By Oren Ziv

This interview was posted on March 24, 2025, at 972mag.com. Ella Keidar Greenberg, a transgender refusenik, explains why prison is a small price to pay in the struggle against Israeli occupation and patriarchy. Oren Ziv is a photojournalist, reporter for Local Call and a founding member of the Activestills photography collective.

Last week, 18-year-old Ella Keidar Greenberg was sentenced to an initial 30 days in [an] Israeli military prison for refusing to enlist in the army. The first openly transgender conscientious objector in a decade, Keidar Greenberg declared her refusal at the military recruitment center in Tel Hashomer, near Tel Aviv, on March 19, articulating her ideological opposition to the occupation and Israel’s onslaught on Gaza. She was accompanied by activists from the Mesarvot refuser network and the Youth Communist League (known by its Hebrew acronym “Banki”), who held a solidarity protest near the entrance to the base. 

“Faced with a reality of mass extermination, of systematic neglect, of trampling on rights, of war — the imperative is refusal,” Keidar Greenberg said as she read from her public statement, before being taken to prison. “When our grandchildren ask us what we did during the Gaza genocide … if we gave up or if we put up a fight, how [would] you rather answer? I know what I’ll answer: that I chose to resist. This is why I am refusing.”

Reflecting on the connection between her gender identity and her political outlook, Keidar Greenberg explained: “For the status quo to keep functioning, people are required to fulfil the roles in the system, like gears in a well-oiled machine. We must work, enlist in the army, kill, get married, start a family and have children who will continue to serve the occupation, capitalism, and patriarchy … This logic is what trans people, [just] like refuseniks, undermine. That’s why we’re so scary, because the existing system and its reproduction is insured by us, the people, staying disciplined and obedient.”

Military service is compulsory for Israelis over the age of 18, with women conscripted for two years and men for nearly three. Palestinian citizens are exempt, while there is an ongoing political and legal struggle over the longstanding exemption of ultra-Orthodox Jews. 

Conscientious objection is exceptionally rare, and the army often sentences refuseniks to several periods of incarceration as punishment before releasing them. Keidar Greenberg is the tenth Israeli teenager to be imprisoned for publicly refusing the draft for ideological reasons since October 7. 

The army appears to have increased the jail time imposed on refuseniks during that period; Itamar Greenberg, the longest-serving prisoner during the war on Gaza, was released earlier this month after 197 days in prison — the longest sentence in over a decade.

Yadin Elam, Keidar Greenberg’s lawyer, told +972 after her incarceration began that the army prevented her from bringing in her medication, including hormones. “She is being held alone in a cell in the women’s unit which has no television, no door on the bathroom and a leaking roof,” Elam said. “She would prefer to be in a shared cell with other inmates.”

Keidar Greenberg decided to become a conscientious objector at a young age. In recent years, she has been active in protests against the far-right government’s judicial overhaul alongside other teens who oppose the occupation. She was involved in organizing the “Youth Against Dictatorship” refusal letter in 2023, which linked the judicial overhaul to Israel’s military rule over the Palestinians. She is also active in Banki and Mesarvot and has participated in protests against transphobia, the military’s blackmailing of LGBTQ+ Palestinians and pinkwashing at Israel’s gay pride marches.

In an interview prior to her imprisonment, Keidar Greenberg spoke to +972 about her journey to conscientious objection, her activism against Israel’s occupation, her solidarity with LGBTQ+ Palestinians and her message to Israel’s queer community.

Can you describe the process that led you to refuse military service?

From a very young age, I knew I would never hold a weapon or hurt people. I had an aversion to violence. But I mostly accepted what the adults in my life told me: that there are other ways to serve [in the Israeli army], that there are all kinds of non-combat roles.

When I was 14, I came out [as transgender], and then I found “The Communist Manifesto” in my grandmother’s library. This was during the COVID-19 lockdown. I didn’t connect with online high school classes and didn’t really have friends, so what I did — all day, every day, for two years — was read. 

This also deepened both my personal depression and my deep political depression. I was consumed by how messed up the world is, and I felt immense frustration, like I had no power to change anything.

Then, at the beginning of 2023, the protests against the judicial coup began, and suddenly I had an outlet to channel my frustration into action. I met other young people, and together we formed the Youth Bloc Against Occupation. From there, I just kept going. Later, my friends and I organized a protest against the launch of “Irreversible Damage” [an anti-trans book by an American author that was translated and published in Hebrew].

Eventually, I became more involved in Mesarvot after meeting Einat [Gerlitz, who served 87 days in prison for refusing the draft in 2022] at a protest in Jerusalem. We had actually known each other before — we were in Israel Gay Youth when I was 13. After that, I got more involved in Banki and later in Youth Against Dictatorship. My entire path into activism happened alongside the rise of the protests against the judicial overhaul. By the time I was 16, I knew I would refuse no matter what.

You’ve also been involved in activism against the occupation on the ground in the West Bank. How did that affect you?

I spent about half of the summer between 11th and 12th grade in Masafer Yatta and at various protests in Beit Dajan, Farkha [a communist agricultural village in the West Bank], and Sheikh Jarrah. That had an impact on me. The activism in Masafer Yatta changed the way I experience and engage with political injustice, as did our work in Farkha. 

It didn’t really change my decision about the draft, but later, when my uncle would argue with me at family dinners, it reinforced my conviction that I oppose the occupation. It also made me more emotionally connected; I got to know and interact with people affected by the situation, and I was affected by it myself.

I think that if before I had a mostly principled opposition, now I also have resentment, anger and rage toward the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] and the police, because of the reality I’ve seen firsthand.

How did those around you react to your decision to refuse?

Most people didn’t know until now, and some of them will find out when they see articles about me. But my mom — who is the most important — completely shares my views, but she wasn’t on board with the idea of me going to prison. I made it clear to her that I was going to do it no matter what, and the question was whether she would support me or not. And then it became very clear to her [that she would].

You said you made your decision a long time ago. How has the Gaza war affected you?

Before the war, there was something very symbolic about [refusal]: we refuse to serve a regime that does this and that, and we do it publicly. After the war started, it became much simpler: there is a genocide happening, and you don’t enlist in an army that’s committing genocide. 

Everything feels both more urgent and more hopeless at the same time, but politically, it’s much clearer and requires less deliberation. It’s very obvious what the right thing to do in the face of genocide is: to refuse.

You were very active during the protests against the judicial overhaul. At the time, it felt like you could talk to people about anything, even the occupation, and many protesters were open to these messages. Now things are different. How do you see the possibility of discussing these issues with young people today?

During those protests, there was an incredible sense of hope. Every week, more and more people joined the youth bloc, and some of them became active beyond that. Things like Youth Against Dictatorship — a letter from high school seniors, which normally wouldn’t get much attention — got massive coverage in the Israeli media. Seeing people I met in those spaces becoming active in other movements was very inspiring and encouraging.

After October 7, there was chaos. At first, the responses were very emotional: rage and trauma. But now we’re in a moment where, after the crisis shattered the old value system, the state is trying to quickly establish and cement a new one, manipulating those emotions into nationalist propaganda. I think this is exactly the time to push back, to prevent this from becoming normalized and to stop this kind of violence from being permanently embedded in public discourse.

People are still showing up [to protest]. There are more refuseniks than before, and at every action with Banki there are new people. There’s still hope.

Does your refusal also have a queer or trans aspect to it?

The easiest connection to make is that the systems we fight against are the same. As trans people, we challenge the same rigid, patriarchal, binary system of roles that demands we serve — these structures of men and women, fathers and mothers, that produce another generation of soldiers and workers. We disrupt that system, which is why we scare the regime so much and are such an easy scapegoat that they keep returning to.

I think draft refusers challenge the Israeli military narrative in a similar way, because we don’t fulfill the role assigned to us. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that I was drawn to questioning more and more fundamental assumptions after breaking one of the most basic ones. And yes, for me, as a trans person, I want freedom for myself and for everyone. I’m not interested in an “equal right” to oppress others [by serving in the military] or a clear-cut entry pass into the existing system — to be in the state’s ranks instead of resisting it.

I think the struggle to be included in structures of power rather than dismantling them is misguided. We’ve seen for years how that has failed repeatedly — and specifically within the queer movement.

What is your message to the mainstream LGBTQ+ community, many of whom support the army and the war?

The IDF doesn’t care about trans people, or about gays, lesbians or queers. The IDF cares about power and capital. It may appear to be progressive on these issues for the soldiers within its ranks, but of course this doesn’t apply to the queer Palestinians it oppresses.

The military offers trans people some kind of security: better conditions than they get from their families, their hometowns or the job market. This is intentional. It serves as PR for the IDF’s image and its role within the state. And this allows it to neutralize the LGBTQ+ community — to turn us into homo-nationalists so we won’t become anti-nationalist queers. I despise that. I think it’s cynical and disgusting.

You’ve also participated in protests against the army’s treatment of LGBTQ+ Palestinians. Can you tell us about that?

In April 2023, a Palestinian man was killed [by members of the Lion’s Den militant group in Nablus] when it was revealed he was an informant for the IDF, after [the army] blackmailed him with videos of him with another man. We organized a demonstration outside the Glilot army base [north of Tel Aviv]. I showed up in drag, and we shouted.

Every year at Pride, this message [against the army’s blackmailing of queer Palestinians] is repeated in the anti-pinkwashing bloc. I think this issue is especially relevant when responding to accusations like “What would happen to you in Gaza?” or “Try going to Gaza dressed like that,” or that we’re “Chickens for KFC” [referring to Netanyahu’s comment in the U.S. Congress comparing “Gays for Gaza” to “Chickens for KFC”]. 

It is a form of victimization that focuses only on the conservatism that does exist in some parts of Palestinian society, and paints Palestinian culture as monolithic, reducing it to this one aspect in order to justify everything we do to them. If the Israeli establishment, media or public genuinely cared about the needs, fears and oppression of queer Palestinians, they would talk to them, help them and ask them what they need, not destroy their cities and use them as a cheap rhetorical tool.

But ultimately, the main issue here is that we are witnessing genocide and mass extermination; conservatives and homophobes experience these atrocities too, and we [still stand with them] in the face of such atrocities.

How did Palestinian friends react to your decision?

They’re very worried about me. I think for friends from Farkha, who live in Area C of the West Bank, the idea of military prison means something very specific, and it took a moment to clarify that the military prison I’m being sent to is not the same as the high-security prisons where political prisoners are held.

When I go to new places [in the occupied West Bank], to villages I haven’t been to before and where people don’t know me, conversations [between Palestinians and Israeli activists] often lead to one key question: “What did you do in the army? Where did you serve?” That statement carries immense human, political and interpersonal weight in our shared struggle. I think [refusing] allows me to engage with many Palestinian activists on a more equal footing.

Are you afraid of prison?

It’s definitely nerve-wracking. I don’t know how well I’ll fit in socially; because all my friends are leftists, and I do activism all the time. I live in a bubble that allows me to ignore, on a day-to-day and interpersonal level, how much Israeli society is undergoing a process of fascist radicalization. Still, I think I’ll manage — I can be with myself, read, write and listen to music all day. Honestly, it sounds like a great break.

The real fear is about what happens outside prison. There is a social danger in prison, especially in my case, because I’m trans, and men tend to be violent toward us. But overall, military prison is a very controlled environment, there’s not a lot of physical violence. Outside, though, after interviews like this, it’s worrying that people from my school or my past who already know me could leak things, or that people will recognize me on the street or at protests, or come looking for me.

What books and music are you taking to prison?

I’m really looking for a book I started reading as a PDF but can’t find: “Homo Sacer” by Giorgio Agamben. I’ll also take “Thoughts on Peace in an Air Raid” by Virginia Woolf, and “Narcissus and Goldmund” by Hermann Hesse. I need some fiction; I can’t just read theory all the time. I love philosophy, but I imagine I’ll need more of an escape there. [Elam, Keidar Greenberg’s attorney, told +972 after she entered prison that the guards confiscated her English books, claiming that only Hebrew books are allowed, as well as her Hebrew copy of Jean Genet’s “Our Lady of the Flowers” because of the bare baby’s bottom on the cover.]

For music I’ll bring “Debut” by Björk and “Yehudit Ravitz” by Yehudit Ravitz. A friend bought me a CD of “How I’m Feeling Now” by Charli XCX, which helped because all my Gen Z, hyper-pop, girly pop music wasn’t in the CD collection I got from my parents. [According to Elam, she was only allowed to bring in two CDs.]

This interview was lightly edited.