Tal Mitnick, an 18-year-old conscript to the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), refused to serve and was sentenced to a 30-day prison term. Mitnick is one of hundreds of Israeli teenagers who have refused military enlistment this year to protest the Palestinian occupation. His refusal became a lightning rod in Israeli politics because of his sentence and the sharply worded political statement he published on social media, tearing down the arguments of the defenders of genocide.
Fortress Israel always requires an endless stream of fresh recruits, guaranteed through Israel’s conscription laws, which mandate military service for both men and women, including reserve duty until age 40 or beyond.
Israel is a garrison state. Its navy strictly controls the shared coastline with the Gaza Strip; pilots crisscross the skies to carpet bomb the Palestinians or evade air defenses en route to Iran; drone pilots operate the densest reconnaissance network in the world; intelligence agents capture and process millions of signals a day; spies conduct assassinations abroad; and engineers maintain a massive nuclear arsenal, the Iron Dome missile shield, and sophisticated cyber operations. The West Bank is crowded with young foot soldiers guarding illegal settlements, patrolling endless checkpoints, and meting out military justice against an occupied population.
Military service functions as a pipeline to private industry, and placement in competitive military units is a prerequisite to specialized careers. The question, “In what unit did you serve?” is the Israeli equivalent of “How’s the weather?” and a non-answer may invite condemnation.
Mitnick’s decision to refuse would therefore be a courageous act of defiance at any time. Amid the xenophobic anti-Palestinian hysteria whipped up to justify genocide in Gaza, it assumes even greater significance. Despite widespread enlistment exemptions granted for religious, health, and increasingly mental health reasons, the Zionist state views Mitnick’s refusal under conscientious objector status as treasonous and, consequently, is making an example of him.