LETTER FROM OMAR SAAD
Mr. Prime Minister of Israel
Mr. "Defense Minister" of Israel
I am Omar Zahreddeen Mohammad Saad from Maghar village-Galilee.
I received a summons to present myself at the recruitment offices on 31 October 2012 so as to go through the regular tests needed for the army service, which is compulsory for the Druze community. But I wish to make the following statement:
I refuse to go through those tests because I completely oppose the compulsory army service for my people of the Druze community.
I refuse because I am a man of peace, and abhor violence in all its forms and believe that the military establishment is the optimum of physical and psychological violence. Ever since I received the summons I feel my life has been toppled upside-down. I feel nervous and unable to focus. I remembered the thousands of harsh images and could not see myself in the military uniform and taking part in oppressing my own people, the Palestinians, or fighting my Arab brothers. In fact I declare myself as a conscientious objector and refuse to serve in any army.
I abhor oppression and oppose occupation, I detest any form of fanaticism or suppression of freedom, and I hate whoever arrests children, women and elderly men.
I am a musician and play the viola. I have friends, musicians from Ramallah, Jericho, Jerusalem, Hebron, Nablus, Jenin, Shafa’amr, Eilaboun, Rome, Athens, Amman, Beirut, Damascus, Oslo, and we all play for humanity and peace. Our only weapons are our musical instruments, and we shall not carry any other weapon.
I belong to a community that has been subjected to a grave injustice by an oppressive law. How can we fight against our own relatives in Palestine, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt? How can I carry arms against my brothers and my own people in Palestine? How can I be soldier at the Qalandia checkpoint or at any other barrier when I have experienced the oppression of barriers?
How can I prevent people from Ramallah visiting their city, Jerusalem? How can I guard the separation wall?
How can I be the jailer of my own people when I know that most of them are prisoners of war and seekers of justice and freedom?
I play for joy, freedom, and a just peace, with an end to the settlements and the military occupation, and the release of all prisoners, and the return of the refugees. I play for the establishment of a Palestinian State with Al-Quds as its capital.
Many of our Druze men served in the Israeli army according to the compulsory law of service. But what did we get out of this? We are discriminated against on all levels. Our villages are the poorest, our land has been confiscated, and there is no urban planning or industrial areas. The ratio of university graduates from our villages is the lowest in the area, and the unemployment ratio is the highest. That compulsory law has distanced and isolated us from our Arab community.
This year I will graduate from high school and I am hoping to be able to resume my university education. I am sure the military will try to bar me from realizing my humane ambition but I declare it loud and clear: I am Omar Zahreddeen Mohammad Saad and I will not be fuel for your arms or a soldier in your army.
Omar Saad