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SHERBORN COMMUNITY PRESS A 'Profile' for Mideast Peace 
By Chris Orchard / Correspondent Thursday, March 11, 2004 SHERBORN - New Profile, an Israeli organization dedicated to ending militarism, received the Peace Abbey's Courage of Conscience Award last Saturday. The Peace Abbey has given the award to 108 individuals and organizations since 1992; past recipients include Mother Teresa, Oxfam America, the Dalai Lama, Rosa Parks, Maya Angelou, Muhammad Ali, Mikhail Gorbachev and Howard Zinn. Ruth Hiller, an American-born Israeli citizen and founding member of New Profile, accepted the award. About 70 people packed the house for the ceremony, which also included a short film screening. "Fear perpetuates fear; violence perpetuates violence," said Hiller. "It's our belief that change has to be within the Israeli population first." Israeli society is highly militarized and always geared towards war, argues New Profile. The organization began about five years ago when Hiller's son refused to join the military. There was no classification for being a conscientious objector in Israel, and there still isn't today. Parents began to question why their sons and daughters were being forced into the military. They concluded that, both legally and socially, Israel was a highly militarized country. Today New Profile has two main tasks: change the military legal system to allow for conscientious objection (literally to create a new military profile); and change mindsets within Israeli society. "I council parents" on keeping kids out of the military, said Hiller. It's a hard subject to discuss openly, she said, because people are afraid to get in trouble, and because parents of her generation (end of the baby boom) find the subject taboo. "I know young objectors who have been thrown out of their houses and have lived on the streets," she said. New Profile describes itself as a feminist organization. Israeli women don't have access to equal education, jobs and opportunities, because such things come from placement in the military, said Hiller. While women have been drafted into the military throughout Israel's history, many claim they are not treated equally - a problem that reflects the overall inequality of women in Israeli society. "Women that are active in the military, who take on the front line roles of the military, are not necessarily excerpting their equality by adopting male military characteristics," said Hiller. She said Palestinians don't have a group similar to New Profile. "They have different issues that they have to resolve first - they have to deal with their nationalism first." "Israel has to take 100 percent responsibility for 50 percent of the conflict." Marina Pevzner, an Israeli Brandeis student who conducts dialogue groups between Israelis and Palestinians, presented the Courage of Conscience Award to New Profile. "It's no secret that patriarchal values and militarism go hand in hand," she said in her presentation. As Israelis, "we need to choose to stop the occupation." The award itself is a small statuette depicting a dove taking flight from a man's cupped hands. It's awarded to individuals and organizations for their dedication to humanitarianism and peace. It's meant to create awareness of these causes. Saturday's ceremony also included a screening of selected scenes from a new documentary called "Peace Patriots." The documentary is about the anti-war protests that took place last year on the eve of war in Iraq. The overall theme for the night was civil disobedience. Many at the ceremony saw parallels between the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the war in Iraq, which they were overwhelmingly against. Hiller said that America has a lot of sway over Israel. Bringing her cause to America is therefore important. It's a main reason she came to accept the award. "This is one way that we can start gaining recognition within the American public," she said. |