[Opinion. Wars will only end when men refuse to fight. What incredible to me is that there are so few draft refusers. That means 80 years of brainwashing worked.] ‘Nobody's Born a Soldier': The Israeli Teens Who Say the Draft Is a Choice Linda Dayan Ha’aretz: June 19 2026 IDT SOURCE: https://archive.is/Q2V2H Almost all Israelis are, by law, drafted into Israel's military, with few exceptions of varying contentiousness (Arab citizens, Haredi yeshiva students). From a young age, it's presented to citizens as a phase of life as mandatory as finishing high school. Those who want to circumvent service have to swim against a societal tide to do so. They can seek medical exemptions – the most common path out of service – or try their luck at receiving conscientious objector status. But some, particularly those who want to make a public political statement, opt for a stint in military prison rather than getting into uniform. Refusing to serve comes at a price, but I can't support Israel's regime anymore | Guy Perl Why do you refuse to serve in Israel's army? 'The government isn't bothered by war crimes' | Nir Gontarz I was a West Bank settler. This is why I refused to serve in the IDF | Aharon Dardik Even though nearly every aspect of their education, their upbringing and the expectations of society has pointed them toward eventual enlistment, these teens have decided that, for them, it won't be an inevitability – it is a choice like any other. They will not be joining the Israel Defense Forces. Nobody's born a soldier Noor offers me a handful of 'zines and fliers from Mesarvot, the network that supports teen draft refusers, and Banki, the Youth Communist League of Israel. And, of course, they cover the table in pamphlets of gray and purple, produced by a group of high schoolers, including my interviewees. It is a letter to their peers. Lifsches Segal says that Israelis tend to grow up without questioning the inevitability of their army service. "From my experience talking to friends, a lot of people don't even think about it. They don't understand what they're doing, they just treat it as another phase in life – you just go to the army when you graduate high school. From an Israeli perspective, it's completely normal, but if you look at this for a second from the outside, it shouldn't be this way," he says. "Even for people who really want to go to the army, [the letter] gives them a second to think about it. It opens their minds." Noor points out that these questions are part of adolescence. "We're all told what to do from a very young age. As we get older, we search for our identities and try to understand who we are, and we start to stray from the norm in small ways." As they begin to test the boundaries of society as teens, they've come to realize that the decision to be drafted is "just another option – another choice you can make."
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