Givol Amir, Różne
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//-->The New Profile Report onChild Recruitment in Israel29 July 2004TheNew ProfileReport on Child Recruitment in IsraelWritten by:Amir GivolNeta RotemSergeiy SandlerCover design: Ruti KantorCover image:“Towards Tomorrow”, in: Etinger, A. (1993),AQuarter Hour to Enlistment, The 6thQuarter.Photography editor: M. Milner. Avivim, Ramat Gan.The report is published in English, Hebrew and Arabic. Also available online at New Profile’swebsite:© 2004 New ProfileAny non-commercial use of this report or of parts thereof iswelcomed,provided the content of thereport is represented fairly and correctly, and that proper mention of New Profile is not omitted.New profile wishes to acknowledge the support of the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers,which enabled the research to be carried out, with funds provided by the Government of Finland.Naturally, the content and views found in this report do not necessarily represent the Coalition to Stopthe Use of Child Soldiers or its individual members of the Coalition’s Steering Committee, nor thoseof the Middle East – North Africa Network to End the Use of Child Soldiers, nor those of theGovernment of Finland, and are the sole responsibility of New Profile and the authors of the report.The authors would like to thank the devoted activists of New Profile for all the great assistance wereceived in writing this report, in providing materials, information and practical assistance. The reporthas greatly gained from the direct contribution of Hanna Aviram, Lotahn Raz, Shoham Yogev,Haggith Gor, Rela Mazali, Ronnie Barkan, Michal Sagi-Pundak, Ruti Kantor, Annelien Kisch, TalilaKosh, Raanan Forschner, Danya Vaknin, Ruti Hiller and David Raban (we have surely forgotten tomention some), and from the indirect contribution of all the other activists as well.We would also like to thank other individuals and organisations for providing us with information andtimely assistance: The Coalition of Women for a Just Peace (Yana and Adi), the WRI network,B’tselem, Hamoked, Al-Haq, the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group, and of course JihadShomali and his associates from DCI – Palestine.In the final stages of work on this report we received the news of the death of Jesha’ayahu Toma Ŝik,who, among many other things, was one of the pioneers of the antimilitarist movement in Israel. In hisusual critical fashion, he would no doubt have been glad to see this report see light. Continuing hiswork is the best way in which we can honour his memory.Table of ContentsIntroduction – Legal, Historical and Cultural Background ................................... 5Part I: Israeli Children as Soldiers-to-Be .............................................................. 161. “The Little Soldiers in Kindergarten” – Militarised Education and Symbolic Recruitment ofChildren in Israel...................................................................................................................... 162. Soldiers in Israeli Schools ......................................................................................................... 213. Preparation for Military Service Programmes........................................................................... 234. The Legal Status of ‘Intended for Security Service’.................................................................... 27Part II: Children in Military Functions................................................................. 295.6.7.8.Military High Schools ............................................................................................................... 29Military Training for Children................................................................................................... 32Military Use of Child Labour .................................................................................................... 36Children in the Civil Guard....................................................................................................... 38Part III: Involvement in Hostilities........................................................................ 429. Children Guarding Jewish Settlements in the West Bank............................................................ 4210. Child Soldiers in Jewish Militias – The Case ofKahane Chai.................................................... 4311. The Use of Palestinian Children for Military Purposes.............................................................. 47Summary of Main Findings and Recommendations............................................. 50Endnotes.................................................................................................................. 55Introduction – Legal, Historical and Cultural BackgroundThe present report examines the many and varied forms in which children are being recruited by theIsraeli armed forces and by Jewish militias. A parallel report has been prepared by a Palestinianhuman rights group – Defence for Children International in Palestine – examining the recruitment ofPalestinian children. Together, we hope that these two reports will prove to be a first step in aconcentrated effort, aiming to take children out of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Such an effort, wehope, can be joined by almost everybody on both sides, regardless of their position on the politicaland other issues involved.The Israeli human rights groupB’tselemreports that 903 Palestinian children and 109 Jewish-Israelichildren have been killed in hostilities between 29 September 2000 and 30 June 2004.1Sadly, some ofthe combatants on both sides of the conflict consider children on the other side to be ‘fair game’.2It isnot the purpose of this report to examine the overall effects the conflict in general, and the presentround of hostilities in particular, have on children in the region. Rather, we focus here on the ways inwhich children are made into participants of the conflict, on the various direct and indirect ways inwhich they are recruited.As Archbishop Desmond M. Tutu put it,3“Children should be playing, not being pawns in dangerousadult games”. Child recruitment cynically violates the rights of children, and stopping it is a worthycause in its own right. But we also hope that by drawing children out of the circle of present, andhopefully also future, participants in the conflict it will be possible to remove them from the circle ofvictims as well, and this, one could hope, would be a first step in the direction of resolving the conflictitself. We would like this report, together with its counterpart, to provide information and analysis tobe used for these noble goals.We should stress, though, that while we made an effort to present in this report a broad survey of thevarious forms of child recruitment for Israeli armed forces and groups, one that would allow for amore comprehensive analysis of the overall situation, we could not possibly coverallforms of childrecruitment in Israel, and there is obviously ample room for further research and study in the field.Overview of the ReportLet us now review the structure of this report and present the main issues dealt with in it. The presentintroductory chapter provides background information, necessary to understand the rest of the report.This Overview is followed by a section defining and explaining the main term used in this report –child recruitment.The next section of the Introduction takes a look at the various armed forces andgroups examined in the report. Then come two sections providing legal background on the issue ofchild recruitment. First, we briefly review some relevant international standards, and then we examineboth the legal basis for the Israeli system of formal recruitment and some aspects of itsimplementation in practice. Next comes a brief history of child recruitment practices in Israel. Thissection provides valuable historical background to the rest of the report. Last but not least, theintroductory chapter ends with presenting the most important element of cultural backgroundnecessary for a proper understanding of the phenomena recorded and discussed in what follows,namely, militarism in Israeli society and culture.The main body of the report examines in detail the different forms in which children are recruited. Itis divided into three parts, moving from the less direct to the more direct forms of children’sparticipation in the conflict. Part one, “Israeli Children as Soldiers-to-Be”, discusses the ways inwhich the military figures in the life and education of most Israeli children. Studying this issue allowsus to gain a deeper understanding of the processes that engender the more direct forms of childrecruitment, and indeed, that help perpetuate the conflict itself. Moreover, if we use a broaderdefinition for the term ‘recruitment’, we might say that this part of the report deals with some of theindirect forms of child recruitment in Israel.Chapter 1 deals with the overall subject of militarised education in Israel and introduces the notion ofsymbolic recruitment.The practices described in this chapter are present in the life of Israeli childrenfrom early on. The chapter focuses in particular on some examples of militarisation and symbolicrecruitment in Israeli kindergartens. Chapter 2 examines the widespread practice of employing5
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