Steel screens shield an intersection from snipers during the Sarajevo siege during the winter of 1992-1993. Photo: Wikimedia/Christian Maréchal.
By James Ray – Nov 19, 2025
The siege of Sarajevo included allegations of wealthy foreigners paying to harm Bosnians in what has became known as “sniper tourism.” Today, something eerily similar is underway in Palestine.
“I think those are bullet holes.”
Those were the first words I muttered to my classmate on the bus into Sarajevo, Bosnia, during a brief visit in 2019. We had flown in from Frankfurt, Germany, as part of a study abroad program researching the interactions between the European Union (EU) and the post-Yugoslav and post-Soviet spheres. The program, as we quickly learned, amounted more to a lesson in how the German-dominated EU exploited the people of former communist projects for its own economic gain. Still, in the moment, all we could think of was how beautiful and, at the same time, damaged the city we were entering truly was.
Sarajevo is a city with a deep history, clearly visible in its architecture. Ottoman-era constructs, symbols of a historic occupation, give way to brutalist Yugoslav designs and, more recently, Gulf-state-funded malls and projects situated next to slums where Sarajevo’s poorest resided. Our tour guide, a Marxist feminist, later made sure to explain as we gazed upon the shanties that they were likely to be demolished by mall expansions and similar construction in the upcoming years.
For the moment, however, I sat in my bus gazing upon the buildings as they flew past my window. Tying together much of the architecture I saw, regardless of era, were the small marks and holes at various locations across their exteriors. These were the lasting scars of the dissolution of Yugoslavia—a series of events that saw Sarajevo put under a brutal multi-year siege by fascist ethnonationalist forces. The causes of the dissolution of what had been the hard-fought fruit of the Balkan people’s efforts to enact a unified socialist vision for their republics and the siege of Sarajevo were as tragic as they were numerous.
Yugoslavia’s dissolution: a brief overview
As outlined extensively in Mike Karadjis’ seminal work “Bosnia, Kosova, and the West,” the dissolution can be chalked up to numerous factors. A mixture of foreign meddling that included large amounts of foreign direct investments in the Yugoslav economy (centralized in Serbia, Croatia, and Slovenia), which frequently had disastrous impacts for the federation’s economies, and larger problems stemming from economic development paths of the federation’s republics, which oftentimes saw competition amongst them coupled with the underdevelopment of “poorer” southern republics played a sizable factor.
The development of the “special economic relationship” between Yugoslavia and the West post-World War II (following the split between Yugoslavia’s Josip Broz Tito and the Soviet Union’s Joseph Stalin) had a perhaps unintended consequence of outsized International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank (WB) influence in the Yugoslav economy, which these institutions leveraged to extract concessions that included austerity measures and continued centralization of Yugoslav bureaucracy under an increasingly Serb-dominated state aparatus. The damage resulting from the federation’s domestic economic model, combined with foreign meddling and particularly IMF-WB pressure, had disastrous effects borne directly by Yugoslavia’s working class.
It’s hardly surprising that the conditions faced by so many in Yugoslavia as dissolution neared had the effect of what Karadjis described as “driving the republics apart, as each tried to fend for itself in an increasingly difficult environment.” Interestingly, it seems that the IMF-WB’s insistence on centralization may well have helped seal the federation’s fate, as non-Serbian republics felt the strain of an increasingly Serb-dominated central bureaucracy and military.
Nationalist movements began taking advantage of these pressures and the general discontent of various populations they created and expanded their influence, particularly those movements in Serbia and Croatia. It was in this context that Slobodan Milošević, former head of Beobank and Technogas, came to power in the former. According to Karadjis:
“Of the main aspects of his program — greater promotion of the market economy, greater recentralization, and the promotion of a virulent Serb nationalism — the first two were in accordance to IMF dictates, while the third diverted sections of the Serb working class from its joint struggle with other workers against the IMF program. Hence a ‘verticle’ integration along the lines of a new bourgeois nation could develop, to cut through the ‘horizontal’ alliance along class lines.”
Milošević 1988 “Milošević Commission,” made in collaboration with liberal economists and like-minded federal prime ministers, including Ante Markovic, described by the BBC at the time as “Washington’s best ally in Yugoslavia unsurprisingly focused on further liberalization of the economy. The commission effectively ended the socialist project in Yugoslavia. Karadjis explains:
“From May 1988, major changes, heralded by the Milošević Commission, formally abolished what was left of the socialist system. These included sweeping privatization and full ownership rights for foreign capital, deregulation of the banking system, equality of public and private ownership, and the abolition of ‘workers’ self-managament’ of enterprises — a key IMF demand.”
Coupled with these efforts were a series of moves that helped Milošević shore up his power, including the mobilization of Serbian nationalists in a so-called “anti-bureaucratic revolution” that brought down Communist governments in Vojvodina, Montenegro, and Kosovo. Within a few years, units of the Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA) under orders from Belgrade were embroiled in a war in Croatia in what was realistically a war of conquest in an effort to build a “Greater Serbia” advocated by Milošević and his nationalist allies.
The war would be a boondoggle for the JNA. Milošević himself survived the fiasco largely due to US support through the imposition of the “Vance Plan,” which froze the battle lines in Croatia to the benefit of the nationalist Serb Democratic Party (SDS) and, critically, allowed the JNA to remove its heavy armaments from Croatia into Bosnia. These heavy armaments included 300 tanks, 280 artillery pieces, 210 aircraft, and tens of thousands of tons of other equipment and supplies, per Karadjis.
All of this and more set the stage for what was to come in Bosnia.
Serbian siege, international tourism opportunity
Setbacks in Croatia did little to stifle the quasi-settler-colonial ambitions of Serbian nationalists, who saw securing the existence of “Greater Serbia” as necessary to secure a prosperous future for their state (or at least those within the national bourgeoisie who were the real intended beneficiaries of such a national project).
In April 1992, following a successful independence referendum in Bosnia, a mixture of 100,000 JNA soldiers and thousands of irregulars who would form fascist “Chetnik” militias, many of whom would later come together to form the Bosnian Serb Army (BSA), began military operations to secure territory and ethnically cleanse non-Serb populations within the nation. The heavy weapons that the JNA was able to remove from the Croatian front were retasked to help pro-Serb forces terrorize countless cities, among them Sarajevo.
April saw the beginnings of what would become the longest siege of a city in modern European history through the 20th century as Serbian forces entrenched themselves around Sarajevo. Unable to rally the manpower and resources to fully take the city, but unable to be dislodged due in no small part to a US-led arms embargo that left Bosnian military forces chronically undersupplied, Serbian forces resorted to collective punishment that bears a striking resemblance to what we have seen over the years in Gaza.
Supplies to the city were quickly cut off, resulting in widespread lack of food, electricity, and other goods. One Bosnian man whom I spoke to in Sarajevo, who lived through the siege, talked to me about the hunger he and his family faced, as well as the dangers inherent in trying to find anything to stave it off as they came under regular fire by Serbian forces. They spent much of the siege in a cellar, a makeshift bunker for the family, to avoid the violence that accompanied the starvation campaign.
They had good reason for going underground. As pro-Serb nationalist forces starved Sarajevo, artillery on the hills began opening fire. Over 300 shells were fired into Sarajevo daily during the more than 3-year siege, with 3,700 being fired in a single day in what those in the city call “Hell Day.” The times of these shellings were irregular to keep the population in a constant state of fear and disarray.
This had immediate effects on the daily lives of those in the city. A tour guide who took our student group through part of the city said, “Every day was gambling with your life,” and noted that Sarajevo’s residents had to choose every day to risk their lives just to obtain what little food and other supplies were available.
The result was widespread starvation. The same tour guide noted that as a child living through the siege, he “always felt hungry.” He recalled collecting and licking the wrappers of the chocolate bars from local UN distribution efforts to try to remember the taste. This story and countless others helped paint the picture of the general desperation that his family and countless others felt.
The shelling was coupled with the constant threat of sniper fire, which took the lives of countless people within the city and remained as unpredictable as the artillery bombardments. The targeting itself was indiscriminate, meaning anyone could find themselves in the crosshairs of snipers who were tasked with terrorizing as many as possible. Deaths were common as Sarajevo residents were gunned down while going about their day.
Biking to get food, walking across the street, opening a window at the wrong time, all of these actions and more could lead to injury and death. Thousands of people had to reconcile with a reality in which the possibility of loss lurked in every corner. The threat of loss permeated the air of the city, as did an uneasy realization that nowhere was safe from the violence of the siege.
Unbeknownst to many in Sarajevo, who spent years dodging between buildings to avoid the constant barrage of bullets, it seems that not all of the sniper fire came from the barrels of Chetnik fighters. Their hell, it seems, had been turned into a tourist opportunity. They called it “Sniper Tourism,” the process by which wealthy international audiences paid large sums of money to enter the front lines of the siege and join in the slaughter.
The reality of sniper tourism has seen renewed interest due to new cases in Italy, but the truth of these tours has been spoken of by those in Bosnia for some time now. Ezio Gavazzeni, a Milan-based writer, highlighted the multinational nature of these tourism efforts, claiming that alongside Italian citizens, “There were Germans, French, English … people from all western countries who paid large sums of money to be taken there to shoot civilians.”
By bribing military officials administering the siege, they could turn the slaughter of thousands into something of a safari. It is unknown how many men, women, and children were murdered by these tourists, but the existence of a pay-to-kill system whereby the wealthiest can hunt those starving under siege for sport is enough to make one’s stomach turn. It is not a historical event without a contemporary parallel, however, as a similar dynamic has been at play for years now in Palestine.
Israeli militourism: today’s ‘sniper tourists’
There has seldom been a military force more reliant on international support than the Israeli occupational forces (IOF). The military, like the colony itself, is largely the product of billions in economic aid and arms shipments. This support has, for decades, enabled it to sustain its occupation operations, including genocidal efforts like that in Gaza today and the continued theft and retention of land in Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria.
Without economic or manufacturing bases that would even begin to meet its domestic military needs, the colony has found itself continually and increasingly reliant on its imperial benefactors, who are arming it to the teeth and maintaining a “qualitative edge” over regional opposition forces. This has emboldened Israelis and allowed them to feel comfortable waging multi-front campaigns across the region in pursuit of political, economic, and military dominance.
This dependency, however, extends beyond aid and armaments. All the money and material in the world cannot overcome the limiting factor that is the domestic Israeli population. Even with millions in the colony being actively conscripted into various roles to support its efforts, there remain real limitations on the sustained mobilization capacity of the populace. One solution to this limit, or at least a means of raising the ceiling of the limit itself, has been a widespread effort to entice foreigners to settle in the colony and, critically, serve in its armed forces.
What this solution has looked like practically is a proliferation of organizations focusing on indoctrination and recruitment of international volunteers. These organizations have been highly successful, with tens of thousands of individuals going through their programs each year. As of recent reporting, around 23,380 American citizens currently serve in the ranks of the IOF.
Another 40,000 or so every year find themselves engaging in programs like Taglit Birthright, a 10-day propaganda excursion aiming to ensure that foreigners as young as 18 go home with a deepened commitment to the project and its values (ideally choosing to later settle in the colony and join its military ranks).
What the project has established is an external recruitment pipeline targeting people of all ages to entice them to join the occupation and assist in its violent operations. These foreigners, wearing the uniforms of a military body that itself is distinctly foreign to the land it occupies, are drawn to a “new frontier” where they can live out the violent fantasies of settler colonialists across history.
Thousands participate in military service before “going home,” reintegrating into their communities after aiding in genocidal slaughter and occupational acts of terror, free of consequence. In effect, these men and women are going on safari, their intended prey being Palestinians and all other people who find themselves in the sights of the IOF. These individuals can be understood as “militourists,” or those engaging in functional tourism that facilitates the military of the colony, whether by serving in combat units directly or engaging in support functions that keep the IOF running in the day-to-day.
This bears striking resemblance to the sniper tourists of Sarajevo, save for the amount of money required to participate and the length of stay. In the case of Israeli international volunteers, the cost is much lower, with Zionist organizations oftentimes covering much of the overhead. Unlike their historic counterparts in Sarajevo, they also spend much more time on the ground. As we will cover later in this piece, however, this is accounted for by the colony, which supports various programs to help volunteers of all stripes have engaging experiences with as much support as they need as they perform their roles.
The support front: keeping the IOF running smoothly
Not all of the participants in the slaughter and occupation of Palestinians are directly taking part in armed hostilities. Like all militaries, extensive logistical and support needs require busy hands that international volunteers of all backgrounds and ages can provide. In the Israeli context, hundreds of thousands have been put to use ensuring that these sometimes mundane tasks are completed, keeping the IOF running smoothly and best able to meet the challenges resultant from its continued occupational activity.
One major organization helping facilitate this militourist support front is Sar-El. Started in 1983, Sar-El describes itself as “a non-political volunteer organization dedicated to supporting Israel.” Since its foundation, the organization has had a fairly narrow goal of connecting international volunteers to the IOF, giving them a chance to help the Israeli cause without ever participating in armed combat.
Rather than directly killing Palestinians and others in the region, these militourists partake in all of the mundane activities that allow others in the IOF to do so as effectively as possible. Testimony from former Sar-El volunteer Judith Segaloff detailed the work she and others in the program underwent:
“The Sar-El program provides eager volunteers with any work that helps the army, such as painting barracks, fixing army bases, cleaning warehouses, preparing medical boxes, folding and organizing uniforms, and shipping rations to various units.”
Though not as flashy as the front-line combat roles that other militourists can volunteer for, the workforce Sar-El provides ensures that the military can redirect more of its active duty forces to other roles and relieve some of the pressure of traditional mobilization constraints. Given that they can participate without the need for basic training or an expectation of active combat, a wider population can participate as well, including individuals who otherwise wouldn’t pass IOF fitness requirements. That doesn’t mean these tourist volunteers are unable to live out a military experience on their trip. As Segaloff explained:
“The Sar-El volunteers dress in army uniforms, sleep in comfortable on-base accommodations with lockers, bathrooms, and showers, and have a living room. They must abide by army rules (no Wi-Fi, separate sleeping quarters for men and women, and no drugs or alcohol). They are supervised by 19-year-old IDF soldiers. The young soldiers create activities for the groups that include how to speak Israeli slang, Krav Maga, Magen David Adom first-aid courses, tours, lectures, and even midnight drills to simulate the real army experience.”
Sar-El alone has been an unmitigated success for the IOF, with more than 240,000 militourists signing up since its founding (over 36,000 of them having signed up after October 7th, 2023). It is not just a multinational force, including participants from over 40 nations, including but not limited to France, Australia, Hungary, Brazil, the United Kingdom, the United States, Norway, and the Czech Republic, but also a multifaith one. According to Segaloff, up to a quarter of Sar-El volunteers are not Jewish.
Naturally, a non-insignificant number of these volunteers opt to later become more active members of the IOF. Councillors are on the ground for those who want to enlist after their time as volunteers, and even if they don’t, they are always free to participate in another “tour” as Sar-El militourists. As Segaloff noted:
“As for my dream of joining the army, even though packing boxes was by far not the most exciting task I’ve ever done in my life, the group was great, I felt useful knowing that I was doing something to contribute to the greater good, and I will absolutely do it again!”
The Zionist colony seeks more than just logistical and support role fulfillment from its international volunteers, however. For those who can make it through basic training, the colony has myriad organizations ready to help them kill their fellow man.
Direct military volunteers: occupational safari
Militourists who wish to serve in the IOF are a prized commodity for the colony. Unsurprisingly, this has led Zionists to put significant resources into foreign recruitment efforts. These volunteers, who in many cases do not need to live in the colony after their service, help the IOF bolster its ranks and externalize its losses should these soldiers be killed. After all, it is politically less costly for Israeli officials to lose a soldier who’s families is often living abroad, unable to effectively influence the domestic political scene or vote against them down the line.
Garin Mahal, a nonprofit established in 2009 in cooperation with Israel’s Ministry of Defense, offers programs specially tailored for foreign volunteers that prepare them for service in the Israeli military. It is part of a larger support front for would-be soldiers that helps ease their transition into military service, providing support and tools that help them succeed, and even housing for those in need of a roof over their heads in occupied Jerusalem.
These programs are vital for the overall sustained recruitment process, giving militourists who may very well feel uncomfortable or nervous in longer-term commitments a support network that helps them navigate a foreign space while providing their labor to the colony. Those who return home after their service may find themselves advancing the interests of the colony in different ways as well. The program offers “Israel advocacy training” so that volunteers can, as stated by the organization, serve a vital role as ambassadors to “Israel” both on campus and within their own communities.
Mahal is far from the only organization of this variety. Tzofim Garin Tzabar, founded in 1991, focuses on lone settler soldiers. It boasts of being the only “360 degree support system for its participants, with a comprehensive support network that they state includes:
“… accommodation on a full board basis throughout the whole service, physical and mental preparation to the army, Hebrew studies, assistance with Israel civil services and IDF bureaucracy, integration to Israeli society, building a family within a host community in Israel (kibbutz/Ra’anana).”
Tzofim Garin Tzabar and Garin Mahal have some differences in length of commitment and long-term benefits related to IOF service, but like Sar-El, they’ve been wildly successful. Tzofim Garin Tzabar alone cites having supported more than 7,000 young adults as they join the IOF since its founding, helping thousands of Zionists join the occupational forces and supplement the ranks of its genocidaires.
Zionist Entity Against Palestine: There is No Space for Life
For lone soldiers, those who come over to serve in the IOF by themselves as their families remain abroad, the benefits of militourism can be fairly sizable, with a support network that extends even beyond service. The Nefesh B’Nefesh Lone Soldiers Program, for example, seems to help lone soldiers acclimate similarly to Tzofim Garin Tzabar and Garin Mahal, with the added push to help these militourists become permanently integrated settlers in the colony. The home page of its website states:
“With the full support of the IDF, and in cooperation with the Friends of the IDF (FIDF), the Nefesh B’Nefesh Lone Soldiers Program was established to assist and support the brave young men and women who choose to serve in the IDF, regardless of their country of origin.
The Lone Soldiers Program acts as the address for every Lone Soldier in Israel before, during, and after their service in the IDF. We provide resources, support and guidance for a successful IDF service and acclimation to life in Israel.”
These efforts have created a sustained recruitment pipeline for the colony’s combat and combat support units, with thousands bolstering the ranks of the IOF. They fight and sometimes die for the interests of Zionism, and in doing so help directly sustain the colony’s activities.
Connecting sniper tourism and IOF militourism
There are clear differences between the sniper tourists who went on Safari in Sarajevo and those who have chosen to become militourists in the IOF. Rather than a handful of foreign nationals of sizable wealth engaging in sporadic and comparatively brief excursions to Bosnia to hunt down those in the streets they overlooked, IOF militourism is incredibly expansive, encompassing hundreds of thousands of people spending months (if not years) facilitating the occupation of millions.
The individuals signing up to aid in the murder and subjugation of those in Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, and beyond are oftentimes financially supported, if not profiting from their activity outright, by a colony desperate to alleviate its own mobilization constraints and manpower needs. Rather than tourists simply paying off officials to play soldier, many IOF militourists become soldiers themselves, doing sustained harm on a much wider scale.
What connects these populations, however, is the willingness for those to go on excursions in foreign lands to do real harm against their fellow man before returning home and reintegrating into their cities, towns, and villages. The superwealthy multinational body that made up the ranks of sniper tourists left the front lines when they reached the end of the time they paid for, travelled back to Italy and other states they called home, and returned to their day-to-day. Similarly, thousands of IOF militourists have returned home after their volunteer service, whether as support staff or direct combat units, to reenter their jobs, hug their friends and family, and speak joyfully of the memories they made at the expense of millions.
Critically, both of these populations endured little to no consequence for the death and suffering they wrought. Bosnian lives in Sarajevo taken by sniper tourists have not resulted in prosecution to this point. Many of those involved have gone on to live lives without even being named in the atrocities they were complicit in. In the case of IOF militourists, they are oftentimes even celebrated by their friends, families, and communities. Their service is seen as a badge of honor rather than the moral stain that it is. Their work is seen as a worthwhile effort in a righteous cause.
All the while, their victims bear the scars and memories of the efforts of these international tourists. Palestinians and Bosnians remember the loss, the subjugation, the hunger, the fear, while those who joyfully participated in their slaughter rest easy under the roofs of warm homes alongside their families and friends. Whether in Sarajevo or Gaza, the joy of the oppressors is to the detriment of the oppressed.
