“A state with these bases is illegitimate”

“The state of Israel is committing genocide. Its moral authority is annulled with every child who buries underground,” says Yona Roseman, 19, who is part of a small movement that is gaining notoriety in Israel: Refuseiks, young Israeli who refuse to provide mandatory military service in the Israel defense forces (FDI). For Roseman, opposing the genocide of the Palestinian people is a political duty. It will be imprisoned for what you think, probably in isolation, in a matter of weeks. We republic then your rejection statement, originally published in X.

In exactly two weeks they will imprison me for refusing to enlist in the Israeli army. Next, my rejection statement:

The state of Israel is committing genocide. Every day that passes, the list of elderly crushed under the rubble, of men and women shot dead while waiting for food, of prisoners rotting in the fields of torture and children dying of hunger or cause of the extreme cold and heat is infinite. There are no words to describe the magnitude of atrocities in Gaza.

As the months passed, the bodies of killed civilians continued to accumulate in photographs and videos and the task of remembering their names was increasingly unattainable, I found myself losing all language to express my horror for what was happening around me.

In exactly 2 weeks I’ll be imprisoned for refusing to enlist in the Israeli army. Below is my refusal statement:

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The State of Israel is committing genocide. With every day that passes, the list of elderly people crushed under the rubble,>>

– Jonah🌸🕊️🔆 yona (@yonationalist) August 3, 2025

No action, protest or article relieves the pain caused by genocide in Gaza. No rope that can launch is long enough to get out of the abyss of suffering that their residents experience that are still alive, for now. Without shelter, without knowing when they will eat again, and that at any time they can be kidnapped without their families knowing it, or dying by shooting or bombing.

The Israel Defense Forces (FDI), the state army in which I was born, through all its soldiers, from the Raso soldier to the general, is the main responsible for these atrocities. Each soldier, from the pilot to the infantry soldier, the coach, the instructor, the police, the propagandist and the bureaucrat, is responsible for this crime. This conclusion is difficult to accept, an absolute accusation against relatives, friends of childhood, colleagues and most people around me on the street; But the decision that emerges from it is very simple.

Recognizing this morbid reality, I concluded that the only correct option before me was to deny me. It is not enough to “leave the equation”: as citizens of a country that commits genocide, we do not have that capacity, no matter how much we want it. As soldiers, public servants, taxpayers and citizens respectful of the law, we all participate, voluntarily or forced, in the desolation that occurs a few hours from our homes. We must actively work to dismantle extermination machinery by all means at our disposal.

We must not cooperate with your systems or stop the slightest opportunity. In 77 years of occupation, expulsion and military regime, and in particular in the last two years, Israel’s defense forces have become not only an unworthy army to serve, but an enemy to which we must fight.

The star project of the State of Israel is to expel the Palestinians of this land. Since its foundation, all the organs of the State have been instrumentalized for this objective. Immediately after the expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians in the 1948 Nakba, the State was dedicated to the ejected and the remaining residents of the territory through administrative laws and orders that apply to date to minimize the presence of Palestinians in their homeland.

The State Security Forces, by their very nature, come to each Palestinian as a threat: in the control posts, in their cities and towns, in the train stations and in schools. In well -being, health and education services there is systemic discrimination aimed at establishing the supremacy of Jews on Palestinians in all aspects of life. This dispossession project is carried out in all areas under the sovereignty of the State: within the Green Line, in East Jerusalem, in the West Bank, in Gaza and against the displaced refugees of their country.

A state with these bases is illegitimate. Its constitutional foundations are empty, its legal system lacks validity and has no authority to fulfill. He has no right to dictate what a crime is or who is a terrorist, while committing the greatest crimes.

The resistance to murder and apartheid is inevitably prohibited. If we want to fight them, we have no choice but to violate the law. Due to my refusal, they will probably send me to a military prison for several months. A political prison is an insignificant price for resisting the terrible crime of our time. Especially in the face of Palestinian prisoners, who are also detained because, in the eyes of the State, they threaten the oppressive system.

Palestinian prisoners are found in torture, overcrowded, sick and hungry fields, and suffer from attacks and sexual violence daily. Half of them is denied due process, and the other half faces a rigged judicial system. Dozens of people have been killed in prisons since the beginning of the war, and the total number is unknown. The 10,000 “security” prisoners are all political prisoners, and the State has no authority to imprison them. The “security” title, as well as that of “terrorism”, was formulated to incriminate the entire population occupied and anyone who threatens the integrity of the regime, and allows the use of drastic tools against them.

The true recognition of the magnitude of the destruction that our state sows, in the total suffering that instills in its subjects, requires adequate measures. If you see the magnitude of atrocities and are considered moral people, they cannot continue as if nothing, despite the cost, social or legal.

The state of Israel is committing genocide. His moral authority is annulled with each child who buries underground; After tens of thousands, it disappears as if it had never existed. Their institutions do not need to see a penny, but be stained with the rivers of blood that spill. He does not commit any act that does not deserve condemnation, does not use any agent who deserves respect, does not give any order that deserves obedience and does not promulgate any law that does not deserve to be violated. The state of Israel is committing genocide, and we must resist.

The Révolution Permanent Site, part of the International Network The Daily Left in France, recently conducted an interview with Roseman, which we published below.