urban activism. The central thematic focus of the seminar was on critical thinking and the correlation between militarism and education. There were also discussions of issues that are of particular concern in this geographical area. The second seminar took place in Tel Aviv, and was directed to the youths who usually come to the summer camps. This seminar was less oriented on local concerns, and dealt specifically with gender, class struggles, militarism, and education. The third seminar took place in the south of Israel, in an ecological farm in Nir Moshe, a rural community near the towns of Sderot and Netivot. This seminar focused on center and periphery relations in Israel and on social struggles that take place in this area, such as responding to the assault on Gaza and the plight of the residents of unrecognized Bedouin villages. The results of the three seminars were highly gratifying. The large number of participants and our ability to reach youths in outlying communities proved to be the right step in enhancing and improving this important program. Plans for 2010 are to combine aspects of both approaches tried in the past. While there will be, again, a week-long camp, rather than a series of seminars, the location will be the same farm in the south of Israel in which the last of the seminars took place in 2009.

19 Summer Seminar (Photo: Yael Telem)

Supporting refusers

The counseling network

Over the years New Profile has continued to develop and upgrade the counseling services offered to people who refuse or avoid military service. Based on New Profile’s belief that there is a vast underground refuser movement amongst young Israelis today, the Network provides information and guidance for those who decide not to enlist or to terminate their military service, thus also directly challenging conscription in Israel. The network, coordinated by two members of New Profile, involves over 30 counselors nationwide. It is the counseling network’s directive to work with anyone and everyone who is seeking information and/or support on issues regarding refusal, discharge from the military or discharge from reserve duty. When called for, the Network also works closely with our legal aid team (see section on Legal Aid). The counselors work with applicants specifically on a one-on-one basis, as to ensure discretion.

20 The majority of requests for counseling or receiving general information come from teenagers who are considering the option not to enlist. But others, such as conscripts who are already serving in the army, and are resolved in terminating their military service, or reservists seeking information on how to be released from long-term military service, also apply for assistance. Another phenomenon is that of parents seeking advice on how to support their children’s decisions to refuse to conscript. All applicants are informed in detail of their legal rights and options and provided with descriptions of relevant aspects of others’ individual experiences. Over the year the project coordinators held six training sessions for new members of the counseling network, and higher-level training meetings for experienced counselors. At these meetings members share information and methodology, as well as communicate hardships and frustrations. In addition, the legal aspects of counseling are taken into consideration and lawyers are often invited to attend some of the meetings to give updates and briefings. Through the network we were able to identify new and concerning trends and practices by the army toward draft resisters and avoiders. By and large it is our observation that the military’s treatment of these individuals has grown progressively worse and more restrictive in the past several years. We believe that these policies exemplify the overall political climate in Israel today. We would like to point out two of the more obvious and specific trends. These two trends represent obvious violations of individual rights, and we are presently considering the possibility taking legal action. We were approached by several women, all of whom were medical students, who served full terms as conscripts in the military before applying to medical school. Upon their discharge, as is common practice regarding women discharged from the army, they received an exemption from military reserves duty. But when their medical studies neared completion, their exemptions were cancelled, the army claiming that there is a shortage of military MDs. At this stage, refusing to perform reserves service might prevent them from graduating from medical school.

21 Other instances include a number of women, whose requests to be recognized as conscientious objectors by the army were denied. When placing requests to receive a copy of the protocols of their meeting with the conscience committee they were turned down and denied even this basic right. The denial of access to protocols used to be standard practice in the military Conscience Committee up to several years ago, was discontinued at some point, and now, in some of the cases, has returned. Another important function of the counseling network is gathering detailed information about various procedures for exemption from military service. This year, an appeal was made by one of New Profile’s activists under the Freedom of Information Act to receive the full criteria and procedures used by the military “conscience committee”, reviewing appeals by declared conscientious objectors. The document which we subsequently received makes no mention of the criteria being applied to decide who would be exempted and who would not, but does contain rather detailed information about the procedures for applying to the committee, and even mentions, for the first time, a procedure for appealing its decisions (although appeals are heard by the very same committee that has made the original decision). While we know for a fact that not all the procedures described are actually enacted, the document detailing them is a useful asset in counseling conscientious objectors. Overall, we estimate that the counseling network supported roughly 2,000 people in 2009, assisting them with their communications with the army. 320 of them made initial contact with us through emails. Additionally an average of nine people a month contacted us through our hotline. Others have turned to counselors directly, and therefore cannot be counted. Still more requests for advice came through our website forum (in Hebrew only) which offers complete anonymity. While it is difficult to count the precise number of people who appealed to us through the forum, the number is probably above 1,000. Additionally we, again, also worked very closely this year with two cohorts of the Shministim, signers of the high school seniors’ collective declaration of refusal (See section on Work with Shministim).

22 The homepage of our Counseling Network (in Hebrew only), containing some basic information on the law and procedures concerning various forms of refusal, can be found at: http://livuy.newprofile.org Notably it is important to mention that most of the counselors making up the network are people who at one time received our counseling themselves.

Militarized Environment

Yaakov Turner, a former Air Force commander, chose, as mayor of Be'er Sheba, to decorate his city with surplus fighter airplanes.

Where have all the flowers gone?

Photo: Sergeiy Sandler

From our exhibition

Legal aid network

New Profile’s legal aid network continues to be an important component in our refusers support system. Ran by New Profile members, the legal aid project comprises a successfully operating network, involving several law firms, and offering solid legal consultation and support for draft resisters and their families. It is one of New Profile’s more expensive activities and is assigned high priority. The network, coordinated by a legal counseling team, handles visits to refusers in prison (a visit by a lawyer is sometimes the only way an inmate in an Israeli military prison can have contact with the outside world), in addition to preliminary consultations

23 and interventions. This team also maintains regular contact with prisoners’ parents, since we often find that they suffer and undergo serious stress, perhaps more acutely than their children. In 2009 the Legal Aid Network specifically supported 10 conscientious objectors and draft refusers, male and female – some of whom required professional legal counsel and intervention (See Continued Work with the Shministim). In total, our lawyers made 11 visits to imprisoned refusers. Where expert legal aid was given, this consisted of appeals to the army’s various committees, including: the Conscience Committee, the Incompatibility Committee, the Committee for Exemption Due to Religious Family Lifestyle; also included were direct appeals to the military prison authorities due to prisoner harassment. The lawyers working with New Profile conducted a legal correspondence with the military authorities in three cases, for three women in special circumstances. The first was a religious young Jewish woman, who, for various reasons, did not apply for a release because of her religious lifestyle through accepted channels, was conscripted, and consequently went absent without leave. Intervention from our Legal Aid Network prevented her imprisonment. New Profile is still assisting this young woman to gain official exemption from the army. The second case was that of a young woman with emotional difficulties whom we helped set up an appointment with a military mental health officer. And the third is the case of Or Ben David, one of the Shministim, who was incarcerated and tried to apply for an exemption through the military’s “Incompatibility Committee”. While incarcerated, refusers supported by New Profile continue to meet other refusers in prison who have never heard of us, and successfully refer them to our Legal Aid Network. This has also been an unanticipated additional platform for outreach. Another aspect of the Network's activity in 2009 was continuing to address general conditions for incarcerated soldiers, not only refusers, in military prisons. Complaints, relevant for the entire prison population, and recorded by lawyers working with New Profile when visiting refusers in jail, were filed with the prison authorities and followed up with various other military authorities.

24 Thus, following our intervention certain restrictions were eased or rescinded. For example, the military prisons have enacted regulations that allow only a small number of close family members to visit inmates. After a legal intervention, which New Profile initiated in 2009, other family members and friends are again allowed to visit prisoners. Additionally there was progress regarding our complaint filed in 2008 on solitary confinement cells in women's prison facilities. These cells are used for isolation purposes. There are no toilet facilities in these cells, and prisoners are not allowed to use a toilet outside the cell during night lockdown. Following our complaint the military allocated funding for adding toilet facilities in each cell and informed us they had eased some of the restrictions until completion of the renovations. Subsequent to another complaint we filed regarding conditions in the Induction Base, the army informed us that prisoners would henceforth have access to reading and writing materials, and water would be available at all times. Presently we are waiting for response to our request to allow prisoners to have musical instruments and electronic music players in their cells. Demeaning and unlawful policies and conditions are aimed to intimidate imprisoned refusers into conscription. The above improvements will guarantee basic human rights and hopefully lessen some of the pressures and anxieties prisoners are forced to endure. 2009 saw New Profile offering legal aid to two individuals who differ from the more regular profile of refusers we meet. The first was a Druze refuser, who wanted our help in addition to that of Druze organizations who deal with the draft. The second is an ultra orthodox Jewish young man who decided to refuse on the basis of pacifism. His petition was rejected by the army and his case is now pending before the High Court of Justice. New Profile continues to follow the progress of legal cases, such as that of Jonathan Shapira, who was dismissed from the Israeli Air Force and subsequently from his work at a commercial civic aviation firm, because he co-signed a declaration of refusal with a group of Israeli Air Force pilots. The letter states that its signatories refuse to fly missions over Palestinian territories and endanger civilian lives. Jonathan sued the civilian firm that employed him for firing him for expressing his beliefs. While the initial

25 decision in Jonathan’s case (made already in 2010) did not recognize his main claim and only awarded him compensation for payments he should have received and didn’t, an appeal to a higher court is now underway.

Continued work with the Shministim

Shministim is the Hebrew word denoting high school students in their senior year. Israel has by now a tradition of collective declarations of refusal to enlist made by groups of high school seniors. Such groups of Shministim have formed several times in the past, and throughout the past decade New Profile has supported all such initiatives (in 2001, 2002, 2005, 2008, and 2009). The latest such declaration, the “Seniors’ Letter of 2009”, was a public statement sent to the Prime Minister, and Ministers of Defense and Education. The letter states: “We call on all youths ahead of service in the IDF and all soldiers already in the Israeli army to reconsider endangering their lives and taking part in a policy of oppression and destruction.” Further, the signatories claim that the Israeli military promotes occupation as a policy and state their refusal to take part in this course of action.

Shministim 2009–2010: “Look, hear, refuse” (Photo: Activestills.org)

26 A demonstration in support of an imprisoned objector near the military prison (Photo: Ronnie Barkan)

Since the Shministim’s refusal is considered “political refusal” by the army, signatories can expect to be sent to military prison. New Profile works very closely with each member of the Shministim group, preparing them for their encounter with the military, from when they first decide to refuse through their repeated incarcerations, until they are finally released. We provide each member of the Shministim group with a consultant who walks them, as well as their parents, through each military procedure. The consultants are available at all times, including during periods of incarceration. While in prison, New Profile makes sure that lawyers make steady visits, keeping track of the treatment and conditions of the jailed refusers. When necessary, the lawyers, working with New Profile, file complaints on their behalf. Some of the Shministim are already familiar with New Profile through participation in some of our youth activities. Others encounter New Profile once they sign the letter. After their release from the military, many Shministim members remain or become active in New Profile and in other social change movements in Israel. In 2009 New Profile assisted the Shministim of both the 2008 and the 2009 letters in gaining media exposure and in international networking. We received the support of 27 other organizations such as Jewish Voice for Peace and the Refusers Solidarity Network. New Profile also helped organize demonstrations in front of the Ministry of Defense, the induction base, and at the military prisons where Shministim were incarcerated. You can read more about the Shministim at www.shministim.com.

Imprisoned conscientious objectors alerts

The intensity of work on this project varies, depending on how many objectors are in military prison at any given point in time. When a refuser is incarcerated, a newsletter is circulated on our wide-distribution mailing lists, presenting a statement from the refuser, number of days the individual has been sentenced to imprisonment and a list of government and military officials to whom supporters can write letters of protest. At meetings and events New Profile members and supporters fill out postcards to send to the imprisoned refusers as an additional act of support.

Learning together

“Study War No More…” our exhibition

Our exhibition "Study War No More” provides a visual narrative which allows the observer to conceptualize how militarized messages permeate Israel's social sphere and are used to promote norms within civil society. The visuals of the exhibition, usually embedded in a workshop or presentation, show the complex and manifold interweavings between civil society and the military and thus help clarify with the audience the nature of military mindsets in Israel, but also elsewhere. In 2001 New Profile created its first exhibition of items collected from daily Israeli experience for the conference "Militarism in Education". Updated in 2007, the exhibition, has been displayed at a long list of venues throughout Israel, and has been used as an ice-breaker and a reference point for dozens of workshops facilitated by New Profile members over the years.

28 Militarized Schoolwork

An exercise for children in kindergarten, drawing a line between a number and the corresponding picture. 1- Knesset (Israeli Parliment) 2 - I.D.F. Military Emblems 3 - Symbols of Israel 4 - Doves of Peace 5 - Flags of Israel 6 - Tanks etc. Military symbols as an integral part of state symbols, side by side with Doves of Peace. Which is more odd and why? Photo: Amir Terkel 2009

From our exhibition

In 2009 several New Profile activists created a shorter digital version of the exhibition and translated it into English. This version is shown to visiting groups and delegations. Proving that a picture is worth a thousand words, the digital version offers a perspective to internationals who are unfamiliar with the prevailing local approach which generates and fuels a constant public threat of war. The digital version of our exhibition can be found on our website, at: http://www.newprofile.org/english/?cat=11. In 2009 printed images from the exhibition, the digital version, or the entire exhibition were on display on at least 17 occasions. These included meetings with several EAPPI (Ecumenical Accompaniment Program in Palestine and Israel) delegations throughout the year; a workshop with the Nisan Young Women Leadership program; events celebrating International Women’s Day; a Greenpeace activist festival; New Profile youth seminars; a joint workshop with Adrid, and a display at the Cinematheque in Jerusalem. In addition the exhibition was shown at private homes to members of communities and visitors from other countries. The digital version was also shown to organizations in the San Francisco Bay Area by visiting New Profile members.

29 Militarized Childhood

A picture from a coloring book for children in nursery school.

How common are images of soldiers and weapons in children's study materials?

Coloring book by K. Avichai, purchased 2000

From our exhibition

Lectures and workshops

Motivated by our belief that real change in society cannot come without direct contact with people, New Profile continues to offer lectures and workshops to a wide range of audiences all over the country. Some of the audiences we met in 2009 share our viewpoints. This included holding workshops for our own activists, to study and debate various issues, while for others it was their first encounter with what we had to say. In keeping with New Profile’s feminist practice of de-centralization, equal participation and representation, the talks and workshops are presented in pairs by different activists. The workshops cover diverse aspects of militarization and militarized society, including civilian alternatives to militarism, equality and discrimination, violence, and marginalization. New Profile activists ran several dozen workshops in 2009. New Profile also provides workshops in English to visiting delegations and groups from abroad.

30 New Profile Workshop (Photo: Albert Givol)

Study circles

This project, initiated in January 2007, aims to offer an opportunity for New Profile members to learn together topics of interest that also relate to our activism. It is coordinated by three New Profile members. The format varies from an evening lecture or a study day to a workshop, three to five times annually. These meetings are open to New Profile members and their family members and friends. In 2009 New Profile's study circle hosted Dr. Nurit Peled-Elhanan, on her extensive research on the representation of Palestinians and Palestinian history in Israeli textbooks, Ofra Yeshua-Lyth, who talked to us about her book A State of Mind; Why Israel Should Become Secular and Democratic, Amaya Galili Zochrot, on the educational guide she developed, How do we say Nakba in Hebrew? (available at: http://www.zochrot.org/index.php?id=718 [in Hebrew only]), and Dr. Vanessa Farr, Senior Social and Gender Advisor with the UN Development Program (UNDP) in the Palestinian Occupied Territories, and coeditor of the book, Sexed Pistols, the Gendered Impacts of Small Arms and Light Weapons (2010), on her work methodology, in particular in Gaza.

31 The happiest day

An Israeli bride posing for a photo with an IDF mobile artillery piece at a kibbutz near the northern Gaza Strip

What does the future hold?

AP Haaretz Sept. 29, 2005

From our exhibition

Working with mothers

Israel’s formal education system does not easily lend itself to interventions or preventive efforts in connection to militarization in the schools. We therefore believe that much can be done in the home, working directly with parents. The Work with Mothers project is a study group for mothers largely of teenagers who may be deliberating their prospective conscription or who are already in the army. This ongoing workshop provides a safe space for the mothers to talk about matters that may be difficult to discuss in other forums such as conscription, refusal, or social attitudes to families that have a member who considers refusal. At the same time the group creates a safe place for other mothers who may not want their children to conscript while the children have actually chosen to do so. The workgroup is facilitated by a member of New Profile and has been meeting once a month since 2007. In addition to monthly meetings the group has also created a page on Facebook, inviting others to join in the dialog and enter comments and questions.

32 Organizational structure

New Profile is a feminist organization. Its active members, women and men aged between their teens and their late seventies, participate on a voluntary basis, largely without remuneration, in the activities and teams to which they feel they can contribute best. Paid functions are taken by rotation, offering everyone a chance. Activists are encouraged to broaden their range of activity and, for that purpose, receive support and empowerment from co-members. We have no office. Our monthly plenary meetings are usually held in the homes of members and chaired by two members each time.

Monthly general meetings

Plenary meetings, held every month since New Profile’s foundation in 1998, serve as the movement’s main decision-making forum. Facilitation (in pairs) rotates among members and the facilitators set the meeting's agenda in dialogue with all active members. They are open to all, including potential new members. The monthly meetings serve as an opportunity for reflection on aspects of our organizational functioning as an ongoing process. This includes issues like intergenerational working relations within the movement, or modes of nonviolent, gender-conscious communication, inside New Profile and in our encounters with others. In the event of extraordinary and pressing circumstances, emergency sessions may be organized. These added meetings serve as a means to broach especially pressing matters that require immediate attention.

Discussions on paid work in New Profile

For several years now New Profile has contemplated and debated the issue of paid work for projects versus the encouragement of volunteer work. In 2009 these discussions became more focal. A major component was about how New Profile can guarantee fair employment status to those activists who are on our payroll. Continuing into 2010, our deliberations focused on salaries given to high priority and high maintenance projects, primarily those dealing with youth and refusal, and

33 markedly, the youth groups, legal aid, and the counseling network. These projects, the pride of New Profile, represent our ability to generate and suggest alternatives for social change and for in-depth exploration of personal and collective options. These discussions eventually led to adopting a fairer model of employment in New Profile.

Archives

In 2009 New Profile, together with the Tel-Aviv infoshop Salon Mazal, a partner organization working for social change (www./salonmazal.blogli.co.il/english), sublet a small space in Tel Aviv. This space will also be hosting New Profile’s archives. When our original intent to create a resource center on antimilitarism proved too complex and demanding in terms of resources, we decided to computerize our archive and all the materials we collected over the years. The archive will serve our activists and hopefully also the many researchers, academics, and journalists who approach us with requests for more information about the movement, demilitarization, refusal and other subjects relevant to our work.

Internships

As we have neither an office nor regular paid staff, we have been reluctant so far to respond positively to requests for internships. However, in 2009 we were approached by Lior Hadar, a student at the University of California in Santa Cruz, who requested doing a six-month internship with New Profile. His academic program in community studies required him to explore how theory and practice interrelate in the work of social justice movements. Splitting his time between New Profile and the Israeli Committee against House Demolitions, Lior actively participated in diverse projects, which he coordinated with a “sponsor” from each organization. In addition he attended all of New Profile's monthly plenary discussions and also organized a workshop on consensus decision-making based on his analytical knowledge and practical experience in the field.

34 While we continue being selective with regards to absorbing internships, we fully realize the benefits of hosting someone who offers opportunities for work and also brings us new insights.

Outreach

Checking our email and hotline

One of our activists checks the large amount of email that New Profile receives on a daily basis and forwards it to the appropriate teams or members. This includes sorting emails from international and local sources, and various organizations that send out invitations or announcements. Another activist receives the messages left on our voice mail and refers them to members and teams according to subject matter.

Encounters with the media

New Profile does not have one designated spokesperson. New Profile’s feminist practice of de-centralization, equal participation and representation allows for a large number of active members to be spokespeople for the organization. However due to the events of 2009, the War on Gaza, the Goldstone Report, and the investigation into New Profile activities, engagement with the media became a major priority and much of this work was coordinated by a small team. Following New Profile’s policy, this interaction with the media was a shared experience. Two of our members collected and archived the various articles which mentioned New Profile, members of New Profile, or activities New Profile helped to coordinate. Others gave interviews to the international and local press or wrote articles and opinion pieces. Others still appeared on TV and radio programs (see addendum – media list.)

35 Website

Our website continues to serve as a significant source of information. The site is a major channel for outreach. The discussion and help forums, especially the one focused on refusal, are extremely active and informative. In 2009 New Profile moved to a temporary, much smaller website (due to a variety of technical reasons we had to make the move within a very short period of time). Subsequently visits to our website dropped significantly compared to the previous year. This is simply because the site contains far fewer pages. Work is already underway for building our new permanent website, which we expect to launch in 2010, and which will be much larger, and we hope, also easier to navigate. Main website statistics for 2009 Total unique visitors 166,902 Average time per visit: 5 min. 44 sec. Total visits 222,879 Average pages viewed per visit 4.52 Total page views 924,144

The listserve team

New Profile’s international alternative information mailing list is monitored by members of New Profile in Israel and abroad. Each team member subscribes to alternative newsletters and other lists, and posts relevant material on our list, providing information on developments in Israel and Palestine that are not always available in mainstream media. Some of the items posted on the list are actually generated by us, for example the updates on imprisoned conscientious objectors. Over 2000 supporters in Israel and abroad subscribe to our alternative information listserve. Many subscribers pass on materials posted on the list. To subscribe to our listserve, please go to: www.newprofile.org/english.

New Profile abroad

As New Profile receives many requests to speak at conferences and meet with organizations and audiences outside of Israel, we have made it our policy to send as many different activists as possible in response to these requests, as another means of sharing power and visibility among our activists. A team of two New Profile activists 36 coordinates these requests and invites members to attend these occasions on a rotational basis. We have developed an informal training program helping each activist who is scheduled to travel and has not yet acquired experience in addressing audiences abroad to “find her personal voice” and prepare her presentations through practical coaching from her peers. These trips abroad provide an opportunity for our activists to meet with supportive audiences, which they rarely encounter in Israel. Our activists return empowered and energized and ready to continue their work. Meeting with international networks and activists also offers significant benefits for New Profile. We appreciate the opportunity for exchanging ideas and methodology. In 2009 New Profile activists traveled to Washington DC, the San Francisco Bay Area, Geneva, Barcelona, Croatia and Italy. The venues included conferences, seminars, giving interviews to local press, attending meetings with local groups and students, giving lectures or holding workshops. One such recent deserves special mention. New Profile was invited by Conscience and Peace Tax International (CPTI), to appear before the 97th Session of the UN Human Rights Committee to speak on the treatment of conscientious objectors to military service in Israel. Two members of New Profile flew to Geneva for this session. They appeared alongside representatives from NGOs from Moldova, Columbia, and Switzerland, in the general assembly and spoke about issues pertaining to conscientious objection, subsequent harassment, imprisonment, and other abuses in Israel. In the smaller sessions and meetings, New Profile’s representatives also discussed the processes available for receiving exemptions from the military, Israel’s refusal to recognize conscientious objection as a human right, and also the police investigation into New Profile’s activities.

Networking and cooperation

Coalitions against Israel's military attack on and blockade of Gaza

On Saturday, December 27, 2008, Israel launched a massive military attack on the Gaza Strip which lasted for three weeks. The incursion into Gaza resulted in the deaths 37 of more than 1,300 Palestinians. Thousands more were wounded and traumatized. This is in addition to the incredible damage to Gaza’s infrastructure and the destruction of homes that left thousands of civilians homeless. Thirteen Israelis were also killed (mostly soldiers; five from “friendly fire”) and hundreds were wounded or suffered stress and trauma from missile attacks from Gaza. Within two hours of the onset of the invasion, New Profile joined the quickly-formed “Coalition against the War on Gaza” (CWG), comprising several Arab and Jewish NGOs. That same evening 1,500 people marched the streets of Tel Aviv, calling to end the attack immediately. Typical of this action and subsequent ones was the absence of either local or international media coverage, which effectively constituted a form of censorship. The coalition has continued ever since, protesting the land and naval blockade on Gaza, the Separation Wall, and stating its ongoing support of Palestinians in their struggle for self-determination. New Profile as a group, and several of our activists in their individual capacity, were extremely active within the coalition. Some of our activists volunteered to be on its coordinating board. Others took part in the numerous demonstrations. New Profile also helped in funding the coalition’s activities. In the weeks following Israel’s attack on Gaza, the CWG held between one and five vigils every day (see table below). These acts of protest remained mostly invisible to the rest of the world, continually ignored or downplayed by Israeli politicians, the local and global press, and completely disregarded by international bodies. Dozens of vigils were held all over the country, and on weekends mass rallies were organized in Tel Aviv, attended by more than 10,000 people each time. The Coalition also joined the demonstrations held in the Arab cities and townships within Israel. The Israeli police force, in riot gear, were instructed to suppress all forms of opposition to the military incursion and carried out a large number of arrests at the demonstrations. Some 800 demonstrators were arrested during the war, about 700 of whom were Palestinian citizens of Israel. Several New Profile activists were also among those arrested. New Profile members were also involved in a unique initiative by residents of the shelled cities in southern Israel who chose to oppose the military attack. While official

38 propaganda claimed that the incursion into Gaza was defensive, meant to offer protection to Israel’s southern cities and towns, this initiative was a very important voice of opposition. However this too was silenced by the media and remained invisible to the rest of the world. This group of southern residents organized several small vigils that aimed to create a dialog with other Israeli citizens and offer options and alternatives to war. But these vigils were quickly dispersed by the police and some of the protesters were also arrested and charged with illegal gathering. The official claim was that southern Israel was under military rule, making all demonstrations illegal. Later in the year, New Profile activists also took part in the Gaza Freedom March. This action was initiated by Code Pink, Women for Peace activists from the US, and joined by many Israeli and international activists acting in solidarity with the besieged Palestinians in Gaza. On the Israeli side of the border there were ten days of nonviolent action against the siege. At the same time, showing their solidarity, hundreds of activists from 43 countries protested at the Egyptian side of the Gaza border. We also joined the Coalition at the mass demonstration held in Tel Aviv, “Freedom and Justice for Gaza” marking one year to the attack on Gaza. Systematically ignored and eliminated from media coverage in Israel and abroad, these ongoing demonstrations and shows of resistance in effect questioned Israel’s claim to be the only democracy in the Middle East. These actions were met with an escalation of attempts to silence criticism and of extreme police brutality towards demonstrators, those who visibly opposed the War and the Occupation, Jews and Palestinian citizens of Israel alike. Hundreds were arrested during this period. Many more were subject to elevated levels of verbal and physical abuse by the police, backed by special riot squads. In addition to arrests, on some occasions, protesters were subject to water cannoning and tear gas. At one point authorities forbade waving the Palestinian flag during demonstrations, claiming it to be a disturbance of the peace. This decision was overturned in the Israeli High Court of Justice. Throughout this period New Profile members participated daily in many acts of protest and some were subject to arrest and court appearances.

39 A telling depiction of what activists were subjected to at this time appears in a text circulated at the time by Sharon Dolev, an Israeli peace activist (the full text can be read at: http://www.jewcy.com/post/lefty_israel): In the last few days, a small group has been demonstrating in the entrance of an Air Force base in Tel Aviv. The reason we stand there is that this is the place most air force fighters use to fly to their bases around Israel. We hold signs calling on them to refuse orders to bomb civilians and children. This is one of many demonstrations against the war held by Israelis and taking place on a daily basis. This very quiet vigil provokes very strong feelings among passers-by, the military, and the fire brigade across the street. The fire brigade, even though they are not allowed to express political opinions while on duty, threw eggs at us and, when we didn’t move, brought forward their fire engines, with cranes and tried to wash us away. Since I happened to be on the edge of the vigil, they managed to use one hose to isolate me, and the other to get me soaked wet. When they decided I can’t get any wetter, they kept only the hose they used to separate me from the group, and came together, all in uniform, with their commanding officer, to rip my sign, and to tell me again and again, that I need to get inside the station and (my apologies) give them all head (oral sex). The under-cover police were there. We kept calling the police asking them to send someone, and they did nothing. We, at the more extreme left in Israel, always knew that we are, for some, fair game. That we, as they put it so nicely, “should be killed even before the Hammas”. Violence was always part of the response to our activities, but violence by the fire brigades, with the police refusing to act, is a new escalation.

Activities of resistance to the military assault, though not massive in the Jewish public, were important on New Profile’s agenda, as the central message concerned anti- militarism, civilians refusing to be enemies, and promoting alternative solutions to violent situations. They also brought into focus the conditions of life in Gaza under the ongoing siege, and the crimes of the occupation.

40 More material on the Coalition against the Blockade of Gaza can be found on the Coalition of Women for Peace website, http://bit.ly/CWP2009.

Protesting the War on Gaza – partial list of demonstrations

Partial list of CWG activities protesting the Israeli military incursion into Gaza with estimated numbers of protestors:

Dec 26:Demonstration in Tel Aviv (200) Dec 27:Demonstration in Jaffa (300) Dec 27:Demonstration in Tel Aviv (1500) Dec 28:Demonstration in Tel Aviv (400) Dec 29:Demonstrations held in all universities (1000) Dec 29:Demonstration in Jaffa (800) Dec 29:Demonstration near the Egyptian Embassy (200) Dec 30:Demonstration in Tel Aviv (300) Dec 31:Demonstration in Tel Aviv (200) Dec 31:Rave against the war, Tel Aviv (100) Jan 1: Singing vigil (150) Jan 2: Mass against the war (40) Jan 2: Direct action at military airport, Tel Aviv (20) Jan 2: Demonstration by women in Haifa (200) Jan 3: Demonstration in Sakhnin (10,000) Jan 3: Demonstration in Tel Aviv (10,000) Jan 5: Demonstration in Tel Aviv (200) Jan 6: Demonstration in Jaffa (600) Jan 7: Demonstration in Tel Aviv (200) Jan 8: Demonstration in support of refusers (200) Jan 9: Demonstration in Baka Al Gharbia (20,000) Jan 10: Funeral procession held in solidarity in Jaffa (100). From this day on, a vigil was held every day at the same hour in Jaffa. Jan 10: Peace Now demonstration in Tel Aviv (1500) Jan 11: Daily vigil at military airport in Tel Aviv from this day (20) Jan 14: Demonstration in Beer Sheva (50) Jan 15: Demonstration calling to release prisoners held at Jalameh Prison Jan 15: Demonstration at Sapir College, Sderot Jan 16: Convoy with humanitarian aid organized by Physicians for Human Rights Jan 16: Demonstration in Arara in the Negev Jan 17: Mourning solidarity event at the Jaffa Arab-Jewish Community Center Jan 17: Demonstration in Tel Aviv Jan 18: Demonstration led by women in Tel Aviv

Report on child recruitment practices

In 2009 (and up to January 2010) Israel came under periodic review of the fulfillment of its commitments under the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Optional

41 Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict. As part of this process, Defence for Children International – Palestine has approached several organizations working in Israel and Palestine, including New Profile, to prepare a joint NGO report on Israel’s child recruitment practices. For New Profile this was an opportunity to follow up on our work of documenting militarism in Israeli education and society (see our 2004 Report on Child Recruitment in Israel: http://www.newprofile.org/data/uploads/child_soldiers/english.pdf). We took on the challenge and were among the main contributors to the document (see: http://www.newprofile.org/data/uploads/child_soldiers/Reply_to_List_of_Issues.PDF). While the main focus of the document is the violations of children’s rights in the occupied Palestinian territories and the use of Palestinian children by the Israeli military and other “security” services, our own contribution documented the situation within Israel. We have especially emphasized the escalating militarization of the Israeli school system and have documented most of the major developments in this field in the last several years. The Concluding Observations, issued by the Committee on the Rights of the Child already in 2010, contain for the first time in an official document, reference to militarized education in Israel as conflicting with its obligations under the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Partnerships with organizations

In 2009 New Profile continued to work in various forms of collaboration with an array of organizations in Israel, in Palestine and abroad. We maintain a constant membership in the Coalition of Women for Peace (CWP). This coalition also includes Women in Black, WILPF – Israel, Neled, Bat Shalom, Machsom Watch, Tandi, The Fifth Mother, and Noga. New Profile is also an associate organization in the Coalition against the Blockade in Gaza, (see above), an affiliate of War Resisters International and a member of the International Action Network on Small Arms.

42 The HEKS/EPER Open Forum Project – Dialog towards Peace Coalition

This project is coordinated by the Swiss fund HEKS/EPER. It includes a coalition of Israeli and Palestinian organizations which engage in joint projects. The sister organizations also partner together and create additional smaller projects. In 2009 New Profile partnered in two such joint projects, described in the sections below.

The Nisan Leadership Development Program

New Profile has worked with the Nisan Leadership Development Program, creating a smaller network within the HEKS/EPER Open Forum since 2006. In 2009 New Profile offered options for workshops as part of Nisan’s leadership training for young women, Jewish and Palestinian Israelis, who are students in Haifa University and do community work with young girls. In reciprocation a Nisan coordinator met with New Profile activists and shared with them the ongoing work done by the students in the program, and their communities.

Adrid – Committee for the Internally Displaced Palestinians in Israel

The partnership with Adrid was formed in 2009. Both organizations focused on learning about the issues the other group is working on, and gained a better and more multifaceted understanding of the Israeli and Palestinian societies and the roots of the conflict between them. Each organization hosted a study session. The first was on the issue of the 1948 internally displaced Palestinians and the Palestinian right of return, conducted by representatives from Adrid. The second, presented by New Profile to Adrid members, was dedicated to militarism in Israeli society. This workshop also incorporated New Profile’s exhibition “Study War No More” In total about 45 people participated in the two study sessions. Our collaboration continues in 2010.

Swedish Fellowship of Reconciliation (SweFOR)

Partnering for the third time with SweFOR, New Profile hosted a study day on the topic of small arms and light weapons in April 2009. The study day, which included 18 43 participants from different organizations, focused specifically on New Profile’s critical outlook on Israeli society and related to the large presence of small arms within the public domain. A second and wider focus was on the global arms industry, in which Israel is a major actor. The study day was an opportunity to open up a discussion on Israel’s dependence on the arms industry and the role of the country’s hi-tech industry in this. Also discussed was the topic of Israel’s security and the policies that place state security above everything else. The public is led to believe that security is in everyone’s best interest and therefore for the good of the country. However, creating a need for greater security also generates opportunities to profit from wars by both initiating them and prolonging them, and along with them, a spiraling demand for ever more sophisticated weapons. By continuing to open this sensitive topic for discussion, we aim to contribute to New Profile's agenda of critically redefining the blanket term "security", which is widely used to silence real political debate in Israel and elsewhere.

Olympia-Rafah Mural Project

New Profile was invited to participate in the Olympia-Rafah Solidarity Mural Project and the Break the Silence Mural Project. A joint endeavor of the Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice and Break the Silence Mural Arts Project from San Francisco, the mural is an expression of the sister-city relationship between Olympia, Washington and Rafah, Palestine. Several organizations, including New Profile, together with artists from Rafah and around the world contributed to this project. The mural illustrates connections between the Palestinian issue and social justice movements for fair housing, land rights, the rights of indigenous people, and environmental justice both locally and the world over. Throughout 2009, Olympia community members painted over 500 leaf-shaped clay tiles with their visions of social justice and peace (www.olympiarafahmural.org).

44 Demonstration in front of military prison with New Profile, the Shministim, members of the DAM (Dialogues Against Militarism) delegation, and other supporters (Photo: Ronnie Barkan)

Our partners and networks (partial list)

In addition to the many local organizations and networks already mentioned in this report, we also maintain close connections with: the Al-Tufula Center, Qiar, Reut- Sadaka, the Druze Initiative Committee, Gush Shalom, Salon Mazal, Yesh Gvul, and Anarchists against the Wall. Our connections with international organizations include: War Resisters International, American Friends Service Committee, The Fellowship of Reconciliation (USA), Jewish Peace Fellowship, International Fellowship of Reconciliation and Women Peacemaker Program, SweFOR (Sweden), the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers, DAM – Dialogues Against Militarism (US), Connection e.V. (Germany), Jews with a Different Voice (EU), Not in my Name (Italy), Jewish Voice for Peace (USA), Jewish Peace News (USA), Quakers (UK), The Quakers UN Office (Geneva), Responding to Conflict (UK), Resource Center for Non Violence (USA), Refusers Solidarity Network (USA), Trop

45 c’est Trop (France), Defence for Children International – Palestine, Women to Women for Peace (UK), Ecumenical Accompaniment Program in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI) the World Council of Churches (WCC), International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA), Interfaith Peace Builders, Sabeel, and many others.

Donors (partial list)

Brot für die Welt, EPER/HEKS, RSN (Refusers Solidarity Network), Quakers UK, SIVMO, the Kroymann Family (Palestine Friedens-organization), Connection e.V., and many private donors. We wish to thank all those who worked with us, and we hope for ongoing cooperation in years to come. Photos taken by Activestills, Haggai Matar, Albert Givol, Ronnie Barkan and Yael Telem.

Acknowledgements

Many New Profile activists contributed to this report. The material was compiled by Ronit Marian-Kadishay, Talila Kosh Zohar, and Rotem Biran; edited by Mirjam Hadar Meerschwam, Ronit Marian-Kadishay, and Sergeiy Sandler, and written by Ruth Hiller.

Addendum – media list

Following the police investigation into New Profile’s activities, especially our work with refusers, the movement featured in the media an unprecedented number of times in 2009. Below is a partial list of media items in which New Profile members were interviewed or New Profile was mentioned. This does not include most interviews given on international or national television or radio programs.

English

1. Rela Mazali in The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/may/05/israel-protest-feminism-draft

46 2. Mirjam Hadar Meerschwam in Counterpunch: http://www.counterpunch.org/hadar05192009.html 3. Deb Reich in Counterpunch: http://www.counterpunch.com/reich05012009.html 4. Gideon Levy in Haaretz: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1082567.html 5. New Profile Press Release: http://www.newprofile.org/english/?p=85 6. Dimi Reider in The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/apr/30/israel-military 30.4.09 7. News Flash Update in Ynet http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3708916,00.html 8. Daniel Edelson in Ynet http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3708977,00.html 9. Rela Mazali and Ruth Hiller in the Jewish Voice for Peace http://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/publish/article_1185.shtml 10. Andrea D’Cruz in The Red Pepper Magazine www.redpepper.org.uk 11. Na’ama Nagar in Open Democracy http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/democracy-in-palestine-israel-a-feminist-fight

Hebrew

1. Yuval Goren and Amos Harel in Haaretz http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasite/spages/1081349.html 2. Uri Avneri - press statement for Gush Shalom http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/he/channels/press_releases/1240789176 3. Idan Landau http://www.notes.co.il/idanl/55616.asp 4. Ofri Ilani in Haaretz http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasite/spages/1081845.html 5. Adar Shilo in Ynet http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-3707619,00.html 47 6. Annelien Kisch-Kroon in Ynet http://www.mynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-3708612,00.html 7. Idan Halili in Ynet http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-3707461,00.html 8. Ayala Hananel in Walla http://news.walla.co.il/?w=//1477915 9. Ruti Avraham in News One http://www.news1.co.il/Archive/001-D-198908-00.html?tag=07-49-01 10. Orit Lavnin-Degani in Walla http://news.walla.co.il/?w=/2971/1478474/@@/item/printer 11. Gideon Levy in Haaretz http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasite/spages/1082539.html 12. Ranking Committee Arranges another Week in Haaretz (satire) http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasite/spages/1083837.html 13. Rela Mazali in the Left Bank and Occupation Magazine publications http://hagada.org.il/hagada/html/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=6723 http://www.kibush.co.il/show_file.asp?num=33532 14. Orit Lavnin-Degani in Walla http://news.walla.co.il/?w=/2971/1486662/@@/item/printer 15. Army Radio in The Green Page http://www.kibbutz.org.il/itonut/2009/dafyarok/090604_kesher.htm?findWords= %D7%98%D7%95%D7%9F

Visual media

16. Demonstration in front of the police station on Dizengoff Blvd., in Tel Aviv, in support of New Profile, on April 30, 2009 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXT08cISAMI 17. Item on New Profile and the investigation on Al Jazeera in English http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2K4NOsX4IiI 18. Social Active TV for Occupation Magazine http://www.tv.social.org.il/medini/stv-within-an-occupying-society-prog-2.htm

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