— Godi Algazi, a young Israeli soldier who served eight of his 12 months in the army in prison for refusing to serve on the West Bank, has been discharged from the army as “unsuitable.” He refused to go to a training base on the West Bank immediately after his induction on the grounds that such service in occupied territory was against his conscience.
Since then he has been in and out of prison on a number of occasions, the last after losing an appeal to the Supreme Court. Algazi told Israel Radio he had been summoned to the chief personnel officer last week and told that he had the alternatives of serving on the West Bank or being discharged. He said his third option–of serving within Israel proper–was rejected out of hand.
He said he knew that the name of “occupied areas refusenik” would stick with him from now on, “but this is the price I must pay for following my conscience.”
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