Mitnick’s appearance in Wpg actually shows the stength of Israeli deomocracy
Tal Mitnick appeared in Winnipeg as part of a cross Canada tour put on by Independent Jewish Voices., speaking at a the Mennonite church on Home Street, and was in a photo with Ramsey Zeid, the President of the Canadian Palestinian Association of Manitoba. Tal, when he was 18, refused to serve in the IDF when called up and spent time in a military prison for this refusal.
It should be emphasized that this refusal is rare. It should also be noted that following Oct and following Hamas’ invasion, Israeli reservists reported en masse for the largest call up in Israel’s history, many returning from around the world to serve the nation.
In an interview with Sky News, Tal said, "I think that for 70 years we've been seeing the same policy of occupation, of siege, and of Jewish supremacy between the river and the sea, and I can't take part in it". It would appear from this this statement that Tal is a “one stater” not a two-stater, and wants to dismantle the state he lives in.
Tal told +972 Magazine “There is no justification for harming innocent civilians. The criminal attack on Oct 7
in which innocents were killed, is illegitimate resistance to the oppression of the Palestinian people in my eyes.”
But Tal should know that many of the people who likely attended his lecture at the Mennonite church on home street think the very opposite-that the Hamas Oct 7 attack, was legitimate armed resistance. Tal should have asked Ramsey Zeid, the President of the Canadian Palestinian Association of Manitoba whether he will use Tal’s own words and say, “The criminal attack on Oct 7 in which innocents were killed is illegitimate resistance to the oppression of the Palestinian people.” I highly doubt it.
In my view many of the anti-Israel people who will cozy up to Tal , are prepared to “use” him to speak out against Israel, and blame Israel, but they will never call out Hamas to account, call Hamas to cease having any governing role in Gaza or to lay down its arms and release hostages immediately. Tal should ask himself which Palestinian media has ever referred to his statement that Oct 7 was “illegitimate resistance", and why that is?
The lecture by Tal Mitnick actually shows the strength of Israeli democracy. His refusal to serve and being jailed in a military jail was covered by Ha’aretz, not censored. He is now out of prison and can go around the world asking countries to cease military aid to Israel, and calling for a one state between the River and the Sea, dismantling the very state of which he is a citizen. And no one in the Israeli government is censoring or stopping him. And although he seems to want to dismantle Israel as a state, he hasn’t yet given up his citizenship.
Tal has told several media outlets that he planned to not serve even before Oct 7.If this is the case, while Tal refused to serve, it means that on Oct 7, had he been deployed to Kibbutz Be’eri to help save lives, he would not have done so as he would have refused to serve. Think about that. If every Israeli had been prepared to make the same decision as Tal, then when Oct 7
occurred the 6000 Hamas and other terrorists would have kept killing thousands and tens of thousands of Israelis. If there had been no IDF at all, Jews across the whole of Israel would have been slaughtered wholesale from north to south on Oct 7
and onward.
And Tal, I ask you if you were a parent, and if you were in the shoes of the Bibas family, god-forbid, would you want to have your children taken as hostages in Gaza or would you have wanted someone in the IDF to swoop in and shoot the invaders and save the lives of your children?
And are you really a firm enough believer in Palestinian democracy to assume that if Palestinians were to become a majority in your one state that they would duly protect the rights of Jews as a minority in this state, or instead would seek to slaughter them? Are either Hamas or the Palestinian Authority models of democracy? Maybe at the very least you ought to wait for the Palestinians to produce a vibrant democracy in areas which they control, and live as good neighbours, before joining them in a one-state?
As an aside Harold Shuster,who is active in independent Jewish Voices recently recevied a King Charles III Coronation medal from MP Leah Gazan. With support for the NDP in the upcoming federal election collapsing, maybe she won't get re-elected.
