Israel Matzav

Holy Abu Ghraib Batman!

This is cute.

An Israeli teenager who refused to serve in the IDF because it's an 'occupying' army has been jailed in his underwear because he refused to wear an IDF uniform. 19-year old Omri Evron has now been in jail in Tzrifin - just south of Tel Aviv where it is actually milder than in Jerusalem - for three days in his underwear because he refuses to wear a uniform. Guess where Omri is from? You guessed it - Tel Aviv.

Evron, 19, from Tel Aviv, was supposed to start his army service on Sunday. Members of the “New Profile” movement, which supports IDF refusniks, protested outside of the recruitment office in a show of solidarity. The night before, Evron himself was demonstrating with dozens of his friends opposite the home of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert under the slogan “We refuse to serve the occupation.”

As soon as he was inducted, Evron was sentenced to 14 days detention for his refusal to serve in the army. In a letter of refusal he sent on the eve of his recruitment, Evron wrote: “I, Omri Evron, refuse to join the army out of loyalty to the moral principles I believe in. My refusal is a protest of the continued military occupation of the Palestinian people, an occupation which fans the hatred and terror between our two peoples. I refuse to join the cruel war over control of the occupied territories to guard settlements and the 'Whole land of Israel' ideology.

His friends and family knew about his sentence but had no idea in which conditions he was being held. New Profile said: "As part of his refusal to serve in the army, he refuses to wear a uniform and obey orders. He was therefore placed in solitary confinement in an attempt to break him and threaten him. The army forbade him to continue wearing his pants under the pretext that they pose a threat and Omri was left in his underwear."

But here's the best part of all:

Evron was not allowed access to books, his mother said, with wardens insisting that he may only have a copy of the Torah.

Maybe if Omri gets his head out of the sand for long enough he'll put on a pair of pants and read the Torah and figure out why he's living in this country in the first place. Obviously, the Israeli schools didn't teach him that.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:03 AM