Israeli army veterans show dark side of occupation

[ProgressiveMuslim]

By Bernd Debusmann, Special Correspondent
Reuters
Tuesday, March 20, 2007; 3:18 AM

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/20/AR2007032000116_pf.html

HEBRON, West Bank (Reuters) -- Disenchanted Israeli army veterans have turned into guides to one of the bleakest places on the West Bank, the Israeli-held part of Hebron, to highlight what they say is the ugly face of occupation most Israelis never see.

Over the past 20 months, former soldiers have led some 2,500 people, in small groups of around a dozen, mostly Israelis, on grim show-and-tell excursions meant to explain the brutalizing effect of daily routine in an occupied city.

Stops on the tours include the positions from where former squad commander Yehuda Shaul says he fired his grenade machinegun, night after night, into a densely populated neighborhood from where Palestinians, night after night, fired on Jewish settlements.

"A grenade machine gun is an awesome weapon, but it is inaccurate," he says. "The grenades kill everything within a radius of eight meters, injure anyone within a radius of 16. So, at first you worry about hitting innocent civilians. After a while, you shrug off the worries and get used to it. In the end, you look forward to blasting away."

Burly, bearded and from an ultra-orthodox background, the 24-year-old Shaul was one of the founders of Breaking the Silence, a group of former soldiers who shocked Israel in 2004 with an exhibition of photographs and video testimony on harassment and abuse of Palestinians.

<snip>

[number6]

1. Terrorism going both ways ...

"Stops on the tours include the positions from where former squad commander Yehuda Shaul says he fired his grenade machinegun, night after night, into a densely populated neighborhood from where Palestinians, night after night, fired on Jewish settlements."

[Shaktimaan]

2. I really admire these guys.

I think what they are doing is really commendable. It takes a lot of guts to a stand of this nature. This issue is one of the most polarizing controversies for Israelis and while most Israelis don't support or like the settlers, the vocal minority that do are EXTREMELY vocal (as are most Israelis in my experience) :). Not only are they willing to open themselves up to harsh criticism (and possibly even violent retribution, though it probably won't come to that,) they're going the extra step and actually conducting tours right through Hebron so people have a chance to see the situation there for themselves. Straight up grassroots education and activism. Good stuff.

Bear in mind too that these people had to make the difficult decision of talking about their own complicity in Palestinian oppression and knowingly criticising the IDF in a way that will probably be used (and misconstrued) worldwide as fodder against all of Israel in the perpetual debate over zionism. It is not always an easy thing and I think it shows a lot of guts. When I occasionally hear a comment on one of these forums sardonically asking why more Israelis aren't refusing to serve if they genuinely are against the settlements it reminds me that there's a real schism between the way most Westerners view their militaries and how many Israelis do. (Trust me on this one, I am an American with an an Israeli fiancée and we talk about this shit constantly. It's fascinating for me.) Israelis do face (and always have faced) a very real threat to their nation that most westerners would have difficulty grasping. And everybody serves. It's fine to make a political statement and do your part to influence the government, as these people are admirably doing, but very few play politics with their service, no matter how much they may hate their station.

I'd like to point out that this kind of organizing, while critical of settlements and some government policies, is inherently positive and based around first-hand experience and education without condescention. I'm contrasting them, obviously, against many of the young pro-palestinian radical groups who have been entering the west bank to engage in protests and civil disobedience. While I understand their desire to do something positive to end the conflict, directly enagaging with the lowest rung of the system (the soldiers themselves) is a bad strategy for changing the hearts and minds of the average Israeli. Because they don't see the same selfless revolutionary fighting for the common good many of these kids see when they gaze into a mirror. They see a lot of (frequently quite young) people from pampered western states taking a few weeks off to come to their country and play hero by lecturing to them condescendingly about how THEY know how to solve one of the world's most intractable conflicts, even though they will not be the ones who have to deal with any of the consequences.

I think they could take a page from these guys, personally.

[ProgressiveMuslim]

3. I don't think I quite understand your point.

On one hand you're saying: good for these guys, but on the other, this is anot a good way to communicate the message to Isarelis.

Can you clarify?

[Violet_Crumble]

4. Yeah, the post came across as a bit contradictory to me as well...

I'd be interested to find out what Shakti thinks would be a good way to communicate the message to Israelis...

[pelsar]

6. the contradiction is inherent in the situation......

like so many of the situations that an IDF soldier will find himself in.

These guys live a contradiction:

one one hand they are loyal to the state and believe that the govt has their best interests at heart.

they also believe the state has to be defended and do not trust the palestenians in that giving back the westbank may very well mean kassams on israeli cities or suicide bombers on the busses. (which is why they do their reserve duty...which is in fact volunteer at this point, as its easy to get out of it)

on the other hand they find themselves protecting israeli citiizens that are just as fanatic as any hamasnik, and risking their lives for them, while threatening, breaking intl laws etc against the palestinians.

In the choices they have to make in terms of lives to protect, lives to risk etc they have made their choice and yet are not comfortable with the situation it then puts themselves.

the examples of the various bad options they have to choose from are numerous....and they all involve lives, risking lives, "risk percentages" if you will etc. Decisions no normal person wants to be making.....

i should add they also involve such mundane things as not wanting to get sued, put in jail, end up in court, etc.....or messing up and being the cause of some dead israelis.....

[Violet_Crumble]

7. The article said none of the things you just did...

I don't think you can put yr own personal opinions on army veterans when they haven't said anything like that at all. In the article they don't come across as conflicted at all, and say their aim is to show the effects of the occupation on both the occupied and occupier....

The only contradiction I noticed was in Shakti's post, where he said at first that he admired them for what they were doing, but then went on to criticise them for what they were doing....

[pelsar]

11. i was actually repying to shaktis post...

as far as the other army vets...those guys still do reserve duty....which puts them in the "same boat" i'm in....so for those who are interested in a bit more than mere articles and are interested in actually hearing what a IDF reservist actually has to say, i decided to write.

its usually considered a good thing to have someone who has actual experience in the area one is reading/talking about, knows the culture, knows the language...but then this is the I/P conflict.......

[ProgressiveMuslim]

14. I think asking military personnel to act as individual moral agents is always tricky.

I think sometimes civilians have too-high expectations of this. Sometimes I find myself wishing that soldiers would resist and refuse, but i think it's probably not a reasonable wish, given the nature of military service.

[pelsar]

16. i agree with you....very much so

I think asking military personnel to act as individual moral agents is always tricky. I think sometimes civilians have too-high expectations of this
______

i dont think civilians have any understanding of the situations soliders may find themselves in....that in itself i can understand, since the situations and choices themselves are impossible (we call them "having only "bad options) ..What i dont get is the lack of interest here. If one is discussin the I/P conflict, the nature of the environment is integrated within the decisions made.

seems no one really wants to know what the actual choices that are being made and why they're being made.....True it does mean suddenly leaving the innocent and "high moral" ground and getting ones hands dirty...and it does involve making some horrendous choices, but then thats the nature of low level war today and the I/P conflict in particular.

the choices are all rather "blurry" no matter what side of the line your on..and worse....one very quickly discovers that there is a "pecking order" of whose lives are "worth more." I believe that is one of the holy grails that is not to be discussed.

[ProgressiveMuslim]

19. I'm not following you exactly.

Are you saying that each side has its pecking order? I don't think you're suggesting that Israel life has more value than Palestinian? At least I sure hope not!

Please clarify.

I don't think war can be waged morally. The military basically take "regular" people, break them down, make solidiers of them by rebuildling them into soldiers, whose primary instinct must be to follow orders, think of the group, etc.

It's simply not reasonable to expect people inthat situation to be questioning orders or to be making individual moral agents.

It's therefore incumbent that the civilian population put the best possible commander in place. So that the military does NOT get misused.

I think that poor political leaders cover their crummy missions, whether in Iraq, or in Gaza, by using hyper-patriotic language. The IDF is not better than any other fighting force. The propaganda in this country paints the IDF as somehow more "moral" because they "feel bad" about what they do. Some may. Some don't. I just 30 seconds ago saw on Al Jazeera, 3 IDF soldiers slap the crap out of a teen boy, and sic a dog on a woman in hijab. Sometimes the military is a nice place for sadists to hide.

Same is true of American military.

Having said all that, I do think that when IDF reservists or US veterans make statements against military actions, those can carry a lot of weight!
In Israel, though, a huge percentage of teh population falls into teh reservists/veteran category -- which is very different from the US.

[kaal]

8. Nicely put Pelsar.......

So the erosion of IDF morals can directly be attributed to their inability to deal with the "contradiction", a sort of closed-loop dilemma.

I can't imagine how one balances such contradictions. Moreover, is one to blame for taking the "perceived" wrong decision? The question I would ask is, how would you deal with it when put in such a situation?


Nevertheless, they did state their goals:

"The tours have two goals," said Shaul. "Show the effect the occupation has on the occupied AND on the occupiers, the way it disrupts Palestinian life and the way it erodes the moral values of Israeli soldiers.

"The IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) blames excesses, when they come to light, on 'rotten apples'. But few soldiers end their West Bank tours with entirely clean hands. Israeli society prefers to keep silent about this."



They want to show, first hand, that the IDF is force that lacks morals.


My question would be, can you be a occupation force and still have a sound moral standing?

[pelsar]

9. yes and no....

can you be a occupation force and still have a sound moral standing?

it would depend upon the threat to ones security. The american forces occupied japan and germany.....seems to me they had a good moral standing for that occupation.

Russias occupation of the eastern europe had a far less moral standing.

israels occupation is a mix......hence the problem.
------------

I can't imagine how one balances such contradictions. Moreover, is one to blame for taking the "perceived" wrong decision? The question I would ask is, how would you deal with it when put in such a situation?

do you really want to get into that?..most people here dont, as it ruins the black and white version of events.

[msmcghee]

18. Interesting points and discussion.

I would add that it seems that the side bringing war, attacking the other until it gets what it wants, in any conflict, has much to say about the morality of the war and any occupation that follows - and this probably has to do with not just individual decisions made by combatants and their leaders - but also is greatly affected by the cultures of each side.

The side not desiring war will be forced to escalate the violence of their defense according to the tactics chosen against them. So in a sense it's up to the attacker to determine how many people die on their own side.

My father was in the Corps of Engineers in WWII. He spent most of the war in Europe and Germany but as soon as Japan surrendered was sent there to work on the reconstruction - get the civic infrastructure functioning again, etc.

His description of the Japanese people at that time and their attitude toward him and other American GI's was totally different from that of Palestinians toward Israel in the aftermath of the several wars that have occurred there.

Possibly the main difference was that the Japanese completely accepted their defeat and were honor bound to treat their conquerors with respect. They knew they had lost the war but they derived pride (gained face perhaps) by showing that they had the ability to acknowledge that. My impression is that it would have been extremely shameful for them to start some form of underground resistance against their occupiers after their leaders had signed a peace treaty.

(I'd really appreciate any Japanese person chiming in here to tell me if I am wrong about this.)

Of course the rest of the story is that despite some horrendous acts committed against Allied POW's (American, English, Australian, etc. in places like Burma) during the war - Japan, that has few natural resources, is now one of the world's preeminent free nation economies and is one of our strongest allies and friends. For what it is worth I would note also that much of the prime commercial property in Hawaii is owned by Japanese nationals.

I still have a beautiful Samurai sword given to my father by his Japanese officer counterpart as a memento of his efforts there.

Added on edit: I guess what I was trying to say is that occupation does not necessarily make good people bad. It can also be a fulfilling experience in some cases - perhaps depending on the two cultures that experience it and their attitudes toward war and honor.

[pelsar]

10. self delete....n/t

[Shaktimaan]

12. Let me clarify.

This is actually a little funny. It looks like I accidentally deleted a sentence or two from that reply when I cleaned it up just before posting it. But I think that there have been some interesting responses nonetheless. Thanks.

My criticism was actually directed at non-Israelis who do not live in Israel entering Israel/Palestine specifically to protest in the territories. I think that protesting is fine as is assisting Palestinians by riding along in ambulances and stuff like that. But engaging in civil disobedience or otherwise placing themselves in situations that are dangerous, inflammatory or confrontational is not only a display of breathtaking hubris and entitlement but is ultimately going to have a much less positive impact than work like these reservists are doing.

I have nothing bad to say about the reservists actions. Full support all the way.

[ProgressiveMuslim]

13. I thought that was what you meant.

Personally, I'm glad there are organizations who will bear witness, such as the ISM.

I think you're comparing apples (international solidarity workers) and oranges (Dissenting IDF reservists).

[Lithos]

5. Don't follow

You seem conflicted, mostly I guess from the fact the people doing the work are former soldiers.

The Civil Rights movement to which civil disobedience was almost classically defined here in the US got a good deal of its base in the small Southern church. "Testifying" is core to that and is done at a personal (individual) level. This is how civil rights started - at the grass-roots, not from the top down. The soldiers are perfect for this as their story is among the strongest.

As for how change occurs, Politicians follow the winds of change and do not lead them.

L-

[Scurrilous]

15. Israeli Soldiers Stand Firm, but Duty Wears on the Soul

<snip>

"Some of Jerusalem’s nicest people gathered the other night to listen to a talk by an Israeli soldier troubled by how he and some of his colleagues had behaved in the occupied West Bank.

The small crowd on a rainy evening was a bit disheveled, with lots of untamed hair and sensible shoes. Largely English-speaking, they were generally somewhere on the left of Israel’s wide political spectrum, and they listened earnestly as Mikhael Manekin, 27, spoke quietly about his four years of service with the Golani infantry brigade in the West Bank.

Mr. Manekin and his colleagues spent a lot of their time at security checkpoints around Hebron and Nablus, controlling the movement of Palestinians to try to ensure that suicide bombers could not infiltrate Israeli cities. The checkpoints are part of a security network, including the separation barrier, that protects Israel, but also deeply inconveniences Palestinians who would never consider strapping on a bomb.

Mr. Manekin is the director of Breaking the Silence, a group of former Israeli combat soldiers and some current reservists, shocked at their own misconduct and that of others, who have gathered to collect their stories and bear witness. Since 2004, the group has collected testimonies from nearly 400 soldiers (available in English at www.shovrimshtika.org/index_e.asp).

He spoke of how some soldiers humiliate or beat Palestinians to keep crowds in line and how soldiers are taught to be aggressive, but how most behave within decent moral limits — and of how the fear that hundreds of people could erupt in anger wears on the soul and turns young men callous."

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/23/world/middleeast/23jerusalem.html?em&ex=1174795200&en=ab3758b400313c19&ei=5087%0A

[pelsar]

17. its a good website....

www.shovrimshtika.org/index_e.asp

and shows a bit of light on some of the darker side of what an occupation can do not just to the palestinians but to the occupying army....