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“YOU CAN’T BUY PARADISE WITH BLOOD”  
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Interview with Sofia Orr by Patrick Lempges
December 3, 2024
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_ Nineteen-year-old Sofia Orr was jailed for refusing to enlist in
the Israeli military. In an interview with Jacobin, she explains the
disturbing authoritarianism of an Israeli society that has rallied
behind the massacre in Gaza. _

Sofia Orr was the second person to refuse military service since
October 7, 2024., (Oren Ziv / +972 Magazine)

 

Since the start of the war in Gaza, Israeli society has been caught up
in a nationalist frenzy. The massacre of October 7 strengthened
already powerful far-right currents and pushed many of Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu’s erstwhile critics to rally around the flag. An
overwhelming majority of Israelis stand behind the war, even after the
International Court of Justice formally raised the accusation of
genocide.

But there are a few who refuse to go along with it. Since the war
began, eleven young Israelis have openly refused their mandatory
military service in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). They do not want
to become part of the machinery of war and are calling on their
compatriots to question their government’s war propaganda. The young
peace activists, who organize in the Mesarvot network, are regularly
threatened, insulted, and held in military prison for months at a
time.

One of these courageous young people is Sofia Orr, who was recently in
Berlin for an event organized by Israelis for Peace. There, she spoke
to _Jacobin_’s Patrick Lempges about the lust for war in her home
country, pathways to peace in the Middle East, and why she will never
regret her decision to refuse conscription.

Patrick Lempges

Hi, Sofia, thanks for speaking with us. Can you start by telling us a
bit about yourself?

Sofia Orr

My name is Sofia Orr. I’m nineteen years old, and I am an Israeli
conscientious objector. On February 25, I refused conscription in the
IDF and then spent eighty-five days in military prison.

I made the decision to refuse when I was around fifteen years old,
because even then, I saw that the ongoing occupation and apartheid was
— and still is — enough of a reason to refuse. It became more
important to me after the war and the massacre in Gaza began. It’s
important to raise our voices against the war, to raise awareness
about it, and bring the Palestinian perspective into the conversation
in Israel as well. I decided to make my refusal very public, giving
interviews and being vocal on social media to get out my story about
why I refused and why I’m working toward a peaceful and just
solution for all people between the river and the sea.

That’s why I am also part of Mesarvot, a feminist network of
conscientious objectors promoting an end to the occupation. Although
we are trying to change Israel from the inside, I don’t know if
that’s possible in such a militaristic and racist society. That’s
why it’s important to me to reach an international audience and tell
people to pressure their governments to stop their unconditional
diplomatic, financial, and military support for Israel and to pressure
Israel to stop executing this horrible disaster.

Patrick Lempges

Was there a particular event that influenced your decision?

Sofia Orr

I am lucky to have grown up in a non-Zionist, left-wing family that
imparted to me strong values of critical thinking, empathy, and
equality. That played a big role.

But generally speaking, refusing to serve is not the result of a
single moment, but of a process of understanding the full picture. One
experience I remember vividly is attending the memorial celebrations
for victims of the Holocaust and fallen Israeli soldiers, and their
militaristic and one-sided narratives. At one point, something just
didn’t make sense to me. Why is the way to honor fallen soldiers or
people who died in the Holocaust to kill more people? Why should we
glorify soldiers who died in this cycle of bloodshed?

Another important event was going to the West Bank and meeting
Palestinians. Then, everything made a lot of sense. Making personal
connections is a really important step toward fighting the
dehumanization of Palestinians in Israeli society, and I think that
has to be our way forward.

I never really thought I would enlist, but it’s one thing to say
“I will not enlist” and quite another to say “I refuse,”
actually going to military jail and making it public. That’s what I
mean by refusing is a process: from understanding the situation to
“I can’t take part in this” to “I need to stand against it.”

Patrick Lempges

How did your family, friends, and community respond to your decision?

Sofia Orr

My family and friends were mostly supportive, but Israeli society sees
it as very unacceptable and confusing. Each time I publish content in
Hebrew, I get a lot of comments calling me a traitor, a self-hating
Jew, saying that I should be killed or raped or sent to Gaza and
bombed. That’s a common reaction.

From my more immediate community, the two most common negative
reactions are that I am ungrateful or naive. Ungrateful, because my
friends and my country are fighting to protect me, and I should do my
part as well. I think that’s wrong. I feel that refusing is the best
way to try and make this a better and more secure place for the people
around me. Throwing my body into a cycle of bloodshed will never make
us more secure. It’s extremely immoral and unproductive.

They call me naive to even think we can talk to the Palestinians —
the enemy. They say the conflict will never be solved diplomatically.
I think it’s the exact opposite: we have tried to solve the conflict
by force for seventy-five years. There is no military solution to a
political problem.

The violent mindset that dominates Israeli society is also present in
Palestinian society and is driven by the violence happening on the
ground. The support for Hamas or violent resistance in general only
grows because of the extreme violence and horrible living conditions
Palestinians are confronted with. The Israeli army teaches them that
the only language they speak is violence. We need to change the tone
and the whole narrative to offer the Palestinians an alternative. This
can only happen with diplomacy.

Patrick Lempges

How has the decision to refuse shaped your identity and
self-perception? Do you ever have moments of doubt about your
decision?

Sofia Orr

I had moments of doubt — not about whether it was the right thing to
do, but whether I could do it, and do it well. The more time passed,
the more sure I became. Ten, twenty, or fifty years from now, I might
regret everything else I have done in my life, but I will never
regret this.

I don’t think it has shaped my identity, though, because refusing to
serve in the IDF was simply the extension of the beliefs I already
held. I feel that my action is close to my heart, and I’m proud and
happy that I did it.

Patrick Lempges

What does it mean to refuse military service in Israel, both
politically and socially?

Sofia Orr

On my enlistment date, this February 25, I went to the enlistment
center and told them I was refusing enlistment. They were really
confused because it’s very rare, and they don’t have any protocol
for dealing with refusal. So, they just send you from one officer to
another until you get to someone who is high-ranking enough to send
you to a holding cell. You wait there for a couple of hours, sometimes
even a day, and then you get a trial, and you get sentenced to any
number of days in military prison.

At my first trial, I was sentenced to twenty days. When I was released
from prison, I received a draft notification telling me, “Okay, you
served your punishment — twenty-four hours from now, you need to go
enlist.” I refused again and the cycle continued.

They can do this forever, it’s part of their intimidation. They
don’t want us to know how long we will stay in prison, because
it’s scarier that way, and they want to scare people away from
refusing. They want us to be quiet. That’s also apparent in prison.
When we talk about politics, we get yelled at and threatened with
punishment. There is a rule in the army that you’re not allowed to
talk about politics, but it’s only enforced against refusers who
talk about their “left-wing” politics. That goes on until either
you break or they grant you an exemption, which for me was after
eighty-five days. I was the second conscientious objector since the
war started. The first, Tal Mitnick, spent 185 days in prison.

Still, most of the cost is social. Most people don’t object because
they are afraid to lose their friends and family. That’s why we from
the Mesarvot network try to be something like a social backbone for
people who conscientiously object. You can still get accepted to
university after refusing and get a job, but I know people who are
terrified that their boss will find out about their political beliefs
and fire them.

That said, most of the silencing is done to Palestinians with Israeli
citizenship. They are sent to jail for posting a story the authorities
don’t like on Instagram.

Patrick Lempges

What were your legal proceedings and detainment like?

Sofia Orr

The trial took five minutes, it’s very short. The second time, it
took about thirty seconds for them to send me to jail. The judge just
asked me: “Has anything changed? Do you still believe what you
believe?” and sent me to prison when I said yes. It’s a typical
court-martial, not like in a civil courtroom.

My time in jail was obviously not a fun experience, but it gave me a
clearer view of how the military operates from the inside. I
experienced the dehumanization up close. They use force and violence
to solve any problem. This is not a coincidence: it is designed to
work like that.

Most prisoners are deserters or draft-dodgers. They either come from
poor backgrounds, because military service isn’t remunerated high
enough and they need to work to support their families, or they have
medical conditions or mental health problems, or were sexually
harassed on base. I met many young women who spoke up about being
harassed but nothing ever happened until eventually they had to run
away. They don’t get any support from the military, instead they are
put into jail.

Most of my time in prison, I tried to help prisoners connect the dots
about how the army dehumanizes them and how it’s connected to how
they dehumanize the Palestinians. It was not fun, but it was
meaningful in many ways, and I will never regret doing it. It’s the
only way for me to live with a clear conscience.

Patrick Lempges

Can you describe the role of the military in Israeli society?

Sofia Orr

Israel has always been a very militarized society. We like to say that
Israel is not a country with a military, but a military with a
country. As an Israeli, you grow up with it from a very young age, the
propaganda seeps into you. At fifteen years of age, you visit a
military base for five days and learn how to shoot a gun and how great
this all is. Soldiers come to your school and tell you about their
role in the army. The more combative the role is, the more prestigious
it is in society. It’s also one of the first questions you get
asked in small talk: “What was your role in the army? What will you
do in the army?”

Israelis are consumed by a very one-sided narrative that we will
always be victims and nothing but victims, which is why we need the
biggest, strongest army in the world to protect us. Being a soldier
and the honor of fighting have been vastly glorified in this country.
I think that Israel has always been like that, but it’s shifting
now, it’s getting worse and moving toward an openly fascist,
militaristic society. The streets are filled with pictures of soldiers
and slogans like “Together we will win” or “They will bring us
victory.”

Patrick Lempges

Has the increased presence of Religious Zionists in the IDF affected
the mood in the army more generally?

Sofia Orr

The shift to the Right in Israel affects all spheres of society. One
of the biggest changes is the way they now speak openly about their
plans. In the past, it was kind of undercover, like, “We are
committing war crimes and doing horrible things, but we don’t want
to broadcast it to the whole world, or even the whole country.” Now,
it’s becoming more and more mainstream and less apologetic. They
openly say that we have to kill more Palestinians, that we have to
annex Gaza, that we need more Jewish supremacy.

Obviously, not everyone in Israel feels this way, but when you look at
how the army changes people to be more right-wing and how [Minister of
National Security Itamar] Ben-Gvir is creating his own armed settler
units and appointing loyal police officers to leading positions, the
drift toward militarism and even actual fascism is evident. The way to
fight this trajectory is to implement real change on the ground in the
everyday lives of normal people, to show them that a different reality
is possible. For this, we need international pressure.

Patrick Lempges

You’re currently conducting a speaking tour across Germany to raise
awareness about your movement and build support to oppose the war in
Gaza. How does the German support for Israel make you feel?

Sofia Orr

In general, I think all support for Israel and what it’s doing is
immoral and counterproductive. It’s moving us in the wrong direction
and just further escalates the situation. The German support in
particular is obviously driven by guilt for the Holocaust, which is
also used politically in Israeli society. “See what it took us to
get here! We have to make sure it never happens again.”

In Israeli society, that means, “Make sure it never happens
again _to Jewish people._” I don’t think that’s the right
takeaway from the Holocaust. The only way to look at the Holocaust in
a truly respectful and productive way is to ensure something like that
never happens again to anyone. Thus, I would ask German society and
politicians to stop supporting the Israeli government and to stop
using the Holocaust as some sort of justification for what is
happening today. One crime cannot justify another.

German support is obviously hurting the Palestinians, but it also
hurts Israel in the long run. If you really want Jews to live in peace
and safety, then you have to support a just, diplomatic path, not this
cycle of bloodshed. We all lose in war. We all win in peace. And
supporting this war means standing _against_ peace.

Patrick Lempges

What lessons have you drawn from your experience as a conscientious
objector, and what would you want to impart to others?

Sofia Orr

I have to say, it’s not legal to encourage refusal in Israel, but I
would encourage people to ask questions! I learned to listen and
communicate better. It’s important to know who you are speaking to,
to deliver a message that can be digested. This is also connected to
using the word “genocide.” Words have meaning and, by definition,
genocide is the right term to describe what is happening in Gaza. But
in some conversations, if you use the words genocide or apartheid,
some people will just stop listening. So, I don’t always use these
words, but not because I don’t believe they are accurate, but
because I want to reach all kinds of people and try to change their
minds.

The same is true concerning the accusation of antisemitism: it’s a
very useful tactic to suppress criticism. In Israel, every sort of
criticism is denounced as antisemitism — especially Palestinian
criticism, of course. As I already said, I myself have also been
called a self-hating Jew and even an antisemite. Once you get people
to believe that we are being criticized for what we are, Jewish, and
not for what Israel is doing, you can block the criticism out and
rally around the flag, along the lines of “Everybody hates us, we
only have ourselves.”

Antisemitism and Islamophobia are on the rise all around the word, but
the vast majority of the criticism Israel is facing is not antisemitic
— it’s criticism a country faces when it commits war crimes. I am
glad people around the world are calling for an end to apartheid and
for a cease-fire. I am sure that for some people, criticism of Israel
comes from antisemitism, but on the other hand, I think that a lot of
people who support Israel are also antisemites! The correlation
between antisemitism and criticism of Israel is much smaller than
it’s often made out to be.

Patrick Lempges

What about people on the other side of the spectrum, so to speak, who
see Hamas as some kind of decolonial or anti-imperialist force?

Sofia Orr

I think that’s both wrong and unproductive; it’s like they’ve
come full-circle and now share the views of the Israeli right but with
different rhetoric. I personally lost someone on October 7, nothing
can justify what happened that day. But it did not happen in a vacuum.
Understanding _why_ it happened is the only way forward.

People who live under constant violence and lose all hope will
eventually resort to violence themselves. I just don’t believe that
violent resistance will be productive. Killing Israeli civilians or
calling for the Jews to go back to Europe is immoral, unproductive,
and it’s insane to think it will work. It’s just impossible.
It’s also very similar to how the Israeli right talks about the
Palestinians: saying there are no innocent Palestinians is the
counterpart of saying there are no innocent Israelis.

So, again, we have to understand the kind of life the Palestinians
live and the role Israel has in creating those conditions. It is a
cycle of bloodshed and violence, in which Israeli violence is the
driving force. The only way to weaken the support for violent
resistance, then, is for Israel to break the cycle. Israel has both
the responsibility and the power to do so.

I would invite everyone to take a long, hard look at the situation and
try to visualize a way forward. Ask yourself, will mass killings
really solve this? Don’t be driven by revenge. You can’t buy
paradise with blood.

_Patrick Lempges is a historian with a particular focus on the
intellectual history of socialism and the comparative study of
fascism._

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