Why some Israeli teens are choosing prison over the army

Tel Aviv, Israel (CNN) — At a military prison in central Israel, 18-year-old Itamar Greenberg sat in a US Army-issued army uniform as the Hollywood blockbuster “American Sniper” blared from the rec room’s TV.

But Greenberg is not a soldier, and the desert camouflage fatigues are the only military uniform the so-called refusenik - as conscientious objectors are called in Israel - has ever worn.

Greenberg has been in and out of prison for the last year, serving a total of 197 days over five consecutive sentences. Earlier this month, Greenberg was released from the Neve Tzedek prison for the last time.

His crime? Refusing to enlist after being summoned for military service, which is compulsory for most Jewish Israelis - and some minorities - over the age of 18.

Greenberg said his refusal to serve came as the “culmination of a long process of learning and moral reckoning.”

“The more I learned, the more I knew I couldn’t wear a uniform that symbolizes killing and oppression,” he said, explaining that Israel’s war in Gaza - which was launched after Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel on October 7, 2023 - solidified his decision to refuse.

“There is genocide,” he said. “So we don’t need good reasons (to refuse).”

The Israeli government has vehemently denied accusations that the war in Gaza amounts to genocide against the Palestinian people.

The war, which was reignited last week when Israel resumed airstrikes and ground operations in Gaza after a short-lived ceasefire, has killed over 50,000 Palestinians in 17 months, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.

Over 670 people have been killed and 1,200 others injured in Gaza since Tuesday alone, when Israel’s military campaign restarted, according to the health ministry there.

“I want this change, and I will give my life for it,” Greenberg said of his decision to serve time in prison rather than serving with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

It’s a decision that conscientious objectors like Greenberg don’t take lightly, as refusing the draft is essentially a choice of ostracization.

In Israel, the military is more than just an institution. It’s part of the social fabric, with military service and secular Jewish-Israeli identity deeply intertwined. And it starts early: From elementary school, students are taught they will one day be the soldiers who will protect children just like them, with soldiers visiting classrooms and schools explicitly encouraging students to enlist. At 16, those children receive their first recruitment orders, culminating with conscription at 18. Many see it as an honor, a duty and a rite of passage.

Greenberg has been called a self-hating Jew, antisemitic, a terrorist supporter, and a traitor, he said – even by family and friends.

“People message me on Instagram and say that they will slaughter me, as Hamas did to Israelis on October 7,” he said.

In prison, Greenberg was placed in solitary confinement after receiving threats from fellow inmates – a move that prison officials told him was “for his safety.”

Despite social ostracization, he – and what a network of organizations supporting conscientious objectors say is a growing number of refuseniks – remain dedicated to the cause.

Their numbers are still exceedingly small. Only a dozen Israeli teens have publicly refused to enlist on conscientious grounds since the start of the war, according to Mesarvot, an organization that supports objectors. But that number is higher than in years prior to the war.

Mesarvot told CNN that there are far more “grey refuseniks” or, people that claim mental or general health exemptions to dodge the draft and avoid the possibility of serving time behind bars. Because of the nature of those refusals, it is impossible to provide exact numbers.

Yesh Gvul, another anti-war group that supports conscientious objectors, told CNN that on average, every year, 20% of youngsters required to serve are refusing to do so, according to figures shared by the Israeli military. That number, Yesh Gvul said, includes both refuseniks and “grey refuseniks.”

The Israeli military does not publish figures about conscription refusal. CNN has asked the Israeli military for those figures and comment.

Other groups have been far more vocal than the refuseniks in refusing to take part in Israel’s military tradition. Before the October 7 attacks, thousands of reservists protesting the government’s desire to weaken the judiciary said that they would not show up for service. And for months, the country has been roiled over the conscription of ultra-orthodox men who refuse to enter the military because they are studying in religious schools.

Greenberg’s views are extreme even for the increasingly marginalized Israeli left. The mass protests that have become commonplace since October 7 are not so much against the military or war writ large, but in favor of a ceasefire deal to bring home hostages held in Gaza. But Greenberg and other refuseniks hope that their movement might create space for a more mainstream dialogue on the pitfalls of a militarized society.

“If I join the army, I just will be part of the problem. I personally prefer to be part of the solution,” Greenberg said, noting that he may not live to see it.

On Saturday, around a dozen of those refuseniks met at the headquarters of the left-wing political coalition Hadash to prepare for their weekly demonstration in central Tel Aviv.

Smoking a roll-up cigarette on the balcony of the building with a handful of other conscientious objectors, Lior Fogel, a 19-year-old from Tel Aviv, said she had always had “issues with the army as an institution, based on violence and force,” and managed to get a psychiatrist to sign her off with a mental health condition to get out of service.

She told CNN that it was only after she received her exemption from the army that she began to understand the role that the military plays in the systemic everyday violence of Palestinians in Israel and the occupied territories. That injustice, she said, drives her activism today.

Multiple human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, have said that Israel’s treatment of Palestinians constitutes apartheid. Israel has denounced that characterization as antisemitic.

“The system of apartheid and the maintenance of this rule that actively oppresses another group cannot be upheld. Not only is it immoral and generally horrible, but it will end up blowing up in your face,” Fogel said.

As Fogel and the others marched to Begin Street to join thousands of people from all walks of society who were demonstrating under an umbrella of pro-democracy and anti-war, she too, acknowledged that the views of the refuseniks remain fringe.

Still, the activists might be meeting their moment.

Rage against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reached a fever pitch this week among tens of thousands of protesters who believe he is employing increasingly anti-democratic means to stay in power, and who question what he hopes to achieve with a renewed military campaign that nearly a year and a half of relentless war has not.

Many blame Netanyahu for prioritizing his political survival over the security of his country and say the renewed military campaign grossly endangers the lives of the estimated 24 living hostages still held in Gaza by Hamas and its allies.

The sentiment marks a significant turn in the conflict, and one that refuseniks hope will give Israelis that are considering refusing to serve in protest of the renewed military campaign the power to act - regardless of political persuasion.

“When Israel restarted the fight, a lot of people, not radical or left, but people that support the ceasefire and the hostages can now say, we will refuse – even if they don’t care about the Palestinians,” Greenberg said.

“The refusal is now less taboo. So, they can use this tool that we developed - even though they think that we are crazy and traitors - when they think it’s right,” he added.

Another refusenik at the demonstration, Iddo Elam, 18, who served time in prison for his refusal, told CNN: “I would prefer this over killing children.” According to UNICEF, more than 14,500 children have been killed in Gaza since the start of the war.

Elam said he was hoping his protest would help fellow Israelis to understand that “the pain of Palestinians is the same as Israelis.”

When another attendee of the wider protest heard Elam talking, he interrupted to insist that the teenager’s viewpoint isn’t representative of Israeli society, and said: “That’s not true. He is a minority, and his views don’t represent what everybody else here thinks.”

But others stood by in support of dozens of objectors who chanted “peace, equality, social justice,” and held signs that read “refuse the war, mobilize for peace.”

Rakefet Lapid, whose two children also refused service years before the war, and whose family lives in one of the kibbutz that was attacked by Hamas on October 7 said: “I’m glad they are still some young people willing to say that.”

“But I’m sorry they are a small minority,” she added.

Greenberg said he chose to go public because he “didn’t want to lie.”

But one 16-year-old who asked not to be named, told CNN that while he knows he will refuse the draft when his time comes, he is still deciding how.

While the teen has secured papers from a psychiatrist that say he has mental issues that won’t allow him to serve, he said his reason is not due to his mental health – but his political perspective.

“If I’m going out on my ‘mental issues,’ then it’s like saying to the army: ‘I am the problem, not you,’” he said.

CNN’s Mick Krever contributed to this report.

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