Today is Yom Ha’atzmaut (independence day for Israel). We visited the military cemetery to honor those who died in combat and allow us to be in Israel today. For me, along with reading Ron Paul’s manifesto, it made me hate the military draft even more. Stories of fallen soldiers have always brought a tear to my eye, perhaps from sorrow, or perhaps because of how much I respect them. However, today I saw something I have never seen: At a very recently dug grave of a soldier named “yosi” who was killed in the Lebanon war at the age of 22 (just a year older than myself) two parents were praying and mourning. The father, struggling successfully to refrain from crying, and a mother running her hands on her son’s gravestone drowning in a pool of her own tears. I do not know if this soldier was drafted or not. I do know that the war probably could have been avoided and his life saved.
The fact that Israel holds a military draft is quite a moral dilemma for me. Jews are finally supposed to be in a free homeland, yet they are virtually owned by the state, used as slaves for her master’s warmongering. When a country holds a draft it is basically telling her citizens that she owns their lives, free to dispose of them how she wishes. How free are Jews, who are subject to a draft, living in Israel? If Israel is really worth dying for, as many Israeli’s believe, then why is a draft necessary? Wouldn’t enough young citizens volunteer to fight for something they so strongly believe in? Honestly, these are questions I asked myself for the first time today, as I have always taken for granted that Israel needs a military draft. Seeing parents mourn the loss of their child as a result of a war that had no definitive result definitely affected my thoughts. Israel may or may not be a reason to go to a war, but one thing is for sure; it is the decision of the individual to make whether he or she wants to risk their life, not a decision for the government to force upon them.
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