From the time the Oslo deal with the PLO was announced in late August, the leaders of the Prisoners of Conscience have been demonstrating publicly at every opportunity against policies they view as damaging to Israel. Geographically, this is the same Israel they fought for, and risked life, limb and freedom to reach. But politically -- in terms of policy, not politics -- this is not what they strove for their entire lives. So they protest, at every given opportunity.
These people are no strangers to prison cells -- especially not when the "crime" is public protest against unfair or unsafe policies of the government. It should therefore be no surprise to them that such protests land them in prison again. Yet it is a surprise. Their protests in the Soviet Union were against the restrictive emigration and religious policies of the government. They wanted to move to Israel where they could be free Jews living at home. At last they were allowed to leave for Israel and begin their lives anew.
Now, they are in positions where they must protest again, and again they must protest against government restrictions on religion and mobility. Indeed, in the eyes of these people, there is little reason to differ between the Israeli government of Yitzchak Rabin and the Soviet governments under Brezhnev, Andropov, and Chernenko. So they protest. So they are imprisoned. In the Soviet Union it was for fifteen days at a time until they were finally charged with more serious "crimes". In Israel it ranges from 28 days to three months without charge. In the Soviet Union, the Israeli government fought diplomatically on their behalf, and the American government imposed trade sanctions on the Soviet Union on their behalf. In Israel, no government will fight for them.
Since the beginning of September, Yosef Begun has been arrested twice for protesting against Israeli government policy in Judea and Samaria. Yosef Mendelevich has also been arrested twice. This is not what they came to Israel for; it is the opposite. It was because of their longing for Israel that they were arrested in the Soviet Union, and it is because of that same longing -- perhaps manifest slightly differently -- that they are being arrested now.
This is a feature of the public unrest that has been growing in Israel since September that has not been mentioned in the media in North America. There has been no discussion regarding the old-new Prisoners of Conscience. It is highly doubtful that Herzl had this in mind in the term "Old-New Land", but this is what Rabin has given us of it.
During the original Prisoner of Conscience campaigns, heavy emphasis was put on the government that deprived these people of their rights to protest, mobility, and freedom to determine their place of residence. Trade sanctions were imposed by the United States, official protests were registered by most Western countries, and the issue even stood in the way of international treaties on nuclear arms control. Today, the Prisoners of Conscience are lost in the crowd. Only they are still being arrested and imprisoned.
Israel's conscience -- Zionist ideology and practice -- is embodied in its Declaration of Independence: "This right is the natural right of the Jewish people to be masters of their own fate ... in their own sovereign state. ... The State of Israel will be open for Jewish immigration and for the Ingathering of the Exiles; ... it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the Prophets of Israel; ... it will guarantee freedom of ... conscience."
This is what Ida Nudel, Natan Sharansky, Begun, and Mendelevich, and two million others did not have in the Soviet Union. This is what they sought in Israel. Now, when they finally have what they have sought for their entire lives, it is once again not theirs to be had.
The basic Zionist dream is to live in the land of Israel -- in the Jewish State of Israel -- in freedom to practice Judaism without undue influence from a world that may or may not want us around. Israeli Basic Law -- the Law of Return -- guarantees all Jews the right to citizenship in Israel by merely asking for it. Israel is a land where Jews and Judaism can flourish. That is Zionism; that is the conscience of Israel.
How is it then, that the epitome of the oppressed Jew, the very people for whom Israel was created, do not have any greater freedom as Jews in Israel than they did as Jews in the Soviet Union? How is it that the Prisoners of Conscience are again Prisoners of Conscience in their own home?
The appellation given to these people -- Prisoners of Conscience -- speaks to its opposite as well. For if these people are Prisoners of their Conscience, their captors surely have misplaced or ignored their conscience. If Begun and Mendelevich are Prisoners of their conscience, then Brezhnev and Rabin must be Prisoners of little conscience.
It is a sad day when we need to protest on behalf of Prisoners of Conscience in a land where they are supposed to be free Jews.
Copyright 1994. Reproduction in electronic or print format by permission only.
