During a brief interlude between two terms in the military prison, refuser Uri Nathan found time to talk to Adam Keller.

At a Bible class in my elementary school, we learned about some war that the ancient Hebrews waged against some of their enemies, the Amalekites I think.

What I remember was that after winning they slaughtered all their captives, which was okay as far as God was concerned, but an officer who looted some property was punished very severely. The teacher asked us who had acted wrong in this affair and I said it was the prophet who urged the Hebrews to start this war. It was not the answer she expected.

Not that at the time I had any idea that I would one day refuse to do military service. In fact, a cousin of whom I was very fond was a soldier, and our favourite play was for him to order me around as if I was a little soldier myself. The army looked to me like a glamorous, swell place to be.

My mother's family in the Kibbutz had a high regard for military service; it was very much a part of the Kibbutz ethos. My mother broke with that way of life in the 1970's; it was very difficult to be a single mother in a Kibbutz at that time. For some time she lived in New York.

As I was growing up, she did not often talk to me directly about politics. I did get from her a very strong feeling of a comprehensive morality, a morality that applies equally to all human beings without distinctions. Very much a non-nationalistic education.

By the way, my relatives from the Kibbutz have accepted the fact of my refusal; they told my mother they respect my decision.

When I started high school it was already clear to me that I would either refuse conscription or just get out of the army through the Kaban (Mental Health Officer), which is what quite few young people do nowadays. Going in and serving three years as a soldier was not an option.

When I was in the Tel-Aviv Pupils' Council, there was a girl who introduced me to socialist ways of thinking and acting. I became involved with Democratic Action, a radical group still often called "Nitzotz" (Spark) for the paper they once had and which was closed by the government. They operate a kind of community centre in Jaffa, to help Arab children who live in bad slum conditions.

I started also going to the demonstrations of Socialist Action against the Netanyahu economic policies, and to picketing the Defence Ministry when children were killed in the Territories.

A friend told me about the protests against construction of the Wall, at Budrus Village. There was a special training session before we went there, but it did not really prepare me for the Border Guards rushing in and swinging their clubs and hitting everybody on the head while arresting us. Very scary.

In the police station we were Israelis and internationals from the ISM and a Palestinian who had not even participated in the demo, they just dragged him out of his home nearby and accused him of stone throwing.

We declared solidarity; nobody goes away until everybody is released. The officer argued with us for several hours and in the evening he did let all of us go. This gave me an appreciation for the power of non-violence -- not so much the demo itself as this confrontation inside the police station.

In my last year at school we started organizing an anti-militarist student group. That was when the Education Ministry started this program nicknamed "A major for every minor."

Until then, the army was every year sending a young corporal to the school to talk about what the army is like. They started feeling that corporals don't have enough "authority" and don't succeed in giving the pupils motivation to become soldiers. From now on it was going to be a lieutenant colonel as an integrated part of the school staff, a kind of Teacher of Military Affairs.

Our principal decided to invite an Air Force Brigadier, who was a graduate of the school, to give a lecture. On the day he arrived, two others and I chained ourselves to the school gate with a sign "No Entrance to the Army." Our friends stood around us and gave out leaflets, while hostiles were cursing us and some threw stones.

It got into the media, and all kinds of politicians reacted to it. More attention than anything I was involved in before or after.

In fact the general did go into the school. As I later heard, much of his lecture was devoted to attacking us. The principal imposed on me what he called an educational punishment: to write a paper about the failure of the Camp David talks in 2000. He said I should understand the complexity of the situation.

I wrote the paper. I concluded that Barak did not make very generous offers that the Palestinians rejected. Rather, both Barak and Arafat played like puppet masters with the fate of Israelis and Palestinians.

At about this time I got called up to do medical examinations in preparation for enlistment.

I did it, but I told them it was no use to examine Page 14 me since I was certainly going to refuse.

This would have been the moment to ask for the Conscience Committee, but I didn't do it. In order to succeed in this committee, you have to fit yourself to the army's concept of "pacifism", which is that all violence is the same. If somebody attacks me in the street and I don't turn the other cheek, than I am not a pacifist, case closed.

It is not like that at all. Pacifism is essentially a reaction to the wars of the Twentieth Century, to the industrialized killing of people by the million in assembly line fashion. In the First World War the European countries lost whole generations of men, and in WWII again. Russia still does not have enough men, more than fifty years afterwards!

The only pacifism they accept is when you declare that going to Bil'in and shouting at the soldiers that they are dirty bastards is "verbal violence." You have to be against that just as much as you are against the trench warfare in which two hundred thousand soldiers were killed in one day. The same phenomenon, the only difference is the size!

If I have to pretend and lie in order to get out of the army, I prefer to go to the Kaban and pretend I am a bit crazy. Not to the Committee and pretend that I believe in total nonsense.

On the day I had to go in, Shaul Mograbi-Berger was with me, who had already been imprisoned several times and prepared me for all the rigmarole. The Shministim (High School Refusers Group) went with us up to the gates of the Induction Centre in Tel Hashomer, a very nice demo.

Two girls in flowered dresses carried big baskets from which they distributed gifts to all the passing soldiers. They gave them pairs of plastic handcuffs, with a note saying "Dear soldier, this may help you in the sacred duty of defending Greater Israel against Palestinian children." Also my best friend was there, who is not much of a leftist but he came to see me off. (He is now undergoing a military training course.)

Inside, they stood all of us in line and told us we were soldiers now and to take off all necklaces and bracelets because wearing them was against regulations. Some of the young people made a bit of trouble about that. Only later they noticed I was a more serious kind of troublemaker.

It was a lieutenant who judged me that first time. She said that if everybody did what I did, there would be no army and the Arabs would come to slaughter us. I said if everybody was like me, we would be out of the Territories and there would be peace. She said: "One week in prison."

In fact, it was only four days, because of the New Year. After the holiday I was back and this time they had a lieutenant colonel to deal with me. He spent nearly half an hour debating, asked some intelligent and penetrating questions. For example, when I bought clothes, did I make sure they were not produced by child labor at sweatshops in the Far East? But his main argument was that the Rule of Law was sacred. The order to enlist was not Manifestly Illegal; therefore I had a moral duty to obey it.

I feel a bit sorry for people like that. They need to feel an all-powerful State all the time behind them, they would be totally confused and helpless if this crutch was taken away. The State gives them the concept of the Manifestly Illegal Order as a sop to salve their consciences.

I met this kind of argument also outside the army, the people who say that leftists should not refuse to serve the occupation because this legitimizes rightists refusing to evacuate settlements. Bullshit! I respect settlers who say that law is not above everything and are willing to pay the price for their principles. However, I think it would be clear to any impartial observer that the principles that motivate me are far more moral than theirs.

When the government evacuated Gaza, they should have said this was done because occupation and settlement are immoral. They should not have put all the emphasis on the argument that "everybody must obey the Law." The law can be unjust, and then civil disobedience is justified.

Anyway, after this philosophical discussion the colonel sent me to 21 days in Military Prison 4, with my big pile of books. I sat in the cell and read for hours. I read Gandhi's "My Experiments with Truth" from cover to cover. It made me decide to become a vegetarian. It also made me decide to fast on Yom Kippur, for the first time in my life.

I was attracted by Gandhi's approach of empathy and compassion, of openness to the thoughts and feelings and ideas of others. I felt I should apply this also by not maintaining an attitude of loathing and disgust towards the Jewish religion and its observances. Also, around me were many prisoners with a traditional attitude to religion. Especially to observing the fast on Yom Kippur.

Most of the people in the military prison are from the marginalized groups, Orientals, Russians, and Ethiopians. They get in mainly for going AWOL and desertion, or for drugs and alcohol. Most of them just don't want to serve in the army. They go to prison again and again, in the end the army lets them go but until then they suffer a lot. I tried to help the prisoners who sat with me, gave tips on how to get to the Kaban. Also the phone numbers of contacts in the New Profile movement who could offer some help.

I was especially touched by R., who originally came from one of the Muslim republics of the former Soviet Union. His family is in a very bad economic situation, he wants to work and help them instead of spending three years in the army doing something stupid.

He had been on hunger strike for a whole month, but nobody was willing to listen to him. He was very desperate. I put him in contact with Smadar Ben Nathan. I hope that by now she has gotten him out, she is a clever lawyer with a lot of experience.

After the first 21 days I took for myself a unilateral one-week leave before showing up again at the Induction Centre. The colonel asked me why had I gone AWOL and I said I did not want to miss the dramatic productions of the pupils in my former school. He said that was not very funny. So eventually I got 35 days, combination punishment for refusing orders and going AWOL. In this term I had the nastiest moment, though in the end it strengthened me.

One Thursday in the prison they suddenly told me I was being transferred to Open Detention at the Ofer Camp. They actually thought they were doing me a favour and sending me to a place with better conditions.

Now, I knew what is Ofer. I knew it is a prison camp for Palestinians near Ramallah. In fact, when I participated in the solidarity action after the Budrus demo, our main purpose was to prevent our Palestinian fellow from being sent to Ofer. But when I heard that I was going there I somehow assumed that Ofer also had a section for Israeli prisoners. I did not see anything especially wrong with being imprisoned there instead of another prison.

It was a big mistake, I found out already on the way. Being in Open Detention at Ofer means in fact being part of the prison staff, working in the kitchen and the warehouse and other work needed for running the camp. It also meant that in case of a riot by the Palestinian prisoners, I could be one of the people who take weapons out of the camp armoury and distribute them to the Riot Squad.

Of course that was the very last thing I wanted to be doing. But it occurred to me that refusing in such circumstances could count as "disobeying an order under fire" and I remembered hearing that the army treats that far more severely than simple disobedience. Just how severely I did not know, but quite frankly I was frightened.

Should a prison riot really have broken out while I was there, I don't know what I would have done. Probably wriggling out in one way or another.

As soon as I got there I asked to be sent back to the normal prison. The officer was quite reasonable. After all, being there instead of the normal prison is considered a kind of preferential treatment, not a punishment, so you can decide you just don't want the favour. He said I could go back, but only after the weekend. Until then, there would be no bus going in or out.

There was a public phone, and I immediately called my friends and asked them to do everything they could to make sure I would get out of there. I decided that if I am not sent back after the weekend, I would go on a hunger strike. But in the meantime, I did agree to work in the Ofer warehouse.

The work in itself was not terrible, just sorting out some odds and ends. But I knew that I was helping the staff in the place where Palestinians are taken when the army raids their homes.

I could not see any of the Palestinian prisoners, but I knew they were there behind the high inner wall and the barbed wire. It was a very wretched weekend, even though nothing special happened and in the end the bus did arrive and took me back.

In the balance, this was a very strengthening experience. Until then my refusal was mainly a rational act. I am against the occupation; of course I refuse to serve the occupation. During that weekend it became a very emotional issue, a face-to-face confrontation with something utterly disgusting that I totally rejected. It makes me more determined to go on with this.

For how long? I don't know. I know I could get out whenever I want. Just say that I want to see the Kaban, and they will be overjoyed, fall over their themselves to get rid of me as quickly as possible. I saw it with other refusers who took the decision. But why should I make it easier for them?

This week I am again taking a few days off. It doesn't matter whether I go to prison for refusal or AWOL. I will get a bit of rest, and also participate in Bil'in this Friday, marking a year to its anti-Wall struggle (Jan. 19). Then I will go back to the Induction Centre and the game will go on.

What I would like best of all is the kind of discharge paper which The Five got after their court martial, after two years in the military and civilian prisons. You know, their discharge paper stated that they are Forbidden to Serve in the Army. Yes, totally forbidden to ever set foot again inside the army. The army thinks of them as a danger, a threat, and it has put it in writing.

This is the testimonial I would like, the kind of document I would frame and put on the wall and boast of to my grandchildren.

I am not sure I will get something like that. But even if in the end it will be just a psychiatric discharge from the Kaban, there is nothing shameful about that. Nothing at all!

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Uri Nathan can be contacted c/o Efrat Nathan, 51 Ge'ulah St., Tel Aviv or at efratn@012.net.il

This article was originally published in the January, 2006 edition of the Other Israel.

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