Refusenik: Israeli Young Communist imprisoned for refusing to serve in Netanyahu’s military

At center is Ella Keidar, holding a sign that reads: 'Neither a clerk nor a tank driver - a refusenik and a Communist.' She is flanked by Adel Amer, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Israel, at left, and Hadash MK Ofer Cassif at right. The photo was taken during a demonstration held near the induction center at Tel-Hashomer on Wednesday, March 19, 2025. Keidar faces imprisonment for refusing to serve in the Israeli Defense Forces. | Photo via Zo Haderekh

Israeli opponents of the war in Gaza turned out at the military enlistment center in Tel Hashomer last week to show their solidarity with 18-year-old Ella Keidar, an activist in the Communist Youth of Tel Aviv, who has been sentenced to 30 days in prison for refusing to enlist in Benjamin Netanyahu’s army.

“We will not take part in the genocide in Gaza or the oppression of the Palestinian people,” Keidar declared to the crowd. She was accompanied by Member of the Knesset Ofer Cassif and Communist Party of Israel General Secretary Adel Amer.

Cassif, who is a member of the Democratic Front for Peace and Equality (Hadash) in the parliament, called Keidar a “hero.” He said, “Ella refused to enlist in the Israeli army because she refuses to participate in the genocide…. She is an inspiration to us all.”

Before beginning her sentence in military prison, Keidar published a declaration detailing her own personal and political development and stating her motivations for becoming an objector to Israel’s system of mandatory conscription.

“I was raised to be a man and a soldier. At the age of 14, I came out as a trans woman and rejected society’s dictation of gender,” Keidar wrote. “Now, at the age of 18, I am refusing to enlist and reject society’s militaristic dictation.”

Before becoming a draft resister, even though she is just a teenager Keidar was already a veteran of several struggles. Politicized after finding a copy of The Communist Manifesto in her grandmother’s library, she said the protest movement against Netanyahu’s judicial coup “opened a path for me to convert the frustration I felt into hope and political action.”

Keidar quickly became an organizer in struggles for Palestinian freedom, trans rights, and against the draft. Resisting the Israeli state’s occupation of Palestine has been the center of her most recent activism.

“I have protested with Palestinian activists against land theft as soldiers shot stun grenades and rubber bullets at us, I helped block roads, I was injured by cops and from violent evictions by Magav [border police], I organized a mass refusal campaign under Youth Against Dictatorship, I did protective presence and joined co-resistance in the West Bank, and now I am refusing [to enlist],” she declared.

Keidar indicted her country’s ruling political elite for “committing a genocide in Gaza” and said that although the “war of annihilation” has been waged in the name of bringing Israeli hostages back home, it has “in practice abandoned them.”

In September 2023, Keidar, then 16, was one of hundreds of Israeli high school students who publicly stated they would refuse to serve in the military when they were of draft age. The slogan of that movement was “We say NO to dictatorship in Israel and in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.”

She is the third member of the Communist Youth of Israel to be jailed for resisting the draft in recent months. On Feb. 28, two others—Iddo Elam and Soul Bachar Tsalik—were released after spending months in military prison.

The three are part of a growing refusal movement among reserve officers and soldiers. The number of conscripts who say they won’t serve has grown in the wake of Netanyahu’s breaking of the ceasefire agreement and his resumption of the killing in Gaza.

Last week, Alon Gur, a 43-year-old combat navigator in the Israeli Air Force, published a public letter announcing he could no longer follow the orders coming down from the top. The 16-year veteran, husband, and father of two, said that as a soldier he has often served under governments he didn’t agree with, but that the current far-right regime has gone too far.

“A few hours ago,” he wrote, “I met with my squadron commander and informed him that this is it. The line has been crossed.” Gur said the state was abandoning its people and that “cynical and cold political considerations outweigh any other consideration…. human life has lost its value.”

Speaking at last Wednesday’s demonstration in Tel Hashomer, MK Ofer Cassif said that the war crimes being committed by the Israeli military “require refusal” and called on the peace movement to support the brave young people—and the not-so-young—who have become conscientious objectors.

“Refuse! Resist! Rebel without violence against the government of blood, race, and horrors!” he shouted. Turning again to Keidar, he called her “a true hero fighting for freedom, justice, and equality for everyone between the river and the sea—no matter what the cost.”

Standing beside him, Keidar held up a sign declaring herself “neither a clerk nor a tank driver,” but rather, “a refusenik and a communist.”

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CONTRIBUTOR

C.J. Atkins

C.J. Atkins is the managing editor at People's World. He holds a Ph.D. in political science from York University in Toronto and has a research and teaching background in political economy and the politics and ideas of the American left.