The rite of refusal: among the Israelis who refuse to serve in Palestinian territories are gay soldiers who say they're taking a stand against oppression. (World).

During the 3 1/2 years he served in the Israel Defense Forces, beginning at age 18, Eshel Herzog was assigned to a tank artillery gun, serving in both southern Lebanon and in the Palestinian territory of the West Bank. Now 23 and no longer on active duty, the openly gay man is required by Israeli law to report for annual terms in the reserve army--sometimes for as long as 45 days--until he turns 45. But Herzog is refusing to do so. "I sent a letter to the army and also to the minister of defense [saying] that I am not going to serve in any way," he says.

Herzog is just one of hundreds of Israelis, many of them gay men and lesbians, who are illegally opting out of their required military duty in opposition to Israel's presence in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, which are home to more than 3 million Palestinians. For most of these men and women, their protest extends to service only in the territories, but Herzog says he won't participate in any mission, regardless of where he is ordered to serve. "There is no difference," he says. "When I serve inside Israel, they will send someone else [to the territories]. That is not making a political statement.

"My politics says that minorities should feel connected with any struggle against oppression," he continues. "I cannot see myself, as a gay [man], contributing to oppression [of] other minorities, including women, Palestinians, transgenders, whatever."

If any group of people can understand Herzog's position, he says, it should be his fellow Jews, who have suffered oppression for centuries. "Every Jew should feel responsibility of the oppression he is being part of," Herzog says. "As an oppressed minority we should feel also a connection in our hearts. It's not only a logical connection, it's an emotional connection."

Similarly, Lior Kay, a 27-year-old refuser, says he feels a special responsibility to oppose Israel's actions in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. "We are not only individuals," he says. "We are the gay community. As a community [we have] a power. We must have opinions about many issues, not about only gay issues. If we want rights, we must take part in the political process, not only the gay political process."

So far, Kay has served five reserve terms, two of them in the Palestinian territories. Scheduled to report for his sixth term three days after being first interviewed for this story, he planned to tell his commanding officer that he would not serve in the territories and that he would not guard Palestinian prisoners. "I will refuse to go. I will go to jail. [The occupation] is destroying the Israeli society from the inside," he said at the time. Interviewed a week later, Kay happily reported that he was serving within Israel's borders excluding the Palestinian territories.

For its part, the army has promised to jail any refusers. The Advocate's telephone calls to the army's press offices in Israel and to the Israeli consulate in New York City were not returned.