Objector

- I find it ironic that my name is Atalya.

Atalya was a queen who ruled the Jewish people

at the biblical times.

They wrote her as evil.

She was the only queen who appeared in the Bible,

who was the ruler by her own right

and not the wife of a king.

In the end, she was beheaded and thrown to the dogs.

I don't think I'm like Queen Atalya.

But when people write my story,

they might show me as a traitor,

the same way they showed her.

Since you're little, you want to grow up and be a soldier.

That's what they teach you.

I was sure I would be like a fighter,

that I'd be in a fighting unit.

My idea was always that, if I'm in the army

at least I'll be on the frontline.

- My mother was an officer in the army and my sister and I,

of course, were in the army.

And then all the women in the family.

So it's like the whole family

is really very much connected through the army

and they all see the benefits of it

and they're all professionals.

We have this mission to build a state and to keep it safe.

And you're asked about it everywhere you go.

What did you do?

Ah.

Maybe not the one I'm sitting on!

Okay.

At the age of 18,

it is compulsory to join the army.

But throughout Israeli history,

there has also been a handful of people

who refused to serve for ideological reasons.

And some end up wiling away their

would be army days in prison.

19-year-old, Tair Kaminer, has now broken the record

for the longest imprisonment of a woman, refusing the draft.

- Tair has been branded a parasite,

as was Sahar Vardi

who has served a number of prison terms

for refusing to serve.

It was obvious to me after seeing

what the realities occupation

actually look like, I wouldn't want to be part

of the forces that are implementing it.

Tea, tea.

So what are your hopes for your kids military service?

- He will go to a computer unit and this is going

to be good to him.

I think it's just your fantasies.

I want them to do what they want to do.

When I wanted to not do the military

and I was kind of wondering how do I get an exemption?

You know, you were really there

for me around the dinner table.

You stood up for me and you're like if Amitai

doesn't want to do it, he shouldn't do it.

It is as simple as that.

I think that it is not so simple.

Now, also being a mother and having children,

and though it came from kindergarten,

he asked me, where is the safe room in our house?

And I told him, okay it's your room,

just lying to him because I didn't want to tell him

that we don't have a safe room.

Because it's not nice to feel that you're at home

and you don't have a safe place to go

when the alarm goes on.

I think Palestinians in Gaza want to kill me,

and I don't need the army to defend me.

I mean, jumping ship is one option.

And you can also do good if you draft.

I know they're out of teachers.

But I know they're out in the West Bank.

It's very, very important to go there

to see things for myself.

I believe that in order to achieve peace,

we need to have communication.

- So why did you start the group Visit Palestine?

For three reasons.

First thing was to show the Israelis that,

come on, we are human beings.

We have shops, we have schools for our kids

and we want to live.

The most important one for me was

to show the Israelis my life under occupation.

It's policy to kick people out of their land.

It's policy to take all these lands, to give it to settlers.

And this way, you will never protect Israel.

This way you are creating more and more fighters.

- You know, most of the soldiers in the Israeli army

don't do that.

I think it's like 10% of the soldiers

that this is their word and those 10%, I think,

I don't know.

I don't know.

People don't know the difference

between the good occupier and the bad occupier.

For me, the Israeli army,

the Israeli government are destroying my home.

Then they complain Palestinians teach their children hate.

No one knows that your soldiers

are teaching our children hate.

- I really don't want to be that soldier, that soldier.

I want to be something else.

I want to be a different voice.

Yeah.

Israeli activists in the West Bank are showing our kids.

There is Jewish people are human beings,

not only full armed soldiers who wanted to attack us.

Judaism is not evil.

The occupation is evil, but not Judaism.

And that's very important.

All these houses around you have demolition orders,

and every few months Isreali to enter

and destroy the houses.

They destroyed in this area 12 houses last month.

- All you know is about the wars we've had.

So you imagine the Arabs, this big enemy,

and you don't see that that's not the reality right now.

Our big enemy, they don't even have an army.

It's not two armies fighting each other.

So there's like this big distance between what you hear

and what you see, when you go to the Jordan Valley.

How did you decide to get out of the army?

- I was looking, I was looking for the fastest way out

because I was afraid for my own mental health.

And I went to a public psychiatrist.

And when I told him I have anxiety about getting drafted,

he wrote me a letter of diagnoses

that I sent to the military and I got an exemption.

- I was really afraid of how you drifted apart from family.

So in a way, I wanted you to enlist

just so you'll be a part of the family again.

There is social shame.

So I think our family in a way experienced that.

It's like as if there's either there's something wrong

with me or I'm a liar, you know.

Yeah.

- Getting an exemption enabled me to befriend Palestinians

and avoid all of the trauma that I see.

My friends who did go to the military go through

as they're getting disillusioned.

Like you don't regret it?

I don't regret it at all.

It's the best decision I've made in my life.

Yeah?

Yeah.

I don't know if that's helpful, but...

- See what Amitai did, besides being cowardly,

was abuse of my profession.

Yeah.

You know, there's so many people

who avoid military conscription.

If you have an ideology, you have to be willing

to pay the price.

If you could go back to being 18,

would you still go to the Army?

I heard there's still bad guys

and I think we need an army.

And that's why I would go to the army.

I would probably go to be a combat soldier again.

You were a soldier for so long.

- Yes, because there's a vicious circle of violence

between us and the Palestinians.

If the Palestinians stay in a nonviolent course,

I'm sure they'll get an advantage.

Why shouldn't we use nonviolence?

I can't decide for them what they use,

but I can decide for myself.

- Nonviolence is the weapon of the weak, yeah,

because the weak don't have the power.