Israeli Reservists Protest the Lot of Those Bound by a Sense of Duty

Col. Ariel Heimann has always regarded the annual reserve duty he has served in Israel’s army as an honor. In 25 years as a reservist, he has fought in two wars and against two Palestinian revolts, never receiving more than minimum wage as compensation.

But today, Heimann and many other reserve soldiers and officers are warning that the nation’s cherished “citizens army” is in danger of collapsing unless the government takes drastic steps to improve conditions for those who serve and to punish the large numbers of those who don’t.

They have mounted an unprecedented protest campaign to win better compensation and more respect for reservists.

“Things in this society have changed slowly, slowly,” Heimann said. “If you come and sit with me and my friends on a Friday night, you will still find that everybody goes to miluim [reserves]. But that is not so in many other sectors of society.

“People are beginning to ask, ‘Why should I serve the country when so many others don’t?’ People are getting more and more frustrated.”

For much of Israel’s embattled history, serving in the reserves for several weeks each year until well into middle age was as inevitable a ritual for able-bodied men as death and taxes. In a state that has fought half a dozen wars in 53 years, decades of service in the reserves after a mandatory three-year stint in the regular army was not just a legal requirement, it was seen by society as a key element of citizenship.

But no more. As Israel has matured, its increasingly high-tech, Westernized people have begun to see army service as a burden. Today, thousands avoid service altogether--claiming exemptions as ultra-Orthodox Jews, or for being mentally or physically unfit. Thousands more are regularly avoiding service in the reserves, the backbone of the nation’s army.

“The [Israel Defense Forces] is not the people’s army, because we, the citizens of Israel, are no longer willing to pay for such an army and because in a modern army, the concept of the people’s army only encumbers it,” columnist Ofer Shelah wrote in the mass-circulation daily Yediot Aharonot.

Angered by the army’s recent decision to increase the number of required reserve days this year from 30 to 40 and by parliament’s recent passage of a law that specifically exempts ultra-Orthodox Israelis from serving, reservists are fighting back.

Their warnings have set off alarm bells in the army, the government and the Knesset, or parliament, as the country battles a Palestinian revolt in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and confronts Islamic militants on its border with Lebanon.

The army insists that response to its call-ups continues to be between 95% and 100%.

But Amos Harel, the military affairs reporter for the Haaretz newspaper, says that the army’s statistics on call-up response are misleading because they don’t include the many soldiers whom the army no longer bothers to contact because they are such chronic no-shows.

The real crisis in the reserve army will come, Harel wrote recently, when combat soldiers who have already fought in the West Bank and Gaza since September are called up “for a second or third time in less than two years, and it’s still dangerous.” At that time, Harel wrote, commanders can expect to see the rate of response to call-ups drop drastically.

Reservists Group Pitches ‘Sucker’s Tent’

Reservists attracted national attention last week when the Awakening movement founded by a group of them pitched a “Freier’s Tent” at a Tel Aviv railway station. One of the worst stigmas in Israeli society is to be labeled a freier, or sucker--someone who allows others to take advantage of him.

The reservists caused a media sensation by saying that the sense of national duty that compels them to serve is making them freiers in the eyes of fellow Israelis.

According to army statistics, only half the eligible men in Israel serve in the armed forces, and only one of three men considered suitable for reserve duty until age 50 actually does so. Of every 10 eligible soldiers, only one serves in units considered dangerous.

Five of the 31 Israeli soldiers killed since the Palestinian revolt erupted last fall were reservists. The two Israeli soldiers lynched by a mob in the West Bank city of Ramallah in October were reservists who had made a wrong turn. Reservists have complained that the army has failed to provide many of them with the best protective gear when they are on duty in the Palestinian territories, and some worried parents have bought their sons reinforced flak jackets.

The protesters say that many reservists have lost their jobs because they have spent so much time in the army in the past six months, while others are finding that their university professors are unwilling to reschedule exams they missed while serving. Still other reservists say that employers won’t hire those who are in reserve combat units and expect to be called up often.

“The attitude is that nobody goes anymore,” said Boaz Nol, one of the founders of Awakening. “There is a feeling among those who serve that this country is being held on the shoulders of 10% who serve.”

Reservists are asking that they be paid more than the $24 a day they now earn on reserve duty and that they be paid for every day they serve. Currently, reservists are paid only after they serve two or three days. They are asking for income and municipal tax breaks and to have the same pension and insurance benefits for time served that regular soldiers have.

Most of all, they are asking for respect, said Heimann, a geologist who, as an officer and commander of a tank brigade, has served as many as 140 days a year in the reserves.

“I told the army that during Passover, it would have helped if they had just sent the families of reservists who were on active duty the night of the Seder a bottle of wine,” he said.

The “Freier’s Tent” struck a deep chord with many Israelis.

“Everyone who visited us said that we were not being militant enough,” said Avner Inbar, 23, recently released from his compulsory service in an engineering unit. “People wanted to burn their reserve cards.”

Nol said that he founded Awakening after leaving the army last year and traveling abroad with friends.

“I realized that many of my friends, many of the people like me who were fighters and served in combat units, were planning not to return,” Nol said. “They were just fed up. This society has become more and more materialistic and more and more the sort of place where everybody lives in his own bubble, caring only for his family, his job and what he will wear when he goes out on the town Saturday night.”

Four years ago, a group of older officers that includes Heimann began to quietly lobby lawmakers to improve conditions for reservists. They disapprove of the high-profile tent protest that Nol and other young soldiers mounted.

Protest Spurs Government to Act

At a time when Israel faces multiple security threats, Heimann said, reservists should not be threatening the government. The protesters have emphasized that they intend to continue to serve and that they believe the vast majority of Israelis will always serve in the event of war. But Heimann and other officers acknowledge that the protest spurred the government to act.

Politicians streamed to the tent to pledge their support. The Knesset called a special session in the midst of its winter break Monday to debate the reservists’ demands. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said that next month, his government will introduce a package of reforms to improve the lot of reservists and will push hard for parliament to quickly enact the legislation.

But Finance Minister Silvan Shalom warned that there is little money in the budget--already stretched thin by security needs--to fund the reservists’ demands.

“To solve this problem will be a long process,” said Itay Landsberg, another reserve officer turned activist. “It will take legislation and a change of consciousness in the public. The public must understand that even though many reservists have a high motivation and a feeling of national responsibility, that doesn’t mean that Israeli society should exploit them.”