Please write to Israeli Refusnik

[Annie]

I received this request this morning.

Annie

From: "payday" <payday@paydaynet.org> Add to Address Book
To: Undisclosed-Recipient@,
Subject: please write to Israeli refusenik
Date: Wed, 9 Aug 2006 09:13:26 +0100

We urge you to write your own letter in support of the first Israeli soldier jailed for refusing to fight in Lebanon. Sorry for any duplication.

Giorgio Riva
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Amir Pasteur (Military ID 5103057)
Prison 6
Military Post 01860
IDF
Israel

London, 8 August 2006

Dear Amir,

We first heard of your refusal & jail sentence through Yesh G’vul and we would like to send you our warmest congratulations and support for your principled action and your determination. It takes a lot of courage to refuse to follow orders of mass murderers when you are in the belly of the beast.

Camilo Mejia, a refusenik from the US army who was sentenced to a year in a military prison for refusing to go back to Iraq, said: “I’d rather go to prison for desertion than kill a child by mistake. Prison ends, but you never get over killing a kid.” Like Camilo, you are an inspiration for and integral part of the growing number of women and men around the world who refuse to kill, maim and rape for the “axis of evil” – US, UK and Israel.

I am a member of Payday, an international network of men working with the Global Women’s Strike. We strive to build a world which – as our sisters say -- invests in caring not killing. Our main activity in the last few years has been documenting, working with and bringing together the campaigns of refuseniks and their families who support them (usually women) in Israel, Turkey, the US, the UK, and several other countries in the South as well as in the North. If you can, please visit our website www.refusingtokill.net.

We are in touch with Lt Watada, the first US officer to refuse to serve Iraq, and other refuseniks around the world – we’ll let them know about your sentence, and ask them to write to you. I am sure that you know that you are not alone. The crowd is growing . . .

We also enclose some material we have been circulating during our latest organising against the genocidal war in Gaza and Lebanon. As you see, we have been circulating Yitzhak Laor’s petition, soon to be published in Ha’aretz, and saying loudly that those of us who are Jewish must lead the opposition to Israeli imperialism & highlight our great tradition against all forms of racism.

We would dearly like to stay in touch with you. Our side is going to suffer much, but we are going to refuse, to organise and to win.

Refusing to kill is not a crime!

Giorgio Riva
Payday
PO Box 287
London
NW6 5QU
United Kingdom

Tel 00 44 780 378 9699

Email: payday@paydaynet.org