Dear Hadas,

We have been following your refusal to serve in the military for a couple of months now -- Ofer Neiman from Yesh G’vul and Ruth Hiller from New Profile sent us details about your imprisonment. Since then we've kept our eyes on the New Profile website. We are delighted that you are publicly refusing to serve -- we thank you for your principled & brave stand.  We hope you are well & in good spirits.

My name is Michael Kalmanovitz, from Payday -- a network of men working with the Global Women's Strike.  We work with refuseniks & their families (usually wives, mothers, sisters & aunts) & their campaigns in a number of countries – an international army of refusniks!  Our sisters in San Francisco met with Ruth Hiller a while ago & said that the anti-military organising that New Profile is doing is just fantastic. 

We have been publicising your fight for CO status on our website www.refusingtokill.net & at various events: We took a placard with your picture to the Carmel-Agrexco Valentine’s Day picket, organised by BIG here in the UK. 

This was the first occasion that J-BIG (Jews Boycotting Israeli Goods) had a public presence.  There were over a 100 on the picket -- people were shocked that (at the time) you were facing your fourth term in jail. 

Opposite is a copy of the latest placard – it’s on the wall at the Crossroads Women’s Centre in London from where the Strike network is co-ordinated & also where we’re based -- along with placards of refusniks Ehren Watada, Agustin Aguayo, Halil Savda (Turkey) & Ron Kovic (Vietnam war refuser, US).

We took information about you from the New Profile website & made it into a flyer to distribute at the inaugural meeting of Independent Jewish Voices. Their intention is to create an organisation in contrast to “those who claim to speak on behalf of Jews in Britain who put support for the policies of an occupying power above the human rights of an occupied people.”

We also distributed flyers with information about you at the first sports boycott demonstration in the UK -- a picket outside the Football Association on the day that England played Israel at the Euro 2008 qualifier.

It’s clear from what is happening here in the UK, in the US & in fact all over the place that

criticism of the occupation is exponentially on the rise– for which you and others like you must take some credit.  Zionism no longer has the hold it did over people, Jewish or not, even on the BBC! It’s just great that the whole thing is turning round & the movement for justice everywhere – the traditional Jewish imperative that Zionism had tried to repress -- is on the rise again.

Finally we just wanted to be sure that you knew about Halil Savda & others in Turkey who face a cycle of arrest, detention, trial, “release” & new arrest.  Whether it is in Turkey, Israel or anywhere, it is against any notion of natural justice and must stop.  It may be of help to know that CO Osman Murat Ülke, also from Turkey, won a great victory in the European court on the issue of being repeatedly tried for the same “offence” in violation of Article 3 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.

Please let us know how you are doing – we assume you have completed your fifth sentence & are now out of jail.  Are you facing re-arrest, is there any news about getting CO status?  We’d be delighted to publicise news about your legal case, prison conditions, the support (or hostility) you’re getting, organising with other refusers, or any other organising that you’re doing.

Again, thank you for your courage on behalf of all of us.

Yours for refusing to kill,

Michael