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world war i
On Armistice Day, Veterans Call for an Armistice in Gaza and Beyond
One hundred and six years after the end of World War I, another such deadly concoction is brewing. War is permanent. Genocide is on TV. A desperate empire is pushing human civilization toward a tragic end.
Nov 11, 2024
November 11, declared Armistice Day at the end of World War I, is celebrated in the U.S. as Veterans Day. Understanding why requires us to recall World War I and its aftermath.
World War I was an international conflict, from 1914-18, that embroiled most of the nations of Europe, along with Russia, the United States, the Middle East, and other regions. The war pitted the “Central Powers”—mainly Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Turkey—against the “Allies”—mainly France, Great Britain, Russia, Italy, and (from 1917) the United States. The war was unprecedented in the slaughter, carnage, and destruction it caused. Over 15 million people were killed—both soldiers and civilians, and over 25 million were wounded.
The First World War ended in November 1918 when an armistice was declared at the “11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month,” marking a moment of hope and the promise of peace. It was also a moment of great sadness and a sense of great tragedy. Many people prayed this would be “the war to end all wars,” and that Armistice Day would serve as an eternal warning never to repeat the past. But then came World War II.
“When U.S. bombs stop dropping on Palestinian children, the genocide will end.”
After the end of World War II and the Korean War cease-fire, in 1954 veterans’ organizations pushed the U.S. Congress to switch the holiday’s name to Veterans Day, a day to honor those who fight in war. Could it be that—having emerged from World War II unscathed and more powerful than ever, the United States was not ready to abandon militarism? Whatever the intention, the holiday’s meaning was turned on its head—a day for war instead of a day for peace.
The national organization Veterans For Peace has been working to Reclaim Armistice Day as a day that is dedicated to ending war once and for all. Veterans lead Armistice Day activities around the country, many incorporating the ringing of bells at the “11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month.” Now the veterans group is also calling for peace in the Middle East.
The looming threats of climate catastrophe and nuclear annihilation have been overshadowed this year by Israel’s horrific ongoing genocide of Palestinian civilians in Gaza—up to 50,000 killed, nearly 70% of whom are women and children. For 13 months straight, unspeakable atrocities have filled our screens and haunted our consciences. We can see clearly that the U.S. government is complicit in Israel’s merciless ethnic cleansing. The bombs that Israel drops on Palestinian children are made in the USA and delivered by the U.S. government. U.S.-backed Israeli wars have now expanded to Palestine’s West Bank, to Lebanon, and to Iran, risking a wider war, possibly even a global war that could “go nuclear.”
According to Wikipedia: Scholars trying to understand the cause of World War I “look at political, territorial, and economic competition; militarism, a complex web of alliances and alignments; imperialism, the growth of nationalism; and the power vacuum created by the decline of the Ottoman Empire.” One hundred and six years after the end of World War I, another such deadly concoction is brewing. War is permanent. Genocide is on TV. A desperate empire is pushing human civilization toward a tragic end.
No More U.S. Bombs To Israel
This year, Veterans For Peace is calling for an Armistice—a permanent cease-fire in Palestine, Lebanon, and throughout the Middle East, and for an end to U.S. arms shipments to Israel.
“When U.S. bombs stop dropping on Palestinian children, the genocide will end,” said VFP Vice President Joshua Shurley.
The 39-year-old veterans’ organization, with chapters in over 100 US cities, recently issued a statement in support of Israeli and U.S. soldiers who refuse to take part genocide, illegal wars, and war crimes.
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Israel's Conscientious Objectors Stand on the Shoulders of Giants
Refusing to fight in unjust and brutal wars is not new, but it remains a rare act of courage.
Mar 22, 2024
According to legend, the organization I lead, the Fellowship of Reconciliation, was founded in August 1914 when a British Quaker and a German Lutheran shook hands at a railway station in Cologne. With England on the cusp of joining World War I, they pledged, "We are one in Christ and can never be at war."
After Germany sunk the Lusitania ship in May 1915, American public support for joining the war swelled. But not everyone got on board.
Political activist and theologian A.J. Muste responded to his country’s gearing up for war by becoming a pacifist. His views resulted in him being forced out of his pastoral position. Likewise, pacifist and social reformer Jane Addams (who later went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize) was viciously criticized for calling the war “an insane outburst.”
Despite the pro-war hysteria that countries use to justify their military endeavors, conscientious objection remains a courageous option for those committed to peace. As the ongoing genocide of Palestinians unfolds in front of the eyes of the world, a couple of young Israelis are choosing this brave, though unpopular, path.
“Slaughter cannot solve slaughter,” 18-year-old Israeli-American Tal Mitnick said in December 2023 before receiving his first 30-day prison sentence for refusing to join Israel’s military.
The same week that Tal refused for the third time and received a third term in prison, he was joined by fellow teenager Sofia Orr. “I reject participating in the violent policies of oppression and apartheid that Israel has imposed on the Palestinian people, especially now during the war,” she said.
It’s not the sentences Tal and Sofia are enduring that make their actions exceptional. They have options. In fact, 12 percent of conscripted Israelis get out of service through notoriously easy-to-obtain mental health exemptions. Instead of the 10-year terms that Russian draft evaders face, even when Israelis are sentenced for refusing, they receive consecutive sentences with breaks in between to see if they have changed their minds.
Tal and Sofia are not being held indefinitely in overcrowded, abusive, deadly prison facilities like incarcerated Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank. But, what Tal and Sophia are doing is heroic and places them within a legacy of great peacemakers.
The earliest recorded act of conscientious objection occurred in 295 A.D. when Maximilianus refused his conscription into the Roman Army. He was beheaded for refusing to kill. Later, he was canonized as a saint.
Like Maximilianus, Austrian farmer Franz Jägerstätter was arrested and executed for refusing conscription by the Nazis. He wrote, "I find that [my hands being in chains is] much better than if my will were in chains. Neither prison nor chains nor sentence of death can rob a man of the Faith and his free will.”
When, in 1944, devout Quaker Bayard Rustin was sentenced to three years for refusing to serve in World War II, he devoted his prison time to racial justice work. A disciple of Gandhian nonviolence, he organized his fellow prisoners to resist segregation in the prison. He was so successful that the head of the prison described him as “an extremely capable agitator.” Upon release, he traveled the country organizing communities, including the “First Freedom Ride” in 1947.
James Lawson, also a student of Gandhi, spent 13 months in prison between 1951 and 1952 for refusing to serve during the Korean War. Lawson went on to become, along with Rustin, an essential advisor to Dr. Martin Luther King.
Since its campaigns were broadcast on TV across America, the civil rights movement challenged the public, especially American youth, to choose between justice and segregation — between equality and oppression. At the same time, there was a surge of draft evaders and conscientious objectors to the Vietnam War, including prominent leaders like “good troublemaker” John Lewis.
Refusing and avoiding conscription became so popular during the Vietnam War that President Nixon’s commission reported that the movement was “expanding at an alarming rate,” leaving the government “almost powerless to apprehend and prosecute them.”
With the majority of Israelis opposing an end to the war in Gaza and 72 percent of them supporting no humanitarian aid, Tal and Sofia are not part of a growing popular movement, like what took place during the Vietnam War. But their contributions to peace are no less important.
Whether or not other young Israelis join them in jail — Tal and Sofia were part of a group of 200 Jewish Israeli 12th graders who pledged in August 2023 to refuse military service to protest the government’s effort to overhaul Israel’s judicial system — what Tal and Sofia have done places profound marks on the pages of history.
Members and contributors to the Fellowship of Reconciliation include the likes of Jane Addams, A.J. Muste, Mahatma Gandhi, Bayard Rustin, Martin Luther King Jr., Daniel Berrigan, Dorothy Day, James Lawson, and countless other brave conscientious objectors and peacemakers.
Today, as the world is watching a genocide take place in real-time — as of this writing, the death toll in Gaza is approaching 32,000 and famine is setting in — FOR-USA is proud to be raising money for an ad in an Israeli newspaper lifting up two of the most important conscientious objectors of our time. We invite you to join us by following Tal and Sofia’s journey at forusa.org/IsraeliRefusers.
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This Season of Peace, the World’s Soldiers Should Declare a Truce
Let’s suggest to the fighters among the various warring parties from the Middle East to Europe to Africa and beyond that they refuse to kill each other for a while.
Dec 24, 2023
An iconic song back in the 1960’s addressed the causes of war, and what leads young people to fight in them. Buffy Saint Marie’s “Universal Soldier” advised that we could end war if soldiers refused to fight. So what if we gave her idea a test this winter? Let’s suggest to the soldiers among the various warring parties from the Middle East to Europe to Africa and beyond that they refuse to kill each other for a while.
This idea may not be as crazy as it first may sound, and in fact has been tried in the past with limited success. Resistance to war is taking place right now in both Eastern Europe and the Middle East. In Israel, thousands of military reservists are refusing to take part in the violence of the occupation, and in protest of the country’s drift toward authoritarianism. Among Palestinians, non-violent resistance also has a very large following, and has had for a number of years. And if anything, the numbers of military refuseniks in Russia and Ukraine are even greater. The BBC has reported that 20,000 young men have fled Ukraine to avoid military service, and those numbers in Russia are likely higher.
In fact, resistance to war by young men facing conscription and even active duty soldiers is not new, and has a storied history.
it is incredible that crucial facts about our military adventures, such as GI resistance during the Vietnam War, are almost entirely absent from the news and history as it is taught.
For instance, during the First World War on the evening of December 24 in 1914, peace broke out in the most unlikely of places. In the blasted, putrid trenches of Belgium and France, soldiers fighting on the Western Front put aside their arms in what became known as the Christmas Truce. Although World War I was then only a few months old, there had already been a million combat deaths. Many soldiers were weary of the futility and horrific costs of the war, and thousands of them spontaneously stopped trying to kill each other.
The drama began on Christmas Eve, as German soldiers lit up their Tannenbaums (Christmas trees), put them on top of their trenches in view of the Allied troops, and began to sing carols. From there, full scale fraternization became widespread. Troops put down their weapons, climbed out of the trenches, and met in no-mans-land to pray and sing and exchange greetings and gifts. The cease fire continued into Christmas Day, during which the dead were buried, toasts were exchanged, and soccer games played.
The break in hostilities was actually a mutiny, not a truce. It was initiated by the soldiers themselves against express orders from military commanders. In fact, the political and military leaders on both sides were horrified when the shooting stopped and did everything they could to force a rapid resumption of hostilities. Dire threats of severe punishment were issued, and the news of the rebellion was suppressed. But in spite of this, it took weeks for the fighting to resume in some areas. Lance Corporal Adolph Hitler, serving with the Bavarian Army, did not think much of the cease-fire either.
The Christmas Truce is often portrayed as a singular event, and it is true that in the later years of the war there were few holiday cease-fires. But as the war ground on in its destructive stupidity, very large mutinies took place. In the East, the Russian army disintegrated, the soldiers voted with their feet and went home to make revolution. There were also large-scale mutinies among German and French troops, weary of being fodder for cannons. Much of Europe, not just Russia, teetered on the brink of revolution.
In fact, military mutinies have been common throughout history. During the Napoleonic Wars entire British naval fleets rebelled over brutal treatment and sympathy with French republican ideals. Warships commanded by mutineers blockaded the port of London.
The United States armed forces have at times also rebelled, for a variety of reasons. During the Mexican American War of 1846 to 1848 an entire battalion of Irish immigrants went over to the Mexican side; and in the Civil War fraternization was widespread.
But it was during the Vietnam War that resistance from inside the U.S. military was most consequential. By 1971 the U.S. military was nearly unable to function due to active dissent among all branches of the armed forces. Aircraft carriers could not put to sea, airmen declined to fly, and ground units did not engage. Disgruntled troops had as much as or more to do with ending the war than the anti-war movement.
Upon reflection, it is incredible that crucial facts about our military adventures, such as GI resistance during the Vietnam War, are almost entirely absent from the news and history as it is taught. The topic is deemed inappropriate for young minds in our high schools and most universities, and has all but disappeared from the public consciousness. One cannot help but wonder how free our free society actually is.
In this season of peace, the citizens of the world can hope for another spontaneous truce from the trenches. If so, Buffy Saint Marie will deserve some of the credit.
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