Mattan here. As the genocide in the Gaza Strip marches forward, Israeli soldiers return from reserve duty shaken. Families are asking questions they didn't ask before. The justifications are wearing thin. As the untenable violence continues, and with it, a deepening disillusionment is spreading across Israeli society, leading to more and more people quietly refusing. We're seeing a shift in the public conscience, not just isolated acts of dissent. Refusal has entered the mainstream in a way that it never has, under the recognition that serving the Israeli war machine is against ordinary Israelis' interests.
Our new initiative,"Hitnagdut" (resistance in Hebrew), was created for this movement: we are cultivating a sustained anti-war and anti-occupation movement by providing training and support to spontaneous refusal and protest initiatives. We need to provide the activists with tools and infrastructure to sustain this momentum and end the genocide in Gaza and the occupation. We need your help to make it happen: help us reach our mid-year goal of $30,000 to launch Hitnagdut.
In the immediate aftermath of October 7th, opposing the war publicly was taboo and semi-illegal, let alone refusing. We did not have the power or infrastructure to oppose the war effectively and stop the Israeli attack before it even started. We realized we have to build real movement infrastructure. The first initiative we supported was "Ani Siravti", in Hebrew 'I Refused', which launched a media campaign to publicly share the stories of reserve soldiers who refused service in order to normalize the act during a time of heightened nationalism and reaction.
As the war trudged on, more and more people were beginning to realize that this war of annihilation was never about its stated goals of returning the Israeli hostages. Just one year ago, we began to work with a young group of reservists who were ready to publicly refuse on the eve of the invasion of Rafah in May 2024. With our help, they published an open letter alongside around 40 other signatories, sending shockwaves across Israeli society, and garnering a response from the Prime Minister himself and the country's war cabinet.
This was followed by several interviews in the studios of mainstream news channels, tailed by another public letter in October 2024 with an expanded list of signees. This fledgling group eventually decided to organize themselves under the banner Soldiers for Hostages.
A new initiative of Refuser Solidarity Network, Hitnagdut is a desert greenhouse for cultivating organised refusal. We exist to channel disillusionment into action, and action into strategy. Our goal: to transform individual grassroots initiatives into a coordinated anti-war movement from within.
Over the past six months, we have incubated one of the most visible expressions of this shift: Soldiers for Hostages, a group of reservists who returned from Gaza and publicly declared they would not serve again until the Israeli hostages return home, which necessitates an end to the war. What began as a handful of ex-soldiers has since grown into a movement of nearly 300 public refusers and growing, organizing on the streets, in the media, and in military circles across the country.
The work of Soldiers for Hostages has cleared the path for a radically different political landscape today: refusal has gone mainstream. Stickers line the streets of Tel Aviv calling on fellow patriots to refuse, while more and more reservists join the ranks of Soldiers for Hostages. "Refuse!" is now a common refrain, not limited to the anti-war left. Newspapers are chock full of emerging reports detailing more and more soldiers and reservists threatening to refuse duty. Refusal has not only become mainstream, but even patriotic.
Soldiers for Hostages grew into what it is today, a growing movement that turns individual refusers into a civil force that can end the genocide in Gaza. Through RSN's guidance and support through capacity-building, strategic coaching from experienced refusers, legal aid, mental health support, and training in media and public communications. Members of SFH have been beaten by police. Fined by the military. Branded as traitors. And in an unprecedented move, jailed by the government for their refusal, something we haven't seen here in several years.
And yet they keep organizing, because now they're not alone, and count hundreds of new refusers among their ranks. Reservists are what keep the Israeli military operating: they fly the planes that bomb Gaza, and they staff intelligence and logistics centers. As Soldiers for Hostages gains momentum, they get closer to bringing the war to a stop.
That's the power of Hitnagdut. It offers what spontaneous refusal cannot: strategy, organizing, resources and the ability to scale. What we're building is not a campaign. It's an ecosystem. It's a container strong enough to hold the grief and moral reckoning happening across Israeli society, and turn it into real political power. We started with Soldiers for Hostages, and now we are ready to expand our work. Whoever wants to strategically organize and fill the voids of the movement: we are waiting for you.
We are raising $30,000 in order to expand Hitnagdut, to assist the mosaic of actors who want a different reality. The disillusionment is already here, and we are here to give it shape.
In solidarity,
Mattan Helman
Executive Director
Refuser Solidarity Network
(Taken from an email sent to me by the Refuser Solidarity Network. Emphasis original.)