July 28 – Every day more people in the world, including those living in the imperialist states that have armed and funded Israel, are turning against the Israeli settler state. The youth who have been protesting genocide now consider Israel a pariah state just as people once considered apartheid South Africa a pariah state. 

Big questions remain regarding Israel itself. Has this change in the attitude toward Israel since October 7, 2023, changed political consciousness among Jewish Israelis? Can opposition to the regime grow and contribute to ending the assault on Gaza? Is it possible for active opposition to spread to the soldiers of the Israel Occupation Forces (IOF)?

Up to now a large majority of Israelis — even those who criticize the existing ultraright regime — apparently still express support for the war aims of the IOF. At least a significant minority of the troops participate directly in war crimes (purposely targeting Palestinian children, for example) and even celebrate them.

On the other hand, some recent news items indicate cracks in the Israeli military machine — from the inside. 

In the spring of 2025 as many as 100,000 reservists failed to answer calls to active duty. The news magazine +972 reported April 11 that: “No one can state precise numbers. No political party or leader calls for it explicitly. But anyone who has spent time at anti-government protests or on Hebrew-language social media in recent weeks knows it to be true: It is becoming increasingly legitimate to refuse to report for military service in Israel — and not only among the radical left.”

This rejection by soldiers shows signs of intensifying this summer. Haaretz newspaper reported July 16 that the fourth Israeli soldier since early July had committed suicide, this one with the Nahal Brigade at a base in northern Israel. 

Then the Times of Israel reported July 23 that three members of the Israeli Air Force, two regular soldiers and a non-commissioned officer, are being investigated for sabotage. The article reports that “an investigation by the Military Police Investigatory Unit has been opened against two soldiers and a non-commissioned officer on suspicion of sabotaging several unmanned aerial vehicles [drones].”

For dissent and opposition with a national army to reach the level where it has political impact, most of the following conditions need to be present: continued resistance from the “enemy” that creates a real danger for the troops; lack of belief among the troops in the goals of the military or of the government; a growing knowledge that following orders makes you complicit in war crimes; and a belief that refusal to obey orders has some popular support from your community.

The heroic Palestinian fighters continue to resist. The Israeli military, while murdering children, has won nothing. Israel’s political isolation grows daily.

A call to military resistance

The awareness of Israel’s genocidal acts has reached deep enough into Jewish Israeli society that voices considered moderate have made a direct appeal to troops to refuse duty in Gaza.

The following appeal is from Fania Oz-Salzberger, a writer and historian. She is the daughter of the most widely known Israeli author, the late Amos Oz (founder of the Peace Now movement and supporter of a two-state solution) and has co-authored a book with him. 

That she had the audacity to issue the call is itself a sign of expanding disgust with the genocide and the Netanyahu regime. Fania Oz-Salzberger knows her audience.

Soldiers, active duty and reserve,

Parents and grandparents of soldiers,

There is no other choice: Refuse to serve in Gaza. Refuse, refuse, refuse.

The hostages and their suffering families have been betrayed by the Israeli government.

The mass famine in Gaza is a fact, horrible and undeniable.

The daily massacre at food distribution centers is not self-defense, but an atrocious war crime.

International law has not been on our side for a long time.

Soldiers are sacrificing their young lives in vain, worse than in vain: for an evil and destructive cause.

For the first time in decades, the world’s moderate public opinion and Israel’s last allies are turning against us with horror. Not because they are antisemitic, but because they are human.

The messianic far right is leading us into its madness toward total global isolation, with absolute faith that there is a God and that he is on our side.

Refuse, refuse, refuse.

Without illusions of an easy or quick victory, we can still read this call as an opportunity for an additional path of struggle: Refuse, sabotage, mutiny.

Catalinotto is author of “Turn the Guns Around: Mutinies, Soldier Revolts and Revolutions (2017).”