Amichai Shikli
Amichai ShikliYisrael Peretz

The head of the Tavor pre-military preparatory program in Nazareth Illit Major (res.) Amichai Shikli welcomes the Education Minister's new plan to raise motivation for combat service.

Shikli sees the plan as part of the response to draft refusal mechanisms operating in Israel - some of them state-funded.

"Naïve is the person who thinks the draft refusenik's letter is a spontaneous initiative that sprung up in the minds of a few young people," Shikli says. "It is an entire mechanism mobilized specifically for this cause. The Mesarvot association working through New Profile; the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, and more. Part of it, foolishly, even enjoys government budgets.

"Social TV is the official refusal channel that benefits from the Communications Ministry budgets and no fewer than five national service appointments," Shikli adds. "In contrast to this mechanism, the State of Israel must come to its senses and provide an appropriate educational response.

"The Education Ministry program is the best answer to the refusal mechanisms and to provide education for meaningful combat service," Shikli notes.

"If we want a strong and determined army in which all take part - kibbutzniks, city dwellers, Druze, secular, religious people - we mustn't fall asleep in preserving the most basic values of Zionism, responsibility towards each other and for the fate of the nation and the State. In the bleak Middle East reality, this is not a political question - this is an existential question."