In both cases, I seriously considered whether I ought to obey orders to serve in these wars that I opposed. In the end, however, I reported for duty.
Were I serving in the army of a dictatorship, where I had no other way of opposing these wars, I would have been justified, perhaps even morally obligated, to refuse to serve. But a democracy's citizens can oppose wars by using their votes, voices and pens to call on their leaders and fellow citizens to change course. That's what I did -- when I was on leave and in civilian clothes.
The rule of law is the foundation of democracy. Without it, a democracy cannot survive. If each soldier can decide for himself what conflicts to serve in and what orders to follow, a democratic state will decay into chaos, and its democracy will die.
Of course, there are extreme cases in which even soldiers in a democracy must refuse orders. The law in the U.S. and Israel recognizes this. For example, soldiers ordered to open fire on unarmed civilians must refuse to obey and can be tried and jailed if they do not.
But the soldiers in Hebron were not ordered to do any such thing. Even if they believed the evacuation of settlers was wrong, the proper thing to do was to go ahead with the evacuation and then campaign, as civilians, for the rights of Jews to live in the heart of Arab Hebron.
By no stretch of the imagination was this order so immoral that the soldiers had just cause to disobey it. They disagreed with the law, passionately, just as I disagreed passionately with my country's military actions in Lebanon and in the first intifada. I served then; they should serve now.
