More than 320 members of the Israeli Defense Forces have signed a pledge refusing "to dominate, expel, starve and humiliate an entire people" through "missions of occupation and oppression" against Palestinians. Though they consider the military defense of the State of Israel to be legitimate, the signers have denounced "commands and directives that had nothing to do with the security of our country, and that had the sole purpose of perpetuating our control over the Palestinian people."
Yesh Gvul, a support organization for refuseniks, says these soldiers accept the legal consequences of their action as part of a history of effective resistance. Yesh Gvul credits the imprisonment of 168 soldiers during the 1982 invasion of Lebanon and 200 jailed for refusing to combat the 1987 intifada with helping to curtail those military campaigns. More than three times as many Palestinians as Israelis have been killed in the current uprising.
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