Ya’alon still in New Zealand

Ya’alon still in New Zealand, despite arrest warrant for war crimes

Despite reports to the contrary, former Israel Defence Forces chief of staff Lieutenant General (res.) Moshe Ya’alon remained in New Zealand after a warrant was issued for his arrest for alleged war crimes, he said Friday. The charges have since been dropped.

The War for Israel`s Soul

September 29, 2008 – By: Weiss, Philip

Further evidence of the war within Israeli society: The tragedy of the occupation has brought about  “an unprecedented number of young people who are choosing to go to jail rather than serve in the Israeli army,“

says a Refuser Solidarity group. And the government of Israel is trying to shut down New Profile, a leftwing feminist group that supports these young “shirkers,” New Profile reports. The group describes the spiritual despair that the occupation, and the Nakba before that, has caused inside Israel.

And mentions soldier suicides as the leading cause of death:

• Four generations and over six decades of repeated, unending “military solutions” have engendered an expanding movement of young people who experience and express excruciating inner struggles and rifts in face of the legal duty to serve. …
• For some young people, [these crises] involve highly dangerous levels of personal distress and indeed, in recent years, suicide has claimed the lives of more Israeli soldiers than all other causes-of-death combined.
• Rather than listening to the voice raised by these future citizens, rather than fathoming the social change it reflects and responding with changed, innovative policies, Israel ’s state institutions have chosen to wage a “war” against these youths and the developments they represent.

Olmert warns of ‘evil wind’ of extremism in Israel

Ehud Olmert warns of ‘evil wind’ of extremism in Israel

Monday September 29 2008

A resurgent ultranationalist religious underground movement is threatening Israel’s democracy, the nation’s outgoing prime minister, Ehud Olmert, warned yesterday.

Olmert lashed out at the extreme right for the first time in his two-and-a-half-year premiership after a prominent Israeli critic of Jewish settlements in the Palestinian West Bank was violently attacked last week.

“A bad wind of extremism, hate, evil, violence and contempt for state authorities is blowing through certain sectors of the Israeli public and threatening Israeli democracy,”

said Olmert in his opening remarks to the weekly cabinet meeting.