On April 2, 2002, in the midst of the second intifada and a few days after the launch of Operation Defensive Shield, the Israel Defense Forces entered the West Bank city of Jenin. The operation followed a painstaking month of bombings on civilians inside Israel.
At the time, I was serving as a young operational officer of a Hercules Squadron in the Israel Air Force. Our mission was to illuminate the skies of Jenin, allowing the ground forces to carry out their duty. The radio communication made clear that the battle was grueling — we were losing soldiers. I was gripped by fear. As the night lengthened, I understood — for the first time in my life — what war meant. At that moment, my friends were risking their lives in the West Bank and Gaza to defend our country.
I could not sleep afterward. I kept hearing the calls over the radio reporting the destruction of entire neighborhoods and the deaths of Israeli soldiers. But I rested easier believing that we truly had no choice but to enter into this war to protect the State of Israel.
In 2004, a group of soldiers who served in the territories and wanted to open the eyes of the public to the reality of the occupation founded an organization called Breaking the Silence and began collecting testimonies from Israeli combatants.
When I joined, I thought of myself as an active, informed individual. After five years of army service and extensive research on the subject, I was supposed to understand what goes on in the territories better than the average Israeli. But the soldiers’ testimonies were much harder to digest than I had imagined.
As of today, 950 Israeli soldiers have decided to break their silence. Every day, more continue to join us. Together, we seek to demystify what it takes to impose a military occupation upon a civilian population. Have you ever asked yourself how one goes about controlling millions of civilians against their will? Because that is exactly what we — Israelis — have been doing for 46 years. Our testimonies reveal that the only way to do this is to drive people to fear us and recognize that their fate is completely in our hands.
For years, NGO Monitor has been trying to silence the voices of our testifiers. What Naftali Balanson of NGO Monitor deems “anecdotal and unverifiable accounts of low-ranking soldiers” are, in fact, the chronicles of close to a thousand of my comrades. The testimonies of that many soldiers are not merely “anecdotal.” They also do not characterize bad eggs who engage in “individual misconduct.” Rather, these soldiers’ stories teach us how the system works. If you really want to understand the occupation, their stories are the ones you need to hear.
The testimonies in the book “Our Harsh Logic” are a miniscule portion of those collected over the past decade. Balanson is right; most — though not all — are provided by low-ranking soldiers. This is because these soldiers are the only ones who can provide us with an accurate glimpse of the routine tasks performed on a day-to-day basis in the West Bank and Gaza. Examples include taking control of homes, carrying out arrests and manning checkpoints. They are the only ones who can explicate missions whose official purpose is to “make our presence felt” or to “create a sense of persecution” among a civilian population.
NGO Monitor does not suggest that the reality is different from how we depict it. Instead, they smear our work by shifting the discussion to our donors. The truth is that our donors are well informed about our activities abroad and are quite proud of them. Instead of dealing with the harsh reality exposed by our testimonies, NGO Monitor seeks to hide the truth to maintain support for a policy that continues to send us — Israeli youth — to act immorally in the territories.
Today, I am 31 years old. I hope to raise my children in Israel, my only home. I am not naive enough to think that one day my children won’t need to serve in the military. Yet NGO Monitor — akin to other Israeli right-wing organizations — are ensuring that my children will also one day have to break their silence about the ongoing occupation. The thought is unbearable.
We recognize that American Jewry is deeply involved with the State of Israel and committed to its future. This is why you likewise have a right and responsibility to know what we have done. It is why we are now on tour in the San Francisco Bay Area. What you do with our information is your decision, but our mandate — as patriots — is to ensure that what you hear is the truth. You don’t have to agree with our political convictions to recognize that NGO Monitor’s delegitimization campaign threatens the future of Israeli society. Don’t let them silence us.
Yuli Novak is executive director of Breaking the Silence (www.breakingthesilence.org.il).
Former IDF commander Yehuda Shaul of Breaking the Silence speaks at 6 p.m. Friday, Nov. 22 at Congregation Sherith Israel in San Francisco and 7 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 23 at Kehilla Community Synagogue in Piedmont. See calendar for details.