Breaking the Silence Testimonies

[grassfed]

Rank: Staff Sergeant
Unit: Nachal 931
Place of incident: Nablus

Description: We sit and rest in one of the Arabs’ houses – sit on a couch – and in front of us there is this old woman. Really old, probably scratching 80-90, or so. She is giving us this look… that says, I imagine: “You came into my house, blew it up, now you’re on my couch. What are you waiting for – for me to serve you something to drink?” And the two guys sitting next to me – guys from the engineering platoon – were paying this game of… I don’t remember on the old woman. So I say: “Come on guys, get a life… to role up paper-balls from papers that were laid there, and throw them on her – have some respect.” And they say: “respect for whom? For a Shahid’s mother?” –“it doesn’t matter, a Shahid’s mother or not, this is an old woman in front of you – an old person in front of you. It doesn’t matter what this person’s repertoire is.” And I remember their looking at me with this amazed look of “Where have you come from? Where have you landed on us from? Are you with us? Where were you born? Where…” Their gaze just told me: “It is not that we… Where did you grow up?” such a horrified look of: “What?! What does this mean - throwing papers on a person… We are throwing papers on an Arab. There is a big difference.” I can’t tell you that I saw people who just molested others – if I ever saw it, for at the Nahal it is a bit different – among other things because the little difference I would make at this checkpoint, that arrest, that patrol… I tried to prevent this kind of things from happening, but I came home for the weekend – after that time in Nablus – that weekend I went to the ‘prayers-road’, and I remember getting back home and feeling so dirty, so defiled. I am not sure if I remember correctly, I think I got home on the verge of tears, or even crying for those three days in Nablus – just going from one house to the next, and blowing house after house.

more
http://www.breakingthesilence.org.il/testimonies_e.asp?cat=14

"Checkpoint Syndrome" by IDF Sergeant Furer
http://angrywhitekid.blogs.com/weblog/files/checkpoint_syndrome.pdf