The Trans Teen Imprisoned for Refusing to Join the IDF

In one sentence, why should people refuse to serve in the Israeli army?

Because there's a genocide and you don't enlist into an army that's committing a genocide.

Hello, hello, and welcome back to A Bit Fruity.

Ever since the Nakba in 1948, when Zionists violently expelled Palestinians from their land to create the state of Israel, Israel has had conscription or required military service for every Jew who lives there when they turn 18.

It's like a military draft, only the draft literally never ends.

As of 2022, the minimum service time for men in the Israeli Defense Forces, or the IDF, is two years and eight months.

The minimum service for women is two years.

The IDF plays a huge role in Israeli society.

I know Jews I grew up with in New Jersey and New York who, as teenagers, went on birthright, the fully funded propaganda vacation to Israel, meant to spiritually connect the Jewish diaspora to land that Palestinians still cannot return to.

And then they literally uprooted their lives in New Jersey or New York and moved to Israel to serve in the military.

I know, it's crazy.

Refusal to fulfill your military service requirements comes with punishments, namely jail time.

Those sentences will range, and the Israeli government has a practice of continuous imprisonment until young people submit to their military service.

There's also social consequences.

Refusing military service out of protest, especially for the sake of Palestinian life, is deeply unpopular in Israel.

A teenager who does this may be cut off from their families, their friends, their support systems, and Israeli society.

But as more Israeli teenagers come of age during Israel's ongoing genocide of Palestinians, those are sacrifices that more and more of them are willing to take.

Today, in a kind of special episode, we're going to talk to Yona Roseman, a 19-year-old Israeli transgender young woman who has done just that.

I first came across Yona in a video shared online last month of her and a group of other young refusers burning their draft papers in a public protest in Tel Aviv.

Now she's getting ready for prison.

Yona, welcome to the show.

Hello, thank you for having me.

When I posted about that protest where you were burning your draft papers, you reached out to me and you were like, I would love to come on your podcast and talk about this, but also like, I'm going to jail, so we need to do this now.

Yeah.

So I have a few questions before we start anything.

First of all, when exactly are you preparing to go to prison?

And two,

how are you doing right now?

So my conscription date is August 17th.

So at the time of recording in 16 days and that's the same day I'm going to be imprisoned likely

how does that work how how does the process of imprisonment work when you refuse so we show up at the draft office because not showing up entails harsher punishment and we declare our refusal and then a military commander and preferably the

highest ranked military commander like the commander of the draft office but she she it's a woman and she

feminist win this this

war criminal is a woman yeah so so the the reason they wanted to be the highest ranked commander is because she can she can give the maximum length uh of sentence which is uh 30 days but after you serve that sentence you don't get exempted so then you're you're called back in and then you're sentenced again and that goes on and on until the army gives up or you get an exemption somehow.

If you don't show up for a couple of days, but then do show up, because if you want to have more than three days in between your imprisonment, then you can do that for a couple of for a week or two,

but then you get sentenced for additional days.

So, those people who've done like 45 days or even 45 days with an additional sentence if they break the conditions again.

So, yeah, so it's repeated sentences of a month by default.

So, do you have any idea, like when it's all said and done, how long you will go to prison

No, that's the thing.

I only know that I'll go to my next imprisonment.

Since the beginning of the genocide, the longest someone has sat in military prison for refusal was 197 days.

And that was when the army regulated.

Just like we're we're giving up, like get out of here.

Yeah.

Before before

Before October 23, there was an unwritten policy that after between three and four months, they'd convene a committee that would exempt you.

But when the war started,

they decided that they're not going to convene that committee anymore.

And they kept threatening our refusals that, oh, you're going to sit here for the entire three years.

Three years.

And

we tested that and they didn't actually go through with that.

But it did.

take for about half a half a year.

And then my other question.

How are you feeling right now?

Well, I'm pretty nervous.

Jail sounds not particularly fun.

Also since I'm trans, I'll be probably put in isolation and

we could talk about it more later probably.

But also outside of jail, the entire last two years, but the cup the last couple of weeks in particular have been just very despairing and depressing and it's it's really on my mind 24-7 and that's kind of been what has been uh holding my mood.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

Can we jump into some, you know, of your early life?

You know, tell me where you grew up, what your early life was like.

So, I grew up in a small town in the north of Israel, the 48 territories.

I grew up in what you call a left Zionist family.

You know, I was raised on what I would say are like humanistic, universalist values.

The world occupation wasn't taboo in my house, but still, you know, very much a Zionist Israeli family was very much pro-conscription and they may want to have peace with Palestinians, but still it's very clear where, like, on which side we're on.

Everything that I've read about the experience of growing up in Israel talks about, you know, being propagandized from a very young age to fear and despise Palestinians.

Would you say that that was true for you or the people around around you?

And like, how much of a role does that propaganda about Palestinians play into people's attitudes towards their Israeli identity and, you know, later joining the military?

So I think since I lived in the north, in the Galilee, which is majority Palestinian, and with the family that I grew up with, I think it was less so that Palestinians or Arabs were demonized and dehumanized, but the question of like the equality was disconnected from the national question.

So I was raised on viewing them as equal, but still, you know, the

line that I was taught since kindergarten was that we always wanted peace and the Palestinians always rejected peace and that they want to kill us and we just wanted to be safe.

And that that was very much the line in in the entire education I've gone through from kindergarten to high school.

Would you say that that is standard for Israelis?

Yeah, yeah.

I volunteered at a at a school for

like the last year and I I remember when it was Purim, it was the science teacher.

It wasn't even like the history teacher, it was the science teacher.

It was a third grade class and and she talked to them about the story of Purim and how we beat the the Persians and and whatever and and and then she said this is like how today we're also gonna beat the Iranians and and no matter how much they want to destroy us, we'll destroy them.

Yeah, so so like Eva it was a very um staunchly militaristic and nationalistic line.

Do you think that most Israelis never challenge that as they grow up?

Do you think that it's absorbed as you know as your children and you just grow up always kind of feeling like you have to have this military strength towards everyone around you?

Yeah, I think even if

you develop more

moderate positions in regarding to like conflicts, it still very much comes from like the lens of we're the moral army,

we have to be strong.

What for me was like really hard as I was becoming more opposed to whatever thing my country stands for, was not opposing specific policies

but breaking the mindset that what we're doing

is fundamentally wrong and that the army lies.

For example, I believe like, oh, you know, I think the bombings are bad, but I think Hamas terrorists are hiding under

buildings.

Those sort of lines, like, we're still the most small army in the world.

Those lines are very much ingrained almost into your mindset, even if you oppose in theory certain policies.

Like no matter how brutal the Israeli regime can be, it's always warranted.

It's always justified because what they could do is worse.

Yeah, and also that it's like it has to be a lie,

that what we're doing is that bad, because it can't be.

And because the army says otherwise, and the country says otherwise, and it's our army, and it's, yeah.

i have so many things that i want to ask you and so i don't want to get like stuck for too long on any one thing but while we're here like right now in israel you know with finally so much of the rest of the world catching up to how brutal and horrible this genocide that they've been committing is like what is the feeling of people inside israel toward the global reaction Like, do they think that everybody is just misinformed?

You know, at this point, it's become really difficult to deny.

And I think what helped for the majority of the genocide was that the media in Israel was very much complacent and just did not show any pictures from Gaza and called every international outlet or a group who did talk about it

falling for Hamas propaganda.

Hamas, exactly.

Everyone's Hamas.

The Abit Fruity podcast is Hamas.

Yes.

I've been told this.

Yeah.

Well, maybe I'll be arrested for participating in enemy propaganda.

Wow,

we'll bail you out, we'll bail you out.

That's what the Patreon is for.

I mean, what can they do?

Send me to jail?

Oh, yeah.

The fact that you can have a sense of humor about this is pretty wild.

Anyways, I think, you know, with the pictures that have been coming out of Gaza in recent weeks, it's become hard to deny and to ignore, even for mainstream Israeli media.

And that has somewhat broke into the Israeli consciousness.

But a lot of it is still like, oh, you know, it is a catastrophe, but it's Hamas who's responsible for the starvation.

It's reluctant.

So I think there has been some sort of shift, but the majority of society is still very much for everything that's happening.

I want to talk a little bit about your relationship to your queer identity and your gender, because we're just going to talk about a lot of things today and try to weave them all together in a meaningful way.

So talk to me about that.

Like, how old were you when you

realized you were queer?

What was your coming out journey like?

Because that is something that, despite a lot of aspects of our lives being very different, that you do have in common with a lot of the people who listen to this podcast, for example.

Well, I don't know what's considered pretty late, but

I realized I was trans around puberty.

I was 13, I think.

I didn't grow up knowing a lot of trans people.

I knew a couple of trans guys or trans mask people, but no trans

girls.

So it felt just very distant.

So it took me a bit to come to terms with.

It also it took me even longer to come out.

So there was like a period of like a year or two where I was already out to my friends and even like in class and in school.

But I think like to my parents I only came out when I was sixteen.

It's crazy that you think that that's late.

Like I know people who came out in their sixties, you know, you're nineteen right now.

Yeah.

no i don't think that's late it's just uh it felt it felt like a really long time oh of course the the night i came out to my parents was the first time i got drunk so

good for you

it happens to the best of us it does so we're gonna get into some pink washing stuff because i really want to talk with you about that but you know one of israel's top you know marketing strategies as a nation state in places like the us is like it's it's a haven for LGBTQ people.

And that's why we must protect it at all costs.

And we're going to get into that in a second, but I want to know, like, what was it like growing up as a trans teenager in Israel?

More than anything,

it was a bit of a bureaucratic hell.

Say more, bureaucratic hell.

Yeah, so I came up, I was pretty much only socializing with my friend group and they were fine with it, so that wasn't an issue.

I only came out to the rest of my school, who is quite quite conservative, after October 7th.

And by that time, my school was evacuated since it's in the far north.

So I didn't see my classmates at all.

So I kind of dodged a bullet there.

So the main headache I had to deal with was like trying to get on hormones.

There's only one gender clinic in the entire country that serves trans kids.

Wow.

And it's in Tel Aviv, which is two and a half hours away from where I lived.

And

it was a huge waiting list.

And then until they approved me getting on hormones, it was also longer.

And then from the getting to the

national health insurance to recognize it,

it's a really long bureaucratic process.

Generally, I grew up in quite a liberal environment.

I think

the most transphobia I faced was only after being public about my leftist activism.

That's when people start purposefully calling you slurs and misgendering you.

And, you know, in protests, like the like people shouted at me, like, what are you?

Are you a man?

Are you a woman?

I had a couple of not very fun interactions with the police when I was arrested.

I was arrested a couple of times.

For your activism.

Yes, yes.

In protests, yeah.

I was arrested a total of six times

during my

first arrest.

I was arrested once a year ago and five times in the last three months.

So in that arrest a year ago, the cops beat me up quite bad and after I was at the police station I had to go to the hospital but that was more so that was a repression for being an activist less so than for being transgender but in the investigation itself the investigator just refused to gender me correctly refused to call me by my chosen name

despite me constantly correcting her and almost every arrest i'm called like the it or the half-half or the they oh or you know even after i changed my name they they they search for my like previous name one in the document they like they like making uh an issue out of it and they use your lack of Israeli nationalism as an excuse to be transphobic it sounds like yeah yeah because you're you're against the state and you're you're like a terrorist or a terrorist supporter then it's justified and you can throw all that progressive mask out of the window.

Oh, God, that's so

horrible and also so predictable.

Because I don't know, like, I'm always preaching about how like all of these systems of human rights or denial of human rights, like they go hand in hand.

And so it's like the second that you refuse like nationalism during a genocide, they're like, well, so you don't get your, you know, you, you don't get your trans rights then.

Yeah.

And I think like one of the biggest like cultural shocks for me was for like the first year of the genocide, there almost became an association of queer and trans identity with like the Columbia University protesters.

Like I was I was compared to specifically to like this stereotype of a blue-headed coffee-wearing protester

and like yeah, like I don't know, I've been a queer activist for a while and it's but but side and

I've always lived here, but but that's the association.

It's uh

not that it's a particularly bad thing to be compared to, but that's it's very much like a stereotype now.

I mean, they do that a ton in the US.

They're always like, oh, the purple hair protesters at Columbia University.

And it's like, well, a lot of times queer people understand how the denial of human rights works and don't want that to happen to other people.

Like, I don't know.

I guess I wish people understood that better.

Like, well, should we talk about pink washing?

We could.

I would love to because I never shut up about this topic and I feel really lucky to.

be able to talk to you about it.

So one of the arguments that Israel propagandists, I can't even call call these people simply pro-Israel anymore because I think it's like too dignifying of a label for a position that is at this point purely genocidal.

One of the arguments that they make, which has been very successful in Western countries like the United States, is that Israel is the only place in the Middle East that values queer rights.

It's what we call the pinkwashing of genocide, the idea that colonization and occupation and genocide are excusable if the the people committing it are socially liberal or claim to be.

I have lost American queer friends of mine to fervent Zionism, and this idea of Israel as a safe haven for queer people played a huge role in their brainwashing.

I get comments online that you've probably seen, you, Yona, or anyone listening to this podcast, every single day telling me how I'd be treated as a gay person in Gaza.

Go to Gaza, you'll be thrown off my roof.

And therefore, I should support Israeli genocide.

And so my question for you, like, as someone who is trans and who grew up in Israel, I feel like you're in a really unique position when it comes to this issue.

Was Israeli society pinkwashed to you growing up?

Like, is that an argument and an attitude that exists within Israel?

Or is it just sort of like a global PR strategy?

When I wasn't targeted as a, or before I was targeted as a self-string activist, so just as someone growing up in Israel, or even as a queer person growing up,

it's not much of a propaganda line.

It's not like, oh, you know, Israel is so good for you.

Even like the queer discourse that's confined to Zionism and the state of Israel, like recognizes that

we have a long way to go.

There's violence against queer people and we don't have a right to marry and there's a lot of restrictions around adoption and transitioning has a lot of barriers around it.

So both socially and legally

there's an active struggle even for like queer Jews within Israel.

So so that's not something that is propagandized by default but if you're you're suddenly also against the occupation or against genocide and the opportunion of Palestinians then then you're starting you get called ungrateful

for everything that the state provides you with.

The line that, oh, you should go to Gaza, you could be thrown off a roof, whatever, it's is very common.

Do people say that to you?

Yeah, yeah.

I've had people say it to me,

cops say it to me, it's very common.

I think Netanyahu even said that queers for Palestine is like chickens for KFCs.

Netanyahu did say that, and it's like Netanyahu fucking hates queer people of his own volition, not with regard to anything else.

Like, that is a far-right man.

You know, in a lot of Pride Parades in recent years, we have had like a block against pinkwashing.

It talks about the intersection between the oppression of Palestinians and the oppression of queer people, people and how Israel blackmails queer Palestinians.

Do you want to explain that?

Because I've seen stories about the blackmailing of queer Palestinians by Israel.

Yeah, there have been testimonies from intelligence officers who have testified that this is something that they've had to do or were tasked with doing or did.

Essentially, like officers contacting queer Palestinians, telling them that unless they give them intel on wanted people, family members, just people in the street,

they'll out them to their environment.

In other cases, the granting of asylum has been conditioned on giving intel.

So it's it's kind of like using queer rights as a thing to like hang over Palestinians' heads or use against them if they don't cooperate with the Israeli regime.

Yeah.

And for example in 2023 there was a Palestinian from Nablus whose name was Zuhir Khalif who was executed for spying for Israel after being blackmailed by Israeli intelligence for being queer.

So he was a gay man who was targeted by the Israeli military, blackmailed into spying for the Israeli military, and then killed by his own government for doing that.

Jesus.

He said that Shinbet, the Israeli intelligence force,

had an illicit video of him doing something with a male partner.

So, I mean, in some senses, it sounds like the Israeli military doing what they claim will happen to gay people in Gaza, doing that to gay Palestinians.

Yeah, essentially.

I mean they are contributing to the danger that queer Palestinians have to live through.

And that's, you know, without even mentioning the fact that Israel has killed more queer Palestinians than any militant group or conservative force by virtue of killing 100,000 Palestinians in Gaza.

There isn't a special dome dome that protects specifically queer Palestinians.

Israel kills all Palestinians.

And it exploits the vulnerability of queer Palestinians, which puts them further in danger.

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Now, let's get back to the episode.

You mentioned, you know, something about where you'd be placed in prison, in Israeli prison, as a trans person for refusing.

Can you talk more about that?

Yeah, so because I'm trans.

Well, there isn't a written policy that we know of.

There was a transgender uh refuser in March, her name is Ella, she's a close friend of mine.

She she she was placed in in in women's prison, but apart from the morning break and the evening break, uh which are both in hours, so for twenty two hours a day she was kept in in a room alone, in complete solitary.

Jesus, which even the the regular solitary section in the military prison is in couples.

So there's always the person that gets sent to isolation and the person that is accompanying them.

So for her, it was just, and for 15 hours a day, she was awake.

All she had to do was sit on her bed.

She couldn't even lie on

her back or like on the wall or on her bag.

Yeah, that's all she was able to do.

So we don't know what will happen with me.

For the last week of her imprisonment, she was allowed to do like the walk you can do which is seen as like a reward if you're a good prisoner then they let you do certain tasks like cleaning or readying the the dining room and also uh sewing up uh uniforms and the um eye coverings that they put on palestinian prisoners which if i if i get taught to do that i'm not gonna do it oh jesus christ but yeah they want the prisoners to be productive so for the last week she was allowed to do that and we don't know if it's because of pressure we put on them for for them putting a transgender prisoner in isolation, or just because she really was, in their eyes, a good prisoner that was allowed to get that reward.

I believe I will also be put in a similar situation, which is scary, because I'm a social person and I don't like being alone.

I mean, it just sounds like the Israeli government using queer rights as kind of like a carrot to dangle over your head as long as you fall in line with this genocidal regime.

Like, it doesn't sound like a place that authentically values human rights for queer people.

Yeah.

For example, I was contacted by the IDF has a gender officer, and the gender officer is in charge of like talking with transgender soldiers and

making sure they are in a unit that is accepting of them and that they get the accommodations that they need.

But then, if I go to prison, then I'll be kept in isolation.

So, it's yeah, it's conditional in a sense.

I guess I want to ask you, as a trans-Israeli, because this pinkwashing tactic has been, like I said, it's been so successful, like where I live, and it's seduced people that like I was friends with.

What would you say to people, especially people outside of Israel, who have bought into this argument and continue to use it to justify Israel's atrocities?

Well, honestly, the bottom line isn't how Israel treats queer people.

It could be the most

safe haven for queer people as it claims to be and it would still be a country that's committing genocide and killing 100,000 Palestinians.

It is important to outline how it lies about that just like it lies about everything.

How it lies about being a utopia for queer people.

Yeah, yeah, just like how it lies about that frosthit as it commits in Gaza and how it lies about its treatment of Palestinians within Israel.

It constantly lies and

it's important to point out that this is also a lie and a propaganda, but the bottom line is that it doesn't matter.

There is no amount of progressivism a country can achieve that will permit it to commit genocide and mass starvation.

And that's the bottom line.

I want to talk a little bit about your decision to refuse service and about kind of what happens when you do.

Could you talk to me a little bit about the movement to, they call it conscientious objectors or refuse niks?

there's a historical precedent for this movement i was wondering if you could tell me a little bit about that yeah so as long as there has been conscription there has been refusenics refusenics is the is the name that they give to people who refuse service it's sort of a nickname that we've uh adopted it has other connection connotations with jews from uh USSR.

But yeah, there have been people who've refused mandatory service for as long as there has been conscription.

In your intro, when you mentioned that Israel has been employing conscription since 1948, I was actually about to say that even before the foundation of Israel, back in 1947, many Zionist militias would go to the camps of displaced Holocaust survivors and conscript Jews from there.

There was even a Yiddish play made about it that is supposed to be like an indictment against a fictional draft avoider.

It's insane

for how long Israel has employed it.

And yeah, and we have testimonies and letters even from 1948 of people who refused the military service.

And in the last couple of decades, it has taken form in two major ways.

The first one is reservist refusers, people who did do army service but then refused the reserve calls during specific wars that they were in opposition to.

This started around the first war

Is that because so my understanding is that you get drafted initially to do your IDF service and then like afterwards they put you in the reserve?

Yes, yes, and essentially you have to

every couple of years you have to do training and when there's a war or another incident then they send out a bunch of reserve orders to people who are listed as active reservists.

And you stay on that list of people in the reserves until you're 40?

Yeah, I think 40 or 45 even.

I'm not sure exactly what's the cutoff, but yeah, for decades.

Around then there were people who refused the reserve services, but this was more so like conditional refusal.

They refused to a specific war or to serve in the occupied territories, that sort of stuff.

Later, I think around the 90s, there started things called like Amichtavesch Minestim, which is like letters of 12th graders,

which is just generations of 12th graders who would together sign a letter refusal.

And this is something that is still being done.

Back in the early 2000s, there was the biggest letter in history.

I think it was signed by around 350 people.

This was during the Second Intifada.

And five of them were sentenced not just to military jail, but then they were tried in civilian court and sent to civilian jail as well.

And they served a total of two years, of two full years in prison.

And that was like a really big controversy around then, because they they they actually like went on trial and challenged the idea of conscription and and and specifically i'm a member of a group called mesavot

mesavot means we refuse in the female form in in hebrew um it was founded uh a decade ago in 2016.

sort of a network of refusers throughout the years we we not just um are active around the time of our refusal but also for refusals in in following years and before and i for example, have been active in Mesavot for around two years.

Before you could ever even refuse, you weren't old enough, you were a minor.

Exactly.

Yeah, so

and it's a group that it gives us a platform and like a group to be active with.

And we organize protests, and we organize specifically like protests on the day of the refusal of

different refusals.

For example, yesterday there were two of my friends, Ayana and Yuvar, went to jail for refusing.

And we went to the draft office with them and protested there.

And we also protest in front of the military jail when the refusers are in jail.

And it gives us legal support, and media support, and parental support.

So, it's really nice,

and most importantly, it gives us like a community.

Like, refusing is an act that is really just so out of the consensus in Israeli society that it really helps to not be alone in it.

And that's the biggest advantage.

So, that's my political home essentially.

Can I ask, how old were you when you learned about the movement to refuse military service?

And how did you learn about it?

Because I would imagine that officials in Israel try to keep a cap on how people find out about that kind of thing.

Yeah, so for a while I knew I didn't want to serve, but it didn't really look like an option.

I really didn't know about it.

And then I went to this Israeli-Palestinian summer camp.

And the assistant guide

was a former refuser.

And

at some point she talked about her

journey of refusing and it was only then that that concept was really like demystified for me.

Before then I already started finding out about it because I was going to protests against occupation and against apartheid and it was there that I met other people my age who were also activists and they were already involved in those sort of circles.

But it was only then that I properly like heard about it and it was after that that I joined the Sabot myself And around a month later, there was a big event of like us releasing another refusal letter that was signed by 250 teenagers.

And I remember when I was active there, and I actually talking to people who have gone through it and saying that there's a lot of filmmaking going around not serving.

Like, there's like they tell you that you won't be able to find a job and you won't be able to get housing and a lot of that stuff.

And I think just seeing that people continued with their life and that were they weren't completely ostracized really helped dispel the fear around it for me.

And I think being active in it, and like there's something about taking my freedom into my own hands and saying no, even at the cost of my physical freedom, that was very liberating.

And it was that feeling that convinced me that this was something I wanted to do myself and that this was a price I was willing to pay.

What is the attitude of young Israelis, generally speaking, towards the IDF?

Like, do most young people want to serve out of patriotism?

Do people not want to serve, but they fear the repercussions, so they do it anyway?

I think most people want to serve.

Young Israelis are very much captured by the nationalistic narrative that everyone has to serve and that

it's a good thing.

And then, you know,

the army makes an active effort to encourage teenagers to enlist.

So, for example, when I was in high school, we were sent sent to like a military camp for a week where we wore a uniform and held weapons and

had our own like miniature military training to make it seem like fun and like this is something that we would want to do.

And there's in a lot of schools in Columbia Main, there are like teacher officers who are there to help you with your studies, but then also to check you up on like how how you're doing with the different military orders and if you're if there's specific roles that you want to be in and if you got like calls to to um try to to get into specific units or walls and

they often talk about how you know the if you go to intelligence you can then find a job in high-tech and it's seen as a very like personally uplifting uh move to to enlist and to make to do like meaningful service how old are you and and how old are Israelis when they start kind of like really pushing that onto you as like an integral part of Israeli life?

So your first call to the draft office is in 11th grade.

For me, it was just before I turned 17.

It's between 16 and 17, but you go to the draft office and go through different like health checkups and then interview, and they ask you which roles you want to do.

And from there, there's a consistent journey of like you get letters inviting you to go to the Elphos trial or to like the elite combat units trial or intelligence trial, etc.

It's funny, my refusal is in 16 days, and I still get messages telling me to go to some computer unit

asking me to do specific tests so I could go there.

And I don't think they got the memo.

I'm not interested.

Yeah, I don't think so.

They're not listening to a bit, Fruity.

No.

Yeah, for a while, I got a lot of calls from the Air Force.

And I'm like, I'm not interested.

And they really didn't let go.

And for a lot of schools,

specifically in less fortunate socio-economic backgrounds, like the school I went to, the army encourages a thing where they give the first order to the military for the entire grade at the same day.

So you go with your entire school instead of because a lot of time it's not that people don't want to serve, but they're too lazy to show up.

There are 60-year-olds who don't want to take a bus at 6 a.m.

to a different city to

a random draft office.

So they encourage the school to send all of the grades together as a field trip to

the draft office, which was an interesting experience for me not being out yet to my school, but the army knowing I'm trans.

So then they were like, well, they want to go to the boys' interview or to the girls' interview.

And then they were on different floors of the building.

It was a whole

thing.

I mean, look,

being from the United States, we are not at all free of our own awful military-industrial complex, you know, predatory practices practices on teenagers, especially from less fortunate socioeconomic backgrounds.

We are not exempt from that critique here at all.

But it does seem like a particularly unique level of fucked up that they require every child to engage on this level and like convince you that like your upwards mobility in society will be dependent on how well you perform your military service like as children.

Like that, that I mean, not to sound crass, but that's like, that seems like very fucked up.

Yeah, and and then you have, and then you have teenagers, 18-year-old teenagers signing not just on the three-year conscription, but on the academic programs in the army that then force you to

do additional years of professional service after your mandatory service.

And yes, I have friends who are from my grade who have signed a contract of like nine years with the army, which is insane.

And this is something that they already had to aim for before they were even adults.

It's insane.

It's batshit.

It is batshit.

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And now let's get back to the episode.

A lot of people around the world who are looking at this genocide Israel is committing will say, and they do say online, you know, there's no way I would ever join the Israeli military.

There's no way I would participate in that.

And obviously, and I think you'd agree with this, they're correct.

It's not a morally complicated decision to make.

As you've said in another interview that I watched with you, if a military is committing a genocide, you don't enlist in that military.

At the same time, though, I want to paint a picture for people of what it means, you know, socially and legally, which we've talked about the legal aspect a little bit, to refuse service in a society that shuns people who make that decision.

Could you talk to me about how refusers are treated?

What was the reaction from your family, your friends, etc.?

So

there's a lot of factors that play into it.

Military service is seen by mainstream society as the tickets and gateway into Israeli citizenship.

So if you don't serve, then you're not a real participant of society and your political opinions matter less and you shouldn't be prioritized in academy or healthcare services or welfare or whatever.

If you haven't served in the military then

you haven't done your duty and it's only after you do your duty that

you can demand your rights essentially is a common talking point.

And you know there are certain demographics who don't

get conscripted for one reason or another and

there's a lot of antagonism against against them for that because the sin is not giving their part.

So, I mean, it almost sounds like they kind of like, I don't know, again with the dangling carrot metaphor, but it's like you earn your full participation in Israeli society through like participating in the enforcement of Israeli violence.

Yeah, yeah, and in a lot of ways, like serving in the military is that gateway into it is it is an inherent part of Israeli nationalism.

So, yeah, it's Israeli identity is in large part made up by it.

So not serving in the army is a rejection of Israeli identity in at least some ways.

I've had classmates who cut contact with me over my decision to refuse.

A lot of, like, my friends these days are essentially made up of the people who are with me in my activism.

So for them, obviously,

it's not something that they have to contend with.

It's a good thing.

For my family, it was difficult.

I've had my parents tell me pretty difficult things over the years since I decided to do it.

But I think they, you know, they still love me as their child and want me to feel like they're behind me even if they don't support my actions.

So it's gotten better, but they have not been particularly supportive of my decision.

But

I do think it's important to outline that it really does not, at least in my eyes, it does not matter how difficult that decision or like how much difficulties it entails.

because because it's it's the decision itself is very trivial and and and there's a reason I I um I insist on on saying that when people ask me what are the consequences because because I think it's interesting it's interesting to talk about my uh the consequences obviously it's not it's not nothing that I'm that there's social socialization and that I'm going to jail or whatever but but but there's a genocide and it doesn't matter like what price there is to pay when the other option is to serve in an army that's committing genocide.

That's something that I'm very adamant about.

So Israel will often brand itself, you know, the only democracy in the Middle East, which is why people in the United States should unconditionally support it.

Like pinkwashing, this is a fallacy in my eyes.

You know, Israel isn't a full democracy.

It has occupied Palestinian land and turned Palestinians into second-class citizens, subject to Israeli control, but with no voting power.

So there's that.

But also, you know, you're about to go to jail for refusing to join Israel's genocidal military regime.

To me,

that doesn't feel like the working of a functioning democracy.

And so I guess my question for you is: like, do you think Israel is democratic?

No.

Okay.

I mean,

it's very simple.

I mean, when a country has millions of subjects that are deprived of voting rights and that live under a different legal system, then it's not a democracy.

But it goes further than that.

The entirety of the Israeli legal system is built to enshrine the supremacy of Jews over Palestinians.

And it's not just in the West Bank or just in Gaza.

It's throughout the entire, it's throughout all of Palestinians, from the river to the sea.

There's really one regime there, and that's its ultimate goal.

And this is true for Palestinians who do hold Israeli citizenship as well.

And obviously, you know, when a state is committing genocide and is acting in such

an immoral and evil, you know, it's a way,

then to uphold that system,

it needs to continuously employ undemocratic measures and it needs to suppress dissent and outlaw dissent and jail people and

falsely accuse

them of being terrorists.

It's unavoidable when this is the sort of system it's trying to uphold.

So yeah, there's nothing democratic about it.

I'm just, I find it so valuable to ask you these things because it's like these, these are the things that like Americans around me and around the communities that I grew up in as like an American Jew.

These are the talking points they repeat over and over and over again.

It's all like, you know, well, we have, we have to unconditionally support Israeli genocide.

Of course, they don't call it genocide, but they'll, they'll say that we have to support it because Israel is democracy and you're, you know, you're a queer person.

Imagine the Middle East without Israel, whatever, whatever.

And it's like, I don't know, I feel like all of these arguments are just so paper thin, especially once you talk to someone who's actually living through these, like this apparent utopian liberal society that people who don't live there claim it to be.

I think there's such a dissonance from that vision once you have like a single conversation with the Palestinian that's living under that system.

It's not,

it's not bridgeable.

That entire discourse is just layers upon layers of propaganda.

And it's like, if, if you just look at the reality in its eyes, it's, there's no, there's no way you can actually believe it.

As an Israeli 19-year-old, you have made the most ethical decision available to you.

I keep saying that you're 19 because I just cannot believe you're so young.

And I also hate not being the youngest person in a conversation anymore.

It is what it is.

I'm making peace.

But, you know, you've made the most ethical decision available to you.

And obviously you're going to prison for it.

For the rest of us, you know, who are privileged enough to not be in that position, what do you want people listening to do to continue to oppose genocide?

Well, I think the bottom line of my refusal is that no weapons, no aid, no resources,

no cooperation should be done with a state that's committing genocide.

And of course, you know, that's not to say that before October 7th, Israel was a moral state that was suddenly corrupted.

Obviously,

it's a state that's upholding a

party system and that's been committing ethnic cleansing for 77 years.

But really, the reality as it exists today makes the question of what needs to be done very simple.

And is that it like we need to employ every tool that we have to withhold as much help as we can from that country to continue advancing its goals and for me it's withholding myself as a resource for the continuation of the genocide and for people living abroad it's putting pressure on governments, institutions, businesses to cut all ties and aid with the state of Israel and to take matters into their own hands and block the flow of weapons into the state of Israel.

And it's not an easy task.

I don't want to act like it is, but it's very much what needs to be done.

And

it's what I'd encourage everyone to do, is to find a group that that's the line, that they want to accept as much pressure as possible and organize with them and do it, because that's what needs to be done.

Do you have any plans for when you get out of prison?

It's a good question.

I want to be a journalist.

I'm a writer already.

I write an article every couple of months.

But I want to do it more.

I don't know.

There's something about this period that I'm at that makes things more simple, because it's almost like I don't need to think about, like to deeply think about what I need to do, because it's very clear that what I need to do is to refuse my military service and then I'll be in jail.

In jail, there's also not much more I could do.

After that,

I want to continue doing what I can.

Hopefully, you know, I live in some illusion that maybe by the time I get out, I'm not pitching sad anymore.

And then I'll continue doing what needs to be done against the rest of the atrocities that my country commits.

But I don't know.

I want to continue doing what I can, maybe studying at some point.

Well, if you want to come back on the Abit Fruity podcast after you're out of prison, I'll be more than happy to welcome you back, Yona.

Yeah,

that's a life goal for sure.

Permanent co-host once you've uh once you're out of Israeli prison.

You can also do like uh you can check up on me in between imprisonments if you want.

Oh,

that would be awesome.

Yeah, no, yeah, wait, let's do that.

Let's if yeah, let me know in the comments.

I mean, I actually kind of think that I've already decided I want to do it.

That would be great to

yeah, we can also bring like my partner who's refusing in October.

Oh, wait,

what?

Your partner is also refusing?

Yeah, yeah.

So yeah, it's a bit funny to bring it up an hour into the recording, I suppose.

Yeah, I live with my partner.

Their conscription date is in October, and he's also going to declare his refusal.

And she's sitting right next to me, actually, and giving me faces.

So.

Hi, Partner.

Hi.

My name is Danielle.

Hello.

Hi, Danielle.

Well, maybe we're gonna maybe we're gonna to have to do this with you in

October.

I would love that.

I would absolutely love that.

Well, I can't say enough how, you know, I know you're not doing this for the admiration of anybody.

And I know you're doing it because it's the right thing to do.

But, you know, I feel really privileged to have not had to make a decision like the one that you're both making.

I've just learned.

And I know that it's going to mean a lot for people to hear all of this from you.

So thank you so much for talking to me today.

I know this is like 20% more earnest than like most of my episodes, but man, this shit is so serious.

It's hard to

pepper in the jokes as I usually do.

But I really, really appreciate both of you.

And I really appreciate getting to talk to you, Jana.

Hearts.

Thanks for meeting me.

It was really nice talking to you.

I'll see you in J after I go to jail, I suppose.

Where can people find you online before and after your imprisonment?

That is something that I've never said in the outros to these episodes.

It's like, where can people find you online after you get out of jail?

I post on Twitter.

I'll quit eventually because it's owned by Neo-Nazi, but for now I post on Twitter.

It's at your nationalist.

Yeah, and also you can follow Mr.

Vought on all socials and they post updates for me and for my friends who also go to jail.

And

once I do go to jail, you could send me letters, which I would really appreciate because I'll have a lot of time in isolation.

Do you want to

send me...

You'll text me how people can send you letters.

Yeah, yeah, but

it's not like physical letters.

There's going to be a Google Forms in Mr.

Watts Link Tree.

And you can write there.

And you can write to the other people who are also in jail.

I would really appreciate it.

Because I'll have a lot of free hours in isolation that I'll have to spend somehow.

Well, I think you're going to be getting a lot of letters from a bit fruity listeners.

I will link

all of those, the Twitter links, the MessR Vote links, in the episode description.

Thank you.

If you have listened this far, I love you so much.

This was a really important episode to me.

I know topic-wise, this podcast gets all over the place.

Sometimes we're talking about JoJo Siwa, sometimes we're talking about genocide, but you know, we all have ranges of interests, and this is my podcast, so these are mine.

I love you so much, and until next time, stay fruity.