One fought, the other didn't. Both went to prison

WHEN Sofia Orr was a 14-year-old Israeli schoolgirl, she decided that she wanted to become a conscientious objector.

When Ahmed Helou was 15 years old, he joined Hamas to fight for the freedom of the Palestinian people.

Five years later, both ended up in an Israeli prison.

When Orr turned 18 this year and began her military service in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), she refused. “I refuse to participate in the occupation and apartheid regimes that Israel has imposed on Palestinians for decades, and now because of the war and massacres in Gaza,” she said.

But she came to the conclusion: “Simply saying 'no' wasn't enough. I had to make it public.”

Orr, now 19, was released in June after spending 85 days in prison for “political and conscientious objection.” Last week, she spoke at a press conference with former Israeli soldiers, Palestinian fighters and U.S. military personnel who refused to take part in the genocide in Gaza.

Helou, whose family fled to Jericho during the 1948 Nakba, is now 52 and lives in the West Bank. When he joined Hamas as a teenager, “he threw stones and made Palestinian flags,” he recalls. This landed him in an Israeli prison for seven months. When he was released, he too was determined to find another path that did not involve violence.

Helou has held on to that promise despite losing 80 family members during the current Israeli assault on Gaza, “mostly children, women, boys,” he said. His only remaining sister still lives somewhere in Gaza, along with her five children. “Every day we wake up with fear of what news will come,” he said.

During her time in prison, Orr was confronted with the full extent of dehumanization, not only among prisoners but also within the Israeli Defense Forces. “I learned how the military dehumanizes everyone it comes into contact with, even the soldiers who serve there,” she said. What she also learned was “the power of saying 'no.'”

Elik Elhanan, a soldier in the Israeli Defense Forces' special forces from 1995 to 1998 and co-founder of the Israeli-Palestinian group Combatants for Peace in 2005, reiterated this view in an online conversation with reporters while a Palestinian keffiyeh hung on the wall behind him.

It's about “the courage to refuse,” said Elhanan, who lost his sister to a Hamas suicide bomber over 20 years ago. The group is currently focusing on direct action, particularly against “the criminal and murderous land theft in the West Bank,” said Elhanan.

Helou believes that Palestinians and Israelis can work together to create a peaceful future with shared values. “We love this country, we both love this country,” he said, struggling with his emotions. “But in this war we have lost a lot. We are both victims. Both of us.” Elhanan agrees. “Our pain is united,” he said.

Larry Hebert, a senior U.S. Air Force airman, soon realized that “there was no way I could support what was happening in Gaza.” He was inspired to apply for conscientious objector status after Aaron Bushnell, a 25-year-old U.S. pilot despairing over U.S. complicity in the genocide in Gaza, set himself on fire outside the Israeli Embassy in Washington, DC, last February.

But Hebert was shocked by the lack of response to Bushnell's actions. In the military, Hebert said, no one mentioned Bushnell's name or “had the moral courage to speak out” about the atrocities in Gaza.

When Hebert pointed out to colleagues, superiors and even members of Congress that the United States was violating international humanitarian rights and American law by supporting the Israeli genocide, he received a horrific response. “Who's going to stop us?” he was told. He realized, he said, that “the world's strongest military” was “a place of immorality.”

The speakers had come together to launch a new “Appeal for Redress,” which gives members of the U.S. military the right to contact their congressional representatives if they have concerns about the U.S. government's actions, in this case specifically its military support of Israel's attack on Gaza. They don't have to leave the service to do so, but it's also a choice.

But there are risks too. While it is a legal and constitutional right, those who express their opinions may face retaliation and even prosecution if certain boundaries are crossed.

In Israel, you just go to jail, like Orr did. But as she concluded from her experience, “The support that the US keeps offering Israel will never lead to anything good and will only harm the future of all the people who live between the river and the sea.”

Linda Pentz Gunter is a writer from Takoma Park, Maryland.