JERUSALEM -- The Israeli military on Sunday threatened disciplinary action against a group of veterans and active reservists of a secretive military intelligence unit who declared that they would no longer participate in surveillance activities against the Palestinians.
But dozens of other veterans and reservists came out in defense of their unit, angered by their colleagues' public act of refusal.
The protest and counterprotest exposed some of the complexities of life in Israel, where most 18-year-olds are conscripted for up to three years of compulsory service, and the episode set off an impassioned debate that had far more to do with army service and the refusal to serve than with the concerns raised by the would-be whistleblowers about the treatment of Palestinians under occupation.
Officials and politicians from the right and the left harshly criticized the 43 veterans of the elite Unit 8200 who lodged their protest in a letter sent Thursday night to their commanders as well as to Israel's prime minister and army chief. The letter was made public Friday.
In it, they wrote that they refused to continue to be "tools" of Israel's military rule in the occupied territories, that the surveillance work they had been required to perform made "no distinction between Palestinians who are and are not involved in violence" and that information collected "harms innocent people" and "is used for political persecution."
Brig. Gen. Moti Almoz, the chief military spokesman, said in a statement that the Israeli army constituted "one common camp -- perhaps the widest in all of Israeli society -- and we think sevenfold before we express political positions in forums not meant for such expression."
Accusing the protesters of exploiting their army service for political ends, Almoz said the army's top brass viewed the act with the "utmost severity" and that disciplinary measures would be "sharp and clear," without elaborating about whether they would face criminal prosecution. He added that only 10 of the 43 who signed the protest letter were actively involved in intelligence gathering.
While this was not the first collective, public protest by army reservists, it was the first by intelligence officers and the largest among soldiers in years.
Yediot Aharonot, the newspaper that revealed the protest letter Friday, in tandem with The Guardian, also printed excerpts Sunday of a letter that it said was signed by at least 200 members of the unit distancing themselves from the 43 protesters and which said that the protesters "chose the path of political insubordination." Those 200 members rejected their colleagues' assertions about the absence of ethical and moral standards guiding the unit's intelligence gathering.
The names of those who signed the letters were not published because the military prohibits Unit 8200 members from being publicly identified.
Amos Yadlin, a former military intelligence chief, said he believed that the claims in the protest letter were false, but even if they were true, he said, "military intelligence has the means to discuss every moral dilemma."
"Many hundreds of soldiers and civilians are walking around today and don't know they were saved by the soldiers of 8200 who warned of a terror attack," Yadlin told Israel Radio.
Isaac Herzog, the chairman of the center-left Labor Party and a former major in Unit 8200, said he opposed the concept of refusing orders and excoriated the 43 protesters for their "harmful global declaration," alluding to the uphill battle that Israel is already facing regarding world opinion, especially after this summer's 50-day war in Gaza.
Shelly Yacimovich, the former leader of the Labor Party, writing on her Facebook page, asked why the 43 did not protest in real time and refuse orders they felt were immoral. Alluding to the lucrative employment opportunities in Israel's high-tech industry that await many graduates of Unit 8200, Yacimovich said they should "be grateful" to the military.
Responding to the criticism, the group of 43 protesters issued a statement saying the letter from the other soldiers affiliated with the unit "does not contradict any of the concrete issues raised by our refusal letter and the testimonials that were published in Yediot Aharonot."
"Some of us have tried to raise our concerns in front of our commanders, as mentioned in the testimonies, but these concerns were ignored," the statement added.
A Section on 09/15/2014