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Refusal to serve could be contagious For many months, it looked as though the upper echelons of the Israel Defense Forces were letting the direct commanders of the refusenik soldiers deal on their own with the problem of refusal to serve. And in fact, the fate of the various refuseniks differed from one unit to the next. Everything depended on the conscience, the world view, and mainly the intelligence of the direct officer on the spot. In certain cases, the refusal was accepted, if not with understanding then at least with wisdom, by the unit commander. Unnecessary conflict, which is wasteful and useless to the army, was prevented by channeling the military service of the refusenik reservist to tasks that he was able to carry out. In other cases, under different commanders, the reflex of refusal=detention was at work. Refuseniks were sent to military prison for periods of time usually meted out for ordinary refusals to follow orders, such as the refusal to peel potatoes in the kitchen, or the refusal to get up for guard duty in the wee hours of the night. So that dozens of refuseniks found themselves wasting their time - usually the time of people who are among the most creative and productive in the Israeli economy and society - sitting in prison for periods ranging from seven to 30 days, depending on how annoyed their direct commanding officer felt. In recent months, there has apparently been a change in the IDF's attitude toward the phenomenon of refusal and toward the refuseniks. Chief of Staff Moshe Ya'alon has recently expressed himself publicly and sharply against reservists who refuse to serve in the territories, and the army's attitude towards the refuseniks is becoming increasingly inflexible, merciless and harsh. At present there are several refuseniks who have been sitting in jail for weeks and even months on end, and as soon as one period of punishment ends, they are thrown back into jail for another period of punishment, without limit and without a break. To the outside observer, it looks like a deliberate campaign of revenge, a systematic vendetta being conducted by the army against these people. Alongside the significant increase in the severity of the IDF's attitude toward the refuseniks, the army continues to declare, increasingly loudly, that the phenomenon of refusal to serve in the territories is marginal, is typical of antisocial types found on the narrow political fringes, and has no operational significance. The professional word to describe such a contradiction in the physical world between a statement, a thought or a belief, and an activity and a reaction is "dissonance"; and as any professional will testify, in many cases it stems from fear. If the noticeable change in the army's attitude toward refusal, which testifies to increasing dissonance in the behavior of this system, does in fact come from above, it is hard to avoid the question: What is the chief of staff afraid of? Why, for example, was the head of the "fighting spirit" department in the IDF sent to make a speech against the refuseniks, to an audience of young citizens of the country? Why does the army consider selective refusal, which is limited only to a very specific type of activity, on the part of about 500 young men, a great danger to the fighting spirit of the army - more so than total failure of tens of thousands of other young people, who are physically and mentally fit, to serve in the reserves, and even in the regular army? The truth is that the fear in the top command is not without foundation. It's true that the non-service of 500 people in an army that numbers hundreds of thousands, is of no strategic significance. The army can operate effectively, and in fact does so, even without the service of tens of thousands, and perhaps even hundreds of thousands of fit young people. But the chief of staff and the army understand that the problem of "political" refusal, as some people call it, is not those same 500 soldiers that the IDF is missing in its activities beyond the Green Line. The danger in this refusal is that it is contagious, since there is no effective vaccination against it. It differs from any other refusal or avoidance of army service in the past or the present, whether individual or organized, sectoral or religious. The great danger in today's refusal to serve in the territories is its great potential for spreading. The chief of staff understands that it is quite possible that one of these days it is liable to spread among a much wider population. That's a justified fear, since the carriers of the disease are morality and common sense. By Elia Leibowitz