8 june 2014
By Peter Beaumont
The young soldier stopped to listen to the man reading on the stage in Tel Aviv's Habima Square, outside the tall façade of Charles Bronfman Auditorium. The reader was Yossi Sarid, a former education and environment minister. His text is the testimony of a soldier in the Israel Defence Forces, one of 350 soldiers, politicians, journalists and activists who on Friday – the anniversary of Israel's occupation of Palestinian land in 1967 – recited first-hand soldiers' accounts for 10 hours straight in Habima Square, all of them collected by the Israeli NGO Breaking the Silence.
When one of the group's researchers approached the soldier, they chatted politely out of earshot and then phone numbers were exchanged. Perhaps in the future this young man will give his own account to join the 950 testimonies collected by Breaking the Silence since it was founded 10 years ago.
In that decade, Breaking the Silence has collected a formidable oral history of Israeli soldiers' highly critical assessments of the world of conflict and occupation. The stories may be specific to Israel and its occupation of the Palestinian territories but they have a wider meaning, providing an invaluable resource that describes not just the nature of Israel's occupation but of how occupying soldiers behave more generally. They describe how abuses come from boredom; from the orders of ambitious officers keen to advance in their careers; or from the institutional demands of occupation itself, which desensitises and dehumanises as it creates a distance from the "other".
In granular detail, the tens of thousands of words narrated on Friday told of the humdrum and the terrible: the humiliating treatment of Palestinians at checkpoints, shootings and random assaults. Over the years the Israeli military's response has been that these stories are the exceptions, not the rule, accounts of a few bad apples' actions.
"What we wanted to show by reading for 10 hours is that the things described in the testimonies we have collected are not exceptional, rather they are unexceptional," says Yehuda Shaul, one of the founders of the group and a former soldier himself.
Shaul breaks off to greet the European Union ambassador and a woman soldier who served in his own unit whom he has not seen for years. We talk about the solitary soldier in the square, now talking to the researcher. "We'll get in contact. See if he wants to talk. Perhaps meet for coffee. Then, when we interview people, we ask them to recommend us to their friends. We might get 10 phone numbers, of whom three will talk to us."
It is not only word of mouth that produces Breaking the Silence's interviews. At the annual conferences that soldiers leaving the army attend to prepare them for the return to civilian life, researchers will try to talk to soldiers outside. Shaul explains why he and his colleagues have dedicated themselves to this project, why he believes it is as necessary today as when he first spoke out a decade ago about his own experience as a soldier in Hebron. "In Israeli politics today the occupation is absent. It's not an issue for the public. It has become normal – not second nature; the occupation has become part of our nature. The object of events like today is for us to occupy the public space with the occupation."
His sentiments are reflected by the Israeli novelist and playwright AB Yehoshua, who gets on the stage to read a comment piece he had written the day before to mark the event. "The great danger to Israeli society," Yehoshua explains, "is the danger of weariness and repression. We no longer have the energy and patience to hear about another act of injustice."
A man appears holding a handwritten sign that condemns Breaking the Silence as "traitors". Some of those attending try to usher him away while others try to engage him in conversation. A journalist asks Shaul if the man is "pro-army". "I'm pro-army," Shaul answers immediately. "I'm not a pacifist, although some of our members have become pacifists. I'm not anti-army, I am anti-occupation."
ISRAELI SOLDIERS' OWN WORDS
The young soldier stopped to listen to the man reading on the stage in Tel Aviv's Habima Square, outside the tall façade of Charles Bronfman Auditorium. The reader was Yossi Sarid, a former education and environment minister. His text is the testimony of a soldier in the Israel Defence Forces, one of 350 soldiers, politicians, journalists and activists who on Friday – the anniversary of Israel's occupation of Palestinian land in 1967 – recited first-hand soldiers' accounts for 10 hours straight in Habima Square, all of them collected by the Israeli NGO Breaking the Silence.
When one of the group's researchers approached the soldier, they chatted politely out of earshot and then phone numbers were exchanged. Perhaps in the future this young man will give his own account to join the 950 testimonies collected by Breaking the Silence since it was founded 10 years ago.
In that decade, Breaking the Silence has collected a formidable oral history of Israeli soldiers' highly critical assessments of the world of conflict and occupation. The stories may be specific to Israel and its occupation of the Palestinian territories but they have a wider meaning, providing an invaluable resource that describes not just the nature of Israel's occupation but of how occupying soldiers behave more generally. They describe how abuses come from boredom; from the orders of ambitious officers keen to advance in their careers; or from the institutional demands of occupation itself, which desensitises and dehumanises as it creates a distance from the "other".
In granular detail, the tens of thousands of words narrated on Friday told of the humdrum and the terrible: the humiliating treatment of Palestinians at checkpoints, shootings and random assaults. Over the years the Israeli military's response has been that these stories are the exceptions, not the rule, accounts of a few bad apples' actions.
"What we wanted to show by reading for 10 hours is that the things described in the testimonies we have collected are not exceptional, rather they are unexceptional," says Yehuda Shaul, one of the founders of the group and a former soldier himself.
Shaul breaks off to greet the European Union ambassador and a woman soldier who served in his own unit whom he has not seen for years. We talk about the solitary soldier in the square, now talking to the researcher. "We'll get in contact. See if he wants to talk. Perhaps meet for coffee. Then, when we interview people, we ask them to recommend us to their friends. We might get 10 phone numbers, of whom three will talk to us."
It is not only word of mouth that produces Breaking the Silence's interviews. At the annual conferences that soldiers leaving the army attend to prepare them for the return to civilian life, researchers will try to talk to soldiers outside. Shaul explains why he and his colleagues have dedicated themselves to this project, why he believes it is as necessary today as when he first spoke out a decade ago about his own experience as a soldier in Hebron. "In Israeli politics today the occupation is absent. It's not an issue for the public. It has become normal – not second nature; the occupation has become part of our nature. The object of events like today is for us to occupy the public space with the occupation."
His sentiments are reflected by the Israeli novelist and playwright AB Yehoshua, who gets on the stage to read a comment piece he had written the day before to mark the event. "The great danger to Israeli society," Yehoshua explains, "is the danger of weariness and repression. We no longer have the energy and patience to hear about another act of injustice."
A man appears holding a handwritten sign that condemns Breaking the Silence as "traitors". Some of those attending try to usher him away while others try to engage him in conversation. A journalist asks Shaul if the man is "pro-army". "I'm pro-army," Shaul answers immediately. "I'm not a pacifist, although some of our members have become pacifists. I'm not anti-army, I am anti-occupation."
ISRAELI SOLDIERS' OWN WORDS
Nadav Weiman
SERGEANT NADAV WEIMAN 2005-08, Nachal Reconnaissance Unit, Jenin We'd spread out above Jenin on "the stage", which is a tiny mountain top. That evening an arrest mission was in progress, there were riots inside the refugee camp, and we sat above and provided sniper coverfor the operation.
Things got rolling and there were arrests, some rioting began in the city.
There was random peripheral fire so there were generally no people on rooftops. Some time in the middle of the night, we detected someone on a roof. We focused our sights on him, not knowing for sure whether or not he was a scout. But we targeted him and got an OK to fire because he was on a rooftop very close to one of our forces.
We were several snipers, and we took him down ... Later when we got back to Jalame, it started: "Was he armed or not?" But we'd got our OK from the battalion commander. He was also the one to come and speak with us when we got back to the base in Jalame. We were with the guys with whom we sat to debrief after the action, and it was wall-to-wall, "You don't realize how lucky you are to have actually fired in an operation. That hardly ever happens, you are so lucky."
And according to the way we implemented the rules of engagement, we declared him a target by documenting him. We thought the Palestinian had been speaking on the phone, he seemed to be raising his hand to his head, looking sideways, going back and forth, just like a person scouting and sending information back. You could see the angles of his body, his whole conduct facing the soldiers who were north of him, in the alley below, a few metres away.
SERGEANT, ANONYMOUS Undisclosed Reservist unit, Gaza Strip 2009, Operation Cast Lead The actual objective remained rather vague. We were told our objective was to fragment the Strip, in fact we were told that while we were there, not knowing how long, we would have to raze the area as much as possible. Razing is a euphemism for systematic destruction. Two reasons were given for house demolitions. One reason was operational. That's when a house is suspected to contain explosive, tunnels, when all kinds of wires are seen, or digging. Or we have intelligence information making it suspect. Or it's a source of fire, whether light arms or mortars, missiles, Grads [rockets], all that stuff. Those are houses we demolish.
Then we're told some will be destroyed for "the day after". The rationale is to leave a sterile area behind us and the best way to do that is by razing it. In practical terms, it means you take a house that's not suspect, its only transgression is that it stands on a hill in Gaza. I can even say that in a talk with my battalion commander, he mentioned this and said half smiling, half sad, that this is something to add to his list of war crimes. So he himself understood there was a problem.
SERGEANT NADAV WEIMAN 2005-08, Nachal Reconnaissance Unit, Jenin We'd spread out above Jenin on "the stage", which is a tiny mountain top. That evening an arrest mission was in progress, there were riots inside the refugee camp, and we sat above and provided sniper coverfor the operation.
Things got rolling and there were arrests, some rioting began in the city.
There was random peripheral fire so there were generally no people on rooftops. Some time in the middle of the night, we detected someone on a roof. We focused our sights on him, not knowing for sure whether or not he was a scout. But we targeted him and got an OK to fire because he was on a rooftop very close to one of our forces.
We were several snipers, and we took him down ... Later when we got back to Jalame, it started: "Was he armed or not?" But we'd got our OK from the battalion commander. He was also the one to come and speak with us when we got back to the base in Jalame. We were with the guys with whom we sat to debrief after the action, and it was wall-to-wall, "You don't realize how lucky you are to have actually fired in an operation. That hardly ever happens, you are so lucky."
And according to the way we implemented the rules of engagement, we declared him a target by documenting him. We thought the Palestinian had been speaking on the phone, he seemed to be raising his hand to his head, looking sideways, going back and forth, just like a person scouting and sending information back. You could see the angles of his body, his whole conduct facing the soldiers who were north of him, in the alley below, a few metres away.
SERGEANT, ANONYMOUS Undisclosed Reservist unit, Gaza Strip 2009, Operation Cast Lead The actual objective remained rather vague. We were told our objective was to fragment the Strip, in fact we were told that while we were there, not knowing how long, we would have to raze the area as much as possible. Razing is a euphemism for systematic destruction. Two reasons were given for house demolitions. One reason was operational. That's when a house is suspected to contain explosive, tunnels, when all kinds of wires are seen, or digging. Or we have intelligence information making it suspect. Or it's a source of fire, whether light arms or mortars, missiles, Grads [rockets], all that stuff. Those are houses we demolish.
Then we're told some will be destroyed for "the day after". The rationale is to leave a sterile area behind us and the best way to do that is by razing it. In practical terms, it means you take a house that's not suspect, its only transgression is that it stands on a hill in Gaza. I can even say that in a talk with my battalion commander, he mentioned this and said half smiling, half sad, that this is something to add to his list of war crimes. So he himself understood there was a problem.
Tal Wasser.
SERGEANT TAL WASSER 2006-09, Oketz (canine special forces), Nablus Standing at the roadblock for eight hours a day puts everyone under this endless pressure. Everyone's constantly yelling, constantly nervous, impatient … venting on the first Palestinian to cross your path. If a Palestinian annoys one of the soldiers, one of the things they'd do is throw him in the Jora, which is a small cell, like a clothing store dressing room. They close the metal door on him and that would be his punishment for annoying, for being bad.
Within all the pressure and the stress of the roadblock, the Palestinian would often be forgotten there. No one would remember that he put a Palestinian there, further emphasizing the irrelevance and insignificance of the reason he was put there in the first place. Sometimes it was only after hours that they'd suddenly remember to let him out and continue the inspection at the roadblock.
SERGEANT, ANONYMOUS Nablus Regional Brigade, Nablus, 2014 "Provocation and reaction" is the act of entering a village, making a lot of noise, waiting for the stones to be thrown at you and then you arrest them, saying: "There, they're throwing stones."
Lots of vehicles move inside the whole village, barriers. A barrier seems to be the army's legitimate means to stop terrorists. We're talking about Area B [under civilian Palestinian control and Israeli security control], but the army goes in there every day, practically, provoking stone throwings. Just as any Palestinian is suspect, this is the same idea. It could be a kid's first time ever throwing a stone, but as far as the army is concerned, we've caught the stone thrower.
SERGEANT TAL WASSER 2006-09, Oketz (canine special forces), Nablus Standing at the roadblock for eight hours a day puts everyone under this endless pressure. Everyone's constantly yelling, constantly nervous, impatient … venting on the first Palestinian to cross your path. If a Palestinian annoys one of the soldiers, one of the things they'd do is throw him in the Jora, which is a small cell, like a clothing store dressing room. They close the metal door on him and that would be his punishment for annoying, for being bad.
Within all the pressure and the stress of the roadblock, the Palestinian would often be forgotten there. No one would remember that he put a Palestinian there, further emphasizing the irrelevance and insignificance of the reason he was put there in the first place. Sometimes it was only after hours that they'd suddenly remember to let him out and continue the inspection at the roadblock.
SERGEANT, ANONYMOUS Nablus Regional Brigade, Nablus, 2014 "Provocation and reaction" is the act of entering a village, making a lot of noise, waiting for the stones to be thrown at you and then you arrest them, saying: "There, they're throwing stones."
Lots of vehicles move inside the whole village, barriers. A barrier seems to be the army's legitimate means to stop terrorists. We're talking about Area B [under civilian Palestinian control and Israeli security control], but the army goes in there every day, practically, provoking stone throwings. Just as any Palestinian is suspect, this is the same idea. It could be a kid's first time ever throwing a stone, but as far as the army is concerned, we've caught the stone thrower.
Avner Gvaryahu
SERGEANT AVNER GVARYAHU 2004-07 Orev (special anti-tank unit), Nablus It was when I was a sergeant, after we had finished training. 200 [the number of the commander] said to us unequivocally: "That's how you're ranked. With Xs. Every night I want you to be looking for 'contact' [an exchange of fire] and that's how you'll be ranked."
At some point I realized that someone who wants to succeed has to bring him dead people. There's no point in bringing him arrests. [The message was:] "Arrests are routine, the battalions are making arrests. You're the spearhead, the army has invested years in you, now I want you to bring me dead terrorists."
And that's what pushed us, I believe. What we'd do was go out night after night, drawing fire, go into alleys that we knew were dangerous. There were arrests, there were all kinds of arrests. But the high point of the night was drawing fire, creating a situation where they fired at us.
It's a situation, totally insane, you're in it, it's hard to explain. You're looking through the binoculars and searching for someone to kill. That's what you want to do. And you want to kill him. But do you want to kill him? But that's your job.
And you're still looking through the binoculars and you're starting to get confused. Do I want to? Don't I want to? Maybe I actually want them to miss.
SERGEANT, ANONYMOUS
Kfir Brigade, Tul Karem, 2008 There was one checkpoint that was divided into three lanes: there's a settlement, a checkpoint, and then Israeli territory. In the middle, there's a Palestinian village, so they just split the checkpoint into three lanes. Three lanes, and the brigade commander ordered that Jews should only wait at the checkpoint for 10 minutes. Because of that we had to have a special lane for them, and everyone else, the Palestinians and Israeli Arabs, had to wait in the other two lanes. I remember that settlers would come, go around the Arabs, and just did it naturally. I went over to a settler and said: "Why are you going around? There's a line here, sir." He said: "You really think I'm going to wait behind an Arab?" He began to raise his voice at me. "You're going to hear from your brigade commander."
SERGEANT AVNER GVARYAHU 2004-07 Orev (special anti-tank unit), Nablus It was when I was a sergeant, after we had finished training. 200 [the number of the commander] said to us unequivocally: "That's how you're ranked. With Xs. Every night I want you to be looking for 'contact' [an exchange of fire] and that's how you'll be ranked."
At some point I realized that someone who wants to succeed has to bring him dead people. There's no point in bringing him arrests. [The message was:] "Arrests are routine, the battalions are making arrests. You're the spearhead, the army has invested years in you, now I want you to bring me dead terrorists."
And that's what pushed us, I believe. What we'd do was go out night after night, drawing fire, go into alleys that we knew were dangerous. There were arrests, there were all kinds of arrests. But the high point of the night was drawing fire, creating a situation where they fired at us.
It's a situation, totally insane, you're in it, it's hard to explain. You're looking through the binoculars and searching for someone to kill. That's what you want to do. And you want to kill him. But do you want to kill him? But that's your job.
And you're still looking through the binoculars and you're starting to get confused. Do I want to? Don't I want to? Maybe I actually want them to miss.
SERGEANT, ANONYMOUS
Kfir Brigade, Tul Karem, 2008 There was one checkpoint that was divided into three lanes: there's a settlement, a checkpoint, and then Israeli territory. In the middle, there's a Palestinian village, so they just split the checkpoint into three lanes. Three lanes, and the brigade commander ordered that Jews should only wait at the checkpoint for 10 minutes. Because of that we had to have a special lane for them, and everyone else, the Palestinians and Israeli Arabs, had to wait in the other two lanes. I remember that settlers would come, go around the Arabs, and just did it naturally. I went over to a settler and said: "Why are you going around? There's a line here, sir." He said: "You really think I'm going to wait behind an Arab?" He began to raise his voice at me. "You're going to hear from your brigade commander."
Gil Hillel
GIL HILLEL 2001-03, Sachlav (military police), Hebron On my first or second day in Hebron, my commanders asked me to go on a "doll", a foot patrol that we conduct in the casbah and Jewish settlement. I agreed, it seemed cool. It was my first time in the field, come on, let's do it. We went on patrol, into the casbah, and I think that was the first time I sensed the existential fear of living under constant threat.
We started the doll and I started feeling bad. The first time in the field is not simple. One of my commanders, the veteran among them, took an old Palestinian man, just took him aside to some alley and started beating him up. And I … it was fine by all the others … I sort of looked at them and said: "What is he doing? Why is he doing that? What happened? Did he do anything? Is he a threat? A terrorist? Did we find something?" So they said: "No, it's OK." I then approached my commander, the [one] who trained me, and asked: "What are you doing?" He said: "Gil, stop it."
And that really scared me. I was scared of their reactions, of the situation we were in. I felt bad with what went on there, but I kept quiet. I mean, what can I do? My commander told me to shut up. We left there and went back to the company and I went to my commander and said: "What are you doing? Why did you do that?" So he said: "That's the way it is. It's either him or me and it's me and …"
They took him aside and just beat him up. They beat him up, they punched him. And slapped him, all for no reason. I mean, he just happened to walk by there, by mistake.
SERGEANT, ANONYMOUS Nachal Brigade, 50th Battalion, Hebron, 2010 The Jewish settlers of Hebron constantly curse the Arabs. An Arab who passes by too closely gets cursed: "May you burn, die."
On Shuhada Street there's a very short section where Arabs may walk as well, which leads to Tel Rumeida neighborhood. Once I was sent there and we found three Jewish kids hitting an old Arab woman. Another man from the Jewish settlement happened along and also joined them in yelling at the woman: "May you die!" When we got there they were mainly yelling, but there had clearly been blows dealt as well. I think they even threw stones at her.
I believe the [policeman] was called but ended up not doing anything. The general atmosphere was that there was no point in summoning the police – the policeman is a local settler from Kiryat Arba who comes to pray with the Hebron settlers at the Tomb of the Patriarchs on Fridays.
GIL HILLEL 2001-03, Sachlav (military police), Hebron On my first or second day in Hebron, my commanders asked me to go on a "doll", a foot patrol that we conduct in the casbah and Jewish settlement. I agreed, it seemed cool. It was my first time in the field, come on, let's do it. We went on patrol, into the casbah, and I think that was the first time I sensed the existential fear of living under constant threat.
We started the doll and I started feeling bad. The first time in the field is not simple. One of my commanders, the veteran among them, took an old Palestinian man, just took him aside to some alley and started beating him up. And I … it was fine by all the others … I sort of looked at them and said: "What is he doing? Why is he doing that? What happened? Did he do anything? Is he a threat? A terrorist? Did we find something?" So they said: "No, it's OK." I then approached my commander, the [one] who trained me, and asked: "What are you doing?" He said: "Gil, stop it."
And that really scared me. I was scared of their reactions, of the situation we were in. I felt bad with what went on there, but I kept quiet. I mean, what can I do? My commander told me to shut up. We left there and went back to the company and I went to my commander and said: "What are you doing? Why did you do that?" So he said: "That's the way it is. It's either him or me and it's me and …"
They took him aside and just beat him up. They beat him up, they punched him. And slapped him, all for no reason. I mean, he just happened to walk by there, by mistake.
SERGEANT, ANONYMOUS Nachal Brigade, 50th Battalion, Hebron, 2010 The Jewish settlers of Hebron constantly curse the Arabs. An Arab who passes by too closely gets cursed: "May you burn, die."
On Shuhada Street there's a very short section where Arabs may walk as well, which leads to Tel Rumeida neighborhood. Once I was sent there and we found three Jewish kids hitting an old Arab woman. Another man from the Jewish settlement happened along and also joined them in yelling at the woman: "May you die!" When we got there they were mainly yelling, but there had clearly been blows dealt as well. I think they even threw stones at her.
I believe the [policeman] was called but ended up not doing anything. The general atmosphere was that there was no point in summoning the police – the policeman is a local settler from Kiryat Arba who comes to pray with the Hebron settlers at the Tomb of the Patriarchs on Fridays.
Nadav Bigelman
SERGEANT NADAV BIGELMAN 2007-10, Nachal Brigade, 50th Battalion, Hebron During patrols inside the casbah we'd do many "mappings". Mappings mean going into a house we have no intelligence on. We go in to see what's inside, who lives there.
We didn't search for weapons or things like that. The mappings were designed to make the Palestinians feel that we are there all the time.
We go in, walk around, look around. The commander takes a piece of paper and … makes a drawing of the house, what it looks like inside, and I had a camera. I was told to bring it. They said: "You take all the people, stand them against the wall and take their picture." Then [the pictures are] transferred to, I don't know, the General Security Service, the battalion or brigade intelligence unit, so they have information on what the people look like. What the residents look like. I'm a young soldier, I do as they say. I take their pictures, a horrible experience in itself, because taking people's pictures at 3am, I … it humiliated them, I just can't describe it.
And the interesting thing? I had the pictures for around a month. No one came to get them. No commander asked about them, no intelligence officer took them. I realised it was all for nothing. It was just to be there. It was like a game.
SERGEANT, ANONYMOUS Paratrooper, 2002, Nablus We took over a central house, set up positions, and one of the sharpshooters identified a man on a roof, two roofs away, I think he was between 50 and 70 metres away, not armed. I looked at the man through the night vision – he wasn't armed. It was two in the morning. A man without arms, walking on the roof, just walking around. We reported it to the company commander. The company commander said: "Take him down." [The sharpshooter] fired, took him down. The company commander basically ordered, decided via radio, the death sentence for that man. A man who wasn't armed.
I saw with my own eyes that the guy wasn't armed. The report also said: "A man without arms on the roof." The company commander declared him a lookout, meaning he understood that the guy was no threat to us, and he gave the order to kill him and we shot him. I myself didn't shoot, my friend shot and killed him. And basically you think, you see in the United States there's the death penalty, for every death sentence there are like a thousand appeals and convictions, and they take it very seriously, and there are judges and learned people, and there are protests and whatever. And here a 26-year-old guy, my company commander, sentenced an unarmed man to death.
SERGEANT NADAV BIGELMAN 2007-10, Nachal Brigade, 50th Battalion, Hebron During patrols inside the casbah we'd do many "mappings". Mappings mean going into a house we have no intelligence on. We go in to see what's inside, who lives there.
We didn't search for weapons or things like that. The mappings were designed to make the Palestinians feel that we are there all the time.
We go in, walk around, look around. The commander takes a piece of paper and … makes a drawing of the house, what it looks like inside, and I had a camera. I was told to bring it. They said: "You take all the people, stand them against the wall and take their picture." Then [the pictures are] transferred to, I don't know, the General Security Service, the battalion or brigade intelligence unit, so they have information on what the people look like. What the residents look like. I'm a young soldier, I do as they say. I take their pictures, a horrible experience in itself, because taking people's pictures at 3am, I … it humiliated them, I just can't describe it.
And the interesting thing? I had the pictures for around a month. No one came to get them. No commander asked about them, no intelligence officer took them. I realised it was all for nothing. It was just to be there. It was like a game.
SERGEANT, ANONYMOUS Paratrooper, 2002, Nablus We took over a central house, set up positions, and one of the sharpshooters identified a man on a roof, two roofs away, I think he was between 50 and 70 metres away, not armed. I looked at the man through the night vision – he wasn't armed. It was two in the morning. A man without arms, walking on the roof, just walking around. We reported it to the company commander. The company commander said: "Take him down." [The sharpshooter] fired, took him down. The company commander basically ordered, decided via radio, the death sentence for that man. A man who wasn't armed.
I saw with my own eyes that the guy wasn't armed. The report also said: "A man without arms on the roof." The company commander declared him a lookout, meaning he understood that the guy was no threat to us, and he gave the order to kill him and we shot him. I myself didn't shoot, my friend shot and killed him. And basically you think, you see in the United States there's the death penalty, for every death sentence there are like a thousand appeals and convictions, and they take it very seriously, and there are judges and learned people, and there are protests and whatever. And here a 26-year-old guy, my company commander, sentenced an unarmed man to death.
11 may 2014
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This clip was shown that evening on all three main Israeli TV channels.
By Uri Avnery Uri Avnery is an Israeli peace activist, founder of Gush Shalom, and a former member of the Israeli Knesset. Just before Israel's 66th Independence Day, the country acquired a new national hero. If it is true that every nation gets the national heroes it deserves, it was a rather worrying spectacle. The video clip that turned David Adamov from an anonymous soldier into a national figure was taken with a Palestinian camera in Hebron. |
The clip starts with the scene in Hebron. In the middle of Shuhada street stands a solitary soldier with a green beret and a rifle. He looks like any soldier, with the short beard now in vogue among Israeli youngsters.
Some kind of discussion develops between the soldier and elderly Palestinians in the street. But the camera turns to a Palestinian teenager, unarmed, who approaches the soldier, pushing his face very close to him and touching his shoulder with his hand.
The soldier reacts angrily, swinging his rifle. At this moment, another teenager enters the frame and passes the soldier from behind.
The soldier, obviously feeling threatened, swings around and cocks his rifle, ready to shoot. Threatening both teenagers, he tries to kick one, all the time uttering a stream of foul language. Then he notices the photographer, orders him to to stop filming and curses his mother in the most vulgar terms. End.
For those of us who know the reality in the West Bank, there was nothing special about it. Scenes like this happen all the time. If the soldier does not kill anyone, it's just routine. If he does kill, the army announces that an investigation has been opened. Generally that is the last anyone hears of it.
What was special is that the whole scene was photographed and broadcast. Army orders forbid soldiers to behave like this when photographers are present, and especially to threaten the cameramen. Painful experience has taught the army that such clips, if broadcast abroad, can seriously undermine Israeli propaganda (officially called "explaining").
Even more unusual was the announcement of the Army Spokesman that same evening, that the soldier had been judged by his superiors and sent to army prison for 28 days.
'The army lost control'
All hell broke loose. The social media sprang into action. Hundreds, then thousands, then tens of thousands of soldiers declared their solidarity with the soldier who became known as "David Nahlawi."
("Nahal" is an army unit founded originally by David Ben-Gurion to further his idea of combining army service with "pioneering" agricultural work. Hence the green beret. The idea is as dead as Ben-Gurion himself, and the unit is now an ordinary infantry brigade. The ending "awi" is Arabic adopted by Hebrew slang.)
Many soldiers, including officers, flooded the internet with photos of themselves hiding their faces behind self-made signs saying "I am David Nahlawi." Some did not even bother to hide their faces.
After 24 hours the number of pro-David "likes" passed a hundred thousand, most of them posted by soldiers. It was the first military mass rebellion in the annals of the Israeli army. In some armies, it would be called a mutiny, punishable by death.
Faced by a totally new situation, for which it was quite unprepared, the army lost control. It published a statement coming close to an apology.
The Army Spokesman, it appeared, had been mistaken. David was not sentenced to prison for threatening to kill Palestinians (perish the thought!), but for something that happened a few hours before the incident: David had beaten up his direct commander and another soldier. The Hebron incident had not yet been investigated, and therefore David had not yet been judged for it.
There was another correction. In the first day after the clip was shown, the news spread that one of the Palestinian youths had been carrying a knuckle-duster, a clear proof of his aggressive intention and of the danger the soldier found himself in. Then the media carried a correction: an analysis of the clip showed that there was no knuckle-duster or any other weapon. It was just a string of Muslim prayer-beads.
The incident raises a number of questions, each more serious than the other.
The first and obvious one: why did the army send a lone soldier to guard a street crossing in the middle of Hebron on his own, a town where supreme tension rules even on the quietest of days?
Hebron is clustered around the "Tombs of the Patriarchs" which harbor the graves of Abraham and Sarah, which, like the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, are holy to both Jews and Muslims. 160,000 Muslims daily confront the few hundred fanatical Jews and Jewesses who have settled there, and who openly declare that their aim is to bring about the expulsion of all Muslims from the entire city.
Hebron is Apartheid City. The main street where the incident took place (appropriately called in Arabic "martyr’s street") is closed to Arabs. Incidents can break out any time.
So why did the local military send a lone 19-old soldier to guard a street there?
Any soldier, even a normal one, sent to do guard duty alone in a dangerous place, may easily panic. In the clip David definitely looks frightened.
'The essence of occupation'
But David is not an ordinary soldier. According to the army itself, just a few hours before he was sent to this post, he attacked his superior and a comrade, beating them up in what sounds like a hysterical rampage. A few hours later, after already being sentenced to prison, he was sent out on this lonely task.
It is not the sane judgment of Private David that is in doubt, but the sanity of the officer who ordered him there.
The whole situation goes far beyond the dimensions of a local incident, which happily ended without victims.
It shows the reality of the occupation, in which a population of millions of human beings is living without defense and rights, completely dependent upon the mercies of every single soldier.
This Israeli army is no worse than any other. It is a mirror of its society, composed of the humane and the sadists, the sane and the mentally disturbed, rightists and leftists, Ashkenazi and Oriental. Judging from his family name (Adamov) David Nahlawi seems to be of Bukharan origin, the Oriental side of the immigrants from the former Soviet Union.
Suheib Abu-Najma, the 15-year old Arab boy involved who looks even younger, was lucky. A Palestinian of any age, walking in any street, cannot be sure what kind of soldier he will come across, and what his mood may be. His life may depend on it.
That is the essence of occupation.
But the significance of the incident goes far, far beyond these lessons. It is revolutionary -- in the original sense. For the first time in the history of Israel, and perhaps of the world, the internet is providing the basis for a rebellion of the soldiers against the army.
One may consider the mutiny on the battleship Potemkin in Odessa, 1905, or the uprising of the Petrograd garrison of February 1917, in order to compare it to the totally different situation in today’s world of the internet. Now, in less than 24 hours, hundreds of thousands of soldiers can openly defy the army command, turning the army into an empty vessel.
Once this has been shown, the mutinous capabilities of the social media are unlimited. It puts an end to the sacred assumption that the army obeys the civilian elected authority. It also puts an end to the assumption that a military coup can only be carried out by a junta of senior officers, the "clonels." Now simple soldiers, incited by some rabble-rousers, can do it.
Benyamin Netanyahu was left, literally, speechless (something very unusual for him). So was Moshe Ya'alon, the Defense Minister, a former incompetent Chief of Staff. So was the present Chief of Staff, Benny Ganz, who in this crisis was shown to be helpless.
In the specific situation of Israel, this is extremely dangerous. Of course, it is easy to imagine a Potemkin-like situation, where the simple soldiers rise up against the brass in the name of equality, but that is sheer fantasy. With the army rank and file composed of teenagers, who are indoctrinated from the age of three in the spirit of Jewish victimhood and superiority (both), such a rebellion, if it occurs, is bound to be right-wing, perhaps even fascist.
Until this week, such a rebellion seemed impossible. When Ariel Sharon deployed the army in 2005 to evict a few thousand settlers from the Gaza Strip, no soldier dared to refuse. Now, with the capabilities of the social media, the story could end quite differently. The next time the army is ordered to remove a settlement, there may be mass refusal carried by the internet.
There is a message in this for every army in the world. A new historical era has begun. Any army can rebel by internet.
Army prisoner David Adamov can be proud of himself.
Some kind of discussion develops between the soldier and elderly Palestinians in the street. But the camera turns to a Palestinian teenager, unarmed, who approaches the soldier, pushing his face very close to him and touching his shoulder with his hand.
The soldier reacts angrily, swinging his rifle. At this moment, another teenager enters the frame and passes the soldier from behind.
The soldier, obviously feeling threatened, swings around and cocks his rifle, ready to shoot. Threatening both teenagers, he tries to kick one, all the time uttering a stream of foul language. Then he notices the photographer, orders him to to stop filming and curses his mother in the most vulgar terms. End.
For those of us who know the reality in the West Bank, there was nothing special about it. Scenes like this happen all the time. If the soldier does not kill anyone, it's just routine. If he does kill, the army announces that an investigation has been opened. Generally that is the last anyone hears of it.
What was special is that the whole scene was photographed and broadcast. Army orders forbid soldiers to behave like this when photographers are present, and especially to threaten the cameramen. Painful experience has taught the army that such clips, if broadcast abroad, can seriously undermine Israeli propaganda (officially called "explaining").
Even more unusual was the announcement of the Army Spokesman that same evening, that the soldier had been judged by his superiors and sent to army prison for 28 days.
'The army lost control'
All hell broke loose. The social media sprang into action. Hundreds, then thousands, then tens of thousands of soldiers declared their solidarity with the soldier who became known as "David Nahlawi."
("Nahal" is an army unit founded originally by David Ben-Gurion to further his idea of combining army service with "pioneering" agricultural work. Hence the green beret. The idea is as dead as Ben-Gurion himself, and the unit is now an ordinary infantry brigade. The ending "awi" is Arabic adopted by Hebrew slang.)
Many soldiers, including officers, flooded the internet with photos of themselves hiding their faces behind self-made signs saying "I am David Nahlawi." Some did not even bother to hide their faces.
After 24 hours the number of pro-David "likes" passed a hundred thousand, most of them posted by soldiers. It was the first military mass rebellion in the annals of the Israeli army. In some armies, it would be called a mutiny, punishable by death.
Faced by a totally new situation, for which it was quite unprepared, the army lost control. It published a statement coming close to an apology.
The Army Spokesman, it appeared, had been mistaken. David was not sentenced to prison for threatening to kill Palestinians (perish the thought!), but for something that happened a few hours before the incident: David had beaten up his direct commander and another soldier. The Hebron incident had not yet been investigated, and therefore David had not yet been judged for it.
There was another correction. In the first day after the clip was shown, the news spread that one of the Palestinian youths had been carrying a knuckle-duster, a clear proof of his aggressive intention and of the danger the soldier found himself in. Then the media carried a correction: an analysis of the clip showed that there was no knuckle-duster or any other weapon. It was just a string of Muslim prayer-beads.
The incident raises a number of questions, each more serious than the other.
The first and obvious one: why did the army send a lone soldier to guard a street crossing in the middle of Hebron on his own, a town where supreme tension rules even on the quietest of days?
Hebron is clustered around the "Tombs of the Patriarchs" which harbor the graves of Abraham and Sarah, which, like the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, are holy to both Jews and Muslims. 160,000 Muslims daily confront the few hundred fanatical Jews and Jewesses who have settled there, and who openly declare that their aim is to bring about the expulsion of all Muslims from the entire city.
Hebron is Apartheid City. The main street where the incident took place (appropriately called in Arabic "martyr’s street") is closed to Arabs. Incidents can break out any time.
So why did the local military send a lone 19-old soldier to guard a street there?
Any soldier, even a normal one, sent to do guard duty alone in a dangerous place, may easily panic. In the clip David definitely looks frightened.
'The essence of occupation'
But David is not an ordinary soldier. According to the army itself, just a few hours before he was sent to this post, he attacked his superior and a comrade, beating them up in what sounds like a hysterical rampage. A few hours later, after already being sentenced to prison, he was sent out on this lonely task.
It is not the sane judgment of Private David that is in doubt, but the sanity of the officer who ordered him there.
The whole situation goes far beyond the dimensions of a local incident, which happily ended without victims.
It shows the reality of the occupation, in which a population of millions of human beings is living without defense and rights, completely dependent upon the mercies of every single soldier.
This Israeli army is no worse than any other. It is a mirror of its society, composed of the humane and the sadists, the sane and the mentally disturbed, rightists and leftists, Ashkenazi and Oriental. Judging from his family name (Adamov) David Nahlawi seems to be of Bukharan origin, the Oriental side of the immigrants from the former Soviet Union.
Suheib Abu-Najma, the 15-year old Arab boy involved who looks even younger, was lucky. A Palestinian of any age, walking in any street, cannot be sure what kind of soldier he will come across, and what his mood may be. His life may depend on it.
That is the essence of occupation.
But the significance of the incident goes far, far beyond these lessons. It is revolutionary -- in the original sense. For the first time in the history of Israel, and perhaps of the world, the internet is providing the basis for a rebellion of the soldiers against the army.
One may consider the mutiny on the battleship Potemkin in Odessa, 1905, or the uprising of the Petrograd garrison of February 1917, in order to compare it to the totally different situation in today’s world of the internet. Now, in less than 24 hours, hundreds of thousands of soldiers can openly defy the army command, turning the army into an empty vessel.
Once this has been shown, the mutinous capabilities of the social media are unlimited. It puts an end to the sacred assumption that the army obeys the civilian elected authority. It also puts an end to the assumption that a military coup can only be carried out by a junta of senior officers, the "clonels." Now simple soldiers, incited by some rabble-rousers, can do it.
Benyamin Netanyahu was left, literally, speechless (something very unusual for him). So was Moshe Ya'alon, the Defense Minister, a former incompetent Chief of Staff. So was the present Chief of Staff, Benny Ganz, who in this crisis was shown to be helpless.
In the specific situation of Israel, this is extremely dangerous. Of course, it is easy to imagine a Potemkin-like situation, where the simple soldiers rise up against the brass in the name of equality, but that is sheer fantasy. With the army rank and file composed of teenagers, who are indoctrinated from the age of three in the spirit of Jewish victimhood and superiority (both), such a rebellion, if it occurs, is bound to be right-wing, perhaps even fascist.
Until this week, such a rebellion seemed impossible. When Ariel Sharon deployed the army in 2005 to evict a few thousand settlers from the Gaza Strip, no soldier dared to refuse. Now, with the capabilities of the social media, the story could end quite differently. The next time the army is ordered to remove a settlement, there may be mass refusal carried by the internet.
There is a message in this for every army in the world. A new historical era has begun. Any army can rebel by internet.
Army prisoner David Adamov can be proud of himself.