Today, May 14, 60 years since the founding of the State of Israel, Rabbis for Human Rights – North America (RHR-NA), placed an ad on the Op-Ed page of The New York Times in support of the rights of Israelis and Palestinian and launching a year long campaign, In Pursuit of Justice, to support the work of Rabbis for Human Rights in Israel .
The ad begins, “On this day, 60 years ago, the founders of Israel declared the State of Israel …will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel “, a quote from Israel ’s Declaration of Independence . More »
You can follow our co-blogger Chorus of Apes and go all Nakba on us. You can go all “neo-Zionist” instead and lose yourself in congratulatory paroxysms of pride and militaristic extremism. See here for example. Or finally, you can waffle and prevaricate between the other two alternatives, watching any tribal joy you once felt drain out through myriad cuts of national guilt and historical revision.
The last option seems most popular in progressive Jewish circles these days. My roommates objected to my proposal for a Yom Ha-Atzma’ut House Party by saying they wanted to avoid propaganda or the appearance of it. “Maybe we should have something about the nakba too.” “We don’t want to look right wing.” “How about we go to a Brit Tzedek talk instead.” Something about Independence Day made us uncomfortable.
Yom Ha-atzma’ut looks a little funny these days. Between the alliance of Electronic Intifada and Kahane Chai to forever tarnish the word “Zionism,” and the casual abuse of patriotism by fear-mongering Republicans in the US, the idea of “national pride” has become suspect. Every 60th Birthday congratulation needs a “but..”, and every praise of the Jewish State re-born in the Jewish Homeland comes with a “however..” We’re cynical and jaded, and don’t want to buy into anything that smacks of conservative forces or creeping 21st century totalitarianism.
So we want to kill the myth of the Third Comonwealth, scuff the shine on the Zionist dream, give us nothing-but-the-facts-ma’am and add another social justice cause to the bottom of the list.
But I’m thinking that Yom Ha-atzma’ut is not something to do half-assed. Righteous foundation myths and tribal pride aren’t just kids’ stories: they’re the moral stories that give us our ideals.
Remember (if you’re American) when you first learned what really happened when the Pilgrims hit Plymouth rock. When that cartoon fantasy of harmony and shared wealth dissolved into the broken treaties of the colonists, and the cold hard earth they dug into to rob Native graves. I think that a large part of that sting, that rage, (that righteous indignation, if you will) was the disappointment that the reality did not live up to the myth.
People we’d been taught to honor had let us down. The founding parents of institutions we’d be taught to respect and identify with had behaved in despicable ways. Which is sort of ironic, I guess. Or at least depressing.
But the real, glorious irony is that the myths never did let us down. These lies are the tales that taught us what to believe in. The myths are the prosecutor’s finger. When we hear about Israeli crimes and mistakes, whether during the War of Indepedence or today, it’s the myths that shout loudest “this was wrong. This must be remedied.” It’s the Declaration of Indepedence which was never fulfilled which kicks us in the gut and demands more effort on our part.
Our myths are our moral foundation, and I believe, something to celebrate whole-heartedly. So this is a (slightly belated) Yom Ha-Atzma’ut Same’ach from me to you, with no ifs, ands, or buts. Happy Independence Day. Make the dream a reality.
Action alert by Brit Tzedek v’Shalom calls on Bush to get off his ass. BTVS takes it to Congress’ doorstep on June 21-24, register here.
Yediot Achronot covers Israeli Fred Schlomka’s alternative tours through Israel, Jerusalem and the West Bank in “Alternative Tourism Comes of Age in Israel.” Tours are even designed to be legal for Israelis who otherwise are restricted to Area C of the territories.
Day schools grapple with teaching Israel — how much do we decide to brainwash our kids? To be fair, both right and left-leaning communities get their way on how to teach about Palestinians, the Israeli national myths, and the balance of blame in the peace process. Which means that the politics of the next generation of Jews will be even more divided between Jews taught to think critically and openly, and those openly brainwashed…
Right-wing smear-machine CAMERA launches Wikipedia-editing campaign — gaaaaa. I am infuriated of course, but when I thought about it, sure, let ‘em waste their time on Wikipedia. I’m working on prying their like out of Congress.
Did you know the majority of American Jews aren’t Zionist? It shouldn’t be surprising, but if 35% of American Jews don’t identify as “Zionist” but 90% identify as “pro-Israel,” I think we’ve got to rethink our labels. The same labels for young Jews drop to 24% and 70% respectively. Check the facts.
Yad LeAhim, an Israeli anti-Christian group (though they call themselves anti-missionary), despite losing in court for persecution rights (denial of citizenship) against Messianic Jews making aliyah, are now picking on a 13-year-old world Bible quiz contestant. Warned Rabbi Shlomo Aviner, a leader of the national religious movement, “Once they used to wage crusades in order to bring us closer to Christianity. Now they work by other means.” At first I was going to appeal for perspective until I realized, yes, I might consider a Crusade over embarassing reality TV any day.
…Which transitions perfectly into the reason some Jews won’t boycott China. I couldn’t help but notice who is and isn’t supporting the boycotts: Do boycott: JCPA, Reform movement, American Jewish Congress, a dozen leaders of the Conservative movement and liberal Orthodoxy, American Jewish World Service. Don’t boycott: Agudath Israel of America, Orthodox Union, National Council of Young Israel, ADL, American Jewish Committee. This list has a few surprises, but I think it says a lot.
Bahrain will name a Jewish ambassador to the United States, a report said.
Huda Azar Nunu, a Jewish woman who is a lawmaker in Bahrain’s upper house, will be named to the Washington position, according to a report this week in A Sharq al-Awsat, a Saudi-owned pan-Arab daily published in London.
“The sources denied that the appointment of Nunu as a woman and a Jew is a public relations campaign by Bahrain in the West, emphasizing that Huda Nunu has proven her qualifications, whether through her membership in the Consultative Council or through her work in human rights associations, of which she is an active participant in Bahrain,” the newspaper said.
It’s not necessarily funny, but it is a President talking about Israel-Palestine relations to a Jew.
As to Stewart’s question — I’ve always wondered the same thing. It doesn’t get the Palestinians anything to unilaterally declare a Palestinian state (i.e., the occupation won’t end) but why the hell not?
So, here’s a different source for a news story on this blog. HaTzofeh, the national religious newspaper in Israel, reports on extensive abuse of the few remaining Jews in Yemen. The newspaper reports that recently many Jews have been attacked, including the Rabbi of the community whose home was recently destroyed. The article also mentions ongoing human rights abuse, including forced conversions, and a law that makes marrying a Jew punishable by death. Strangest though, the article reports that the only organization working to help these Jews is Satmar. The flat-hatted chassidim want them to emigrate, not to Israel of course, but to the UK and America.
Yikes. That’s scary stuff, happening to our own brothers and sisters, and I had no idea. I don’t know what to do to stop this, but the first step must be making sure that people know. It’s a shame that I heard about it first from a religious rag which I usually only read for laughs.
Update: I found a Christian Science Monitor article about the abuse.
Honor Killings. Hayv Kahraman. Iraq/Italy/Sweden/USA. Kahraman’s work, inspired by Asian motifs, explores minority discourse in the Middle East and Kurdish and gender identity in a region wracked by war.
An extremely complicated policy of religious conservatism and cultural experimentation coexists in Dubai, where wealth allows the multinational population a unique ability to explore, experience and purchase postmodernity in a region long known for its old-fashioned ways. Hayv Kahraman, a Kurdish Iraqi artist living in the US, is currently showing her work in Dubai and Turkey.
Whatever you think about the 37 billion dollar economy in Dubai, the cultural flowering taking place in the Gulf is breathtaking. With galleries and museums sprouting by the day, the gilded emirate is becoming the place where young Middle Eatern artists show, and sell, their work. Jewschool will be introducing the work of artists working in the Middle East in the coming months. In an effort to expose our readers to contemporary Near Eastern visual culture we hope we can be a springboard for new Jewish imaging as well.
Gen. Merrill A. “Tony” McPeak (ret.), a foreign policy adviser to Barack Obama, has responded to his critics.
In 1976, then Col. McPeak published an essay in Foreign Affairs entitled “Israel: Borders and Security,” where he argued that it was “territorial return which constitutes Israel’s chief bargaining” power, and that Israel ought to cede much of the territory it won in the 1967 war in exchange for Arab world concessions.
The American Spectator’s Robert Goldberg wrote that the article was in keeping with McPeak’s general ” anti-Israel and anti-Jewish” outlook…
In an brief response just posted on Foreign Affairs’s website, McPeak flatly denies that either he or Obama is “anti-Israel.”
“I am a long-time admirer (and think myself a friend) of Israel. In the early 1970s, I played a key role in getting advanced weaponry released to the Israeli Air Force– capabilities it later put to active use. During that period, I made many official visits to Israel and established close relationships there. These contacts turned out to be useful during Operation Desert Storm, when, as chief of staff of the U.S. Air Force, I worked with my Israeli counterparts to help defend Israel from Iraqi Scud missile attacks…”
The obvious questions here is: How many Iraqi Scud missiles did Robert Goldberg deflect while he was safely penning away at the American Spectator? My guess, a lot fewer than Gen. McPeak did while teaching Israelis about defense systems and getting them high-tech US weaponry.
All this to say, suggesting granting sovereignty or returning historically Arab lands to Arabs seems a far cry from being anti-Israel. In fact, it strikes me that Goldberg stubborn position seems a lot worse for Israel. If you buy his argument you next have to denounce Rabin as anti-Israel. Go ahead Goldberg. I dare you.
Somebody squealed. The “J Street” project, America’s first progressive Israel PAC, was supposed to be launched next month, but the Jewish Week breaks the story that indeed, forces of the American Jewish community are organizing to kick the right-wing stranglehold on Congress in the knees.
Having been to DC in legislators’ offices for various causes and in particular Israel, it’s disgusting how the Hill functions. Most legislators don’t make decisions on Israel — they defer to the Jewish Congresspeople. Who in turn defer to Jewish money. In exchange, a Jewish legislator votes according to those other reps on their issues. As a result, issues with single-constituent lobbies (i.e. almost nobody lobbies on Israel except the Jews) get their way, which means a donor in New York can easily influence a legislator from Arizona on an issue with little or no Arizonan constituency. Lastly, Bills are rarely written by legislators but by the lobbies, who pitch them to friendly lawmakers, and then whip other legislators into line. Lobbies invent faux grassroots groups and think tanks to support their interests (case in point: CMIP, a publisher of repudiated research on Palestinian textbook hate speech).
And it’s sad that real votes (local constituents calling, phoning and visiting) are only an expression of money, as in how many votes can you organize for your issue with the money you have? For comparison, AIPAC is on the Hill four times a year; ZOA brought 300 people to their last advocacy conference; the JCPA (although far from the worst) represents 125 organizations of the American Jewish community’s old guard yearly. Despite all that, Brit Tzedek v’Shalom was founded in 2002 to put Jewish votes behind pro-peace legislation and has brought to Washington a new knowledge (and a few slim victories) that the Jewish community is diverse — and that the old guard poorly speaks for the average Joseph. BTVS just announced it’s annual leadership conference and advocacy visit to the Hill, June 21-24, which you should join.
But sadly, American democracy is more coin-operated that hand-crank. More »
In the Times Online, appears a lengthy review by Geoffrey Wheatcroft of no fewer than 6 books on Israeli and her history: Jacqueline Rose’s THE LAST RESISTANCE, Colin Shindler’s THE TRIUMPH OF MILITARY ZIONISM: Nationalism and the origins of the Israeli Right, David Goldberg’s THE DIVIDED SELF: Israel and the Jewish psyche today, Victoria Clark’s ALLIES FOR ARMAGEDDON:The rise of Christian Zionism, Yakov M. Rabkin’s A THREAT FROM WITHIN: A century of Jewish opposition to Zionism, and Jimmy Carter’s PALESTINE: Peace not apartheid
The review is long and rangy, starting and ending with a focus on the complicated and largely unknown major Israeli historical figure Jabotinsky. As he says in the review,
But the conflict in the Holy Land is still more dissonant in this regard. It is the single most bitterly contentious communal struggle on earth today (something which itself casts an ironical light on the aspiration of the first Zionists to “answer the Jewish question” by “normalizing” the Jews and removing them from the pages of history); it must receive more media coverage than India, which has a population a hundred times greater; it inflames acute passions. And yet it sometimes seems that the more strongly people feel, the less they actually know about the story of Zionism. Maybe it should be a requirement for anyone who wishes to hold forth on the subject to write first a few lines each on Ahad Ha’am, Max Nordau, George Antonius – or Vladimir Jabotinsky.
If not many Europeans or Americans know who “Jabo” was, Israelis certainly do. He remains the most charismatic, fascinating and controversial figure in the history of Zionism, and in the state to whose creation he devoted his life, but which he never saw. Born in 1880 in Odessa, he was converted to the Zionist cause as a young man by tsarist persecution, became a tireless publicist and organizer, and helped to create the Jewish Legion which fought with the British against Turkey during the First World War. In the 1920s he broke away to found the uniformed youth group Betar, and then the militantly nationalistic right-wing brand of Zionism he called Revisionism, in opposition to Chaim Weizmann and the general Zionists, and to David Ben Gurion and the Labour Zionists of the Yishuv, the Jewish settlement in Palestine.
From Betar would grow the Irgun Zvei Leumi, which waged an armed campaign against the British and the Arabs – in British and Arab eyes, a terrorist campaign – in the ten years before Israel was born. When Jabotinsky died in American exile in 1940, he had not seen the murderous horror that engulfed the European Jews, the creation of the Jewish state, or the legacy of his own movement. The Irgun evolved into the right-wing Herut party, which was not merely excluded from office but veritably anathematized in Israel for the first quarter-century the state existed after 1948, but which, now in the guise of Likud, took power at last in 1977 under the old Irgun leader Menachem Begin – and which descends to the present administration.
The two photos above, shot by Dotan Greenvald, are part of the Breaking the Silenceexhibit, supported by your very own Jewschool, which remains open for guided tours at Harvard Hillel in Boston through through March 16th. My recent visit to the exhibit was intense, eye opening, and almost magical in its ability to cut through all of the rhetoric and illustrate humanity.
These photos, like much of the exhibit, seek to demonstrate the realities experienced by many IDF soldiers serving at checkpoints, on patrols and fulfilling other tasks in the Occupied Territories, as told through the narratives of soldiers giving tours of the photo exhibit, and testimonials available at the exhibit and online.
All of the photos were from the personal collections of soldiers who served in the territories- they took pictures as part of their daily life, and to document their experiences serving their country. According to my guide at the exhibit, Oded Naaman, a former IDF soldier affiliated with Breaking the Silence, one of the behaviors mastered quickly by soldiers serving in the territories, is the practice of pointing one’s gun ahead of one’s body before moving in any direction, in order to “show presence” and be ready for danger. Greenvald, who is the other former IDF soldier who has been giving tours of the exhibit in Boston, was interested in capturing some of the nuance of this behavior–the degree to which one ends up viewing everything through the scope of his weapon. In the first shot, he views an innocent thirteen year old boy tending pigeons on his roof in the West-Casba. Juxtaposed with this, he photographed two of his friends talking, also through the lens of his gun, with his nigh-vision scope. Oded explained the quickness and ease with which humans adapt to the many behaviors necessary for these soldiers carrying out the work of the occupation–such as pointing your gun at children and your friends.
This is one of several visual memories which stand out as ideas and feelings which can never be captured in a policy briefing paper, newspaper editorial or email. They are the very real experiences happening each to day to adolescents barely old enough to vote, in whose hands the day-to-day necessities of the occupation are held.
When we [rightfully] consider the lives of innocent Israelis killed in bombings or innocent Palestinian children killed by IDF fire, this exhibit asks us also to consider the toll that the occupation takes on those who carry out its essential functions, and the effect these experiences have on Israeli society more broadly. For those in the Boston area, I highly recommend a visit to glimpse the images and hear the stories of the occupying soldiers.
This couldn’t come at a worse time with the Ashkelon rocket attacks by Hamas, but it’s important nonetheless. Last week, UVDA, Israel’s equivalent of 60 Minutes, dedicated all 28 minutes to a damning set of videoed confessions of former IDF soldiers in the Kfir Brigade who described a litany of abuses, including extorting products from Palestinian electronics shops, tossing stun grenades into mosques at prayer time, and even (Jesus) kidnapping a cab driver and executing shooting him in an abandoned warehouse. The driver was wounded but not killed. The episode features interviews with several soldiers and officers, and follows one around Hebron as he relives his stories, viewable in Hebrew online at Keshet-TV.com.
The testimony is so damning that Haaretz’s leading editorial on Feb 24 opened with a description of Abu-Ghraib and continued, “Last night, the investigative television program ‘Fact’ broadcast pictures of our own Abu Ghraib affair.”
This time, it was regular soldiers in the Kfir Brigade. They exposed their backsides and sexual organs to Palestinians, pressed an electric heater to the face of a young boy, beat young boys senseless, recorded everything on their mobile phones and sent it to their friends. One of their “mischievous acts” was to test how long a Palestinian who was being choked could survive without breathing. When he passed out, the experiment was stopped. The soldiers described activities to “break the routine” that consisted entirely of abuse. It was enough for a boy “to look at us the wrong way” for him to be beaten.
In a separate editorial, Haaretz opined, “But some officers say that the incident, while lamentable, is not unusual; what is different about this case, they say, is that most units involved in such incidents sweep them under the carpet.”
All this follows on the heels of an equally damning internal IDF report in December reported that 25% of soldiers at checkpoints participated in or witnessed “severe abuse”; members of Breaking the Silence claim the percentage is much higher. [Editor's note: link to JTA article on that story here.]
Concluded Haaretz,
Perfectly ordinary people, as the American psychologist said of the Abu Ghraib abusers, are capable of behaving like monsters…Something bad is happening to us, they are saying in the Kfir Brigade. That “something” is the occupation.
Watching the similar footage of “Hawara” a video taken by IDF educational corps of checkpoints subsequently leaked to the press in 2004, where 18 year olds describe how the only way to control behavior at a checkpoint is to beat someone first. They describe to their IDF videotapers the power trip which comes with absolute discretion over other people. “Some people come home really fucked up,” one soldier tells the camera. After being leaked to the press, the IDF court martialed a soldier caught on tape beating two Palestinians and sentenced him to 6 months in jail. 60 members of his unit then sent a letter to the Joint Chiefs saying that his behavior was standard practice at their checkpoint and that all 60 had committed similar abuses. If you want to arrest someone, they said, you can arrest us all.This is not a phenomenon special to Israel, this condition is universal to Americans and Israelis and all other average people given extreme power. This is an unavoidable consequence affecting directly or indirectly all soldiers in the field.
Perhaps we are approaching a tipping point of awareness. There is no way to whitewash the “context” to excuse this kind of behavior. Terrorism may exist, but so does this. Has it become this extreme before we’ve decided take action?
Come lend your support to the soldiers who are doing the important work of pushing Israeli society and American Jewry to confront these stories:The Breaking the Silence exhibit opens in Boston with IDF veterans Oded Naaman and Oded Greenvald tonight at 7 pm and is open at the Harvard Hillel on Sundays 12p-8p, Mondays-Fridays 2p-8p, and Fridays 10a-4p.
[Editor's note: Jewschool apologizes for the error in translation above in the first paragraph, that IDF soldiers executed a Palestinian cab driver. The soldiers shot the cab driver but not kill him. Jewschool strives to be factually correct in all of our posts, please email editor {at} jewschool(.)org to bring incorrect facts to our attention. Thank you.]
Okay, in the realm of the totally trivial:
Hasbro is trolling for business for their new international edition of Monopoly. To do this, they have instituted a vote in which people may go their website and vote for which cities they wish to appear. I have received umpteen mails about this that I should vote for Jerusalem to appear, and that seemed reasonable to me, as it is an important international city in many ways. So one day when I was being a slacker and not working on what I should have been I went over and voted for Jerusalem, Israel.
However, if you go over there now what you will find is not “Jerusalem, Israel” but simply “Jerusalem” a format in distinction to that of any other city: lacking a country.
If you believe that Hasbro should cease to opine on political matters, you may tell them so here, a URL that I include because it’s a pain to find any way to email them directly.
Warning: President’s Day is being hijacked by patriots from other countries. and lovers of foreign cultures. luckily for us, this means more interesting shows, events, and projects and less Uncle Sam costumes…
Fri: Soulico w/Onili in Chicago; birthright’s Israelity tour in SD Sat: JDub celebrates a patriotic holiday weekend with Middle Eastern mash ups, Israeli DJs, and good old American hip hop as SOULICO returns from Tel Aviv for a Brooklyn Loft Party w/Onili, Sneakas & Mazi; Israelity rolls through LA Sun: Israelity goes Vegas Mon: Soulico in Austin @ Beauty Bar Tues: Dan Safer and his troupe, Witness Relocation, perform works-in-progress from his Six Points Fellowship Project, Haggadah, at the Center for Jewish History. They won’t know what hit them… Wed: Jeremiah Lockwood performs new works-in-progress from hisSix Points Fellowship project, Hidden Melodies Revealed, solo in NYC. Thurs: Golem at the Parrish in Austin! Fri: Golem at the Warehouse Live in Houston!
Tonight at DC JCC: “What Makes an Army Jewish?” a panel discussion between Yehuda Shaul, co-founder of Breaking the Silence, and Adam Hartman, right-wing Israeli military soldier-turned ethicist.
Feb 25th, “On the Way to Gender Equality in Israel: a Comparative View” will present several expert perspectives on the struggle for gender equality in Israel, including recent initatives and developments. Location info here.
A former U.S. Army captain and a former Israeli Chief of Staff weigh in on the Winograd Report at Middle East Progress — and how the Israeli military knew it was screwed from the get-go.
JPost covers UPZ’s birthright israel trip — the only progressive such trip in existance, now in partnership with the New Israel Fund. And I couldn’t agree more with the impact of showing people the real Israel over showing them the facade of a Jewish Disneyland:
[UPZ Executive Director Tammy] Shapiro believes that bringing young Jews into direct contact with the often unsettling reality of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can help to strengthen the connection of young Jews with Israel. “When people actually go to these places and learn about things for themselves, they can go back to their campuses in America and talk about it better than they did before,” she says.
American pro-Israel activism is pretty pathetic. And it’s failing. American Jewish students are in a miserably uneducated place to defend accusations of human rights abuses in the West Bank — the daily reality, as attested to by soldiers themselves — but they are expected to do so by the pro-Israel establishment as it stands. This is the success of UPZ’s progressive birthright israel tours, NIF’s social activist tours, Encounter’s tours of Bethlehem and Shovrim Shtika/Breaking the Silence’s tours of Hebron. Support for Israel should be divorced from support for the occupation. But presently they go part and parcel, to the uncomfortable disaster of students connected to Israel. And non-students, not to mention.
But just whipping a little checkpoint-and-poverty on students is detrimental and thus wasteful, as they leave Israel feeling that reconciliation is impossible between their values and their Israel aspirations. This is why the UPZ is so important and why they, NIF, Encounter, and Shovrim Shtika stand out amist the plethora of other tours which happen to be organized by Jews also:
…But the UPZ’s program isn’t the only tour bringing Diaspora Jews into contact with Palestinians. Birthright Unplugged, which has no connection to birthright israel, brings North American Jews to the Holy Land to engage in Palestinian solidarity activism, many of whom return to US campuses as anti-Zionist activists, says Shapiro.
“Birthright Unplugged is an alternative to birthright which includes the Palestinian narrative, but ignores the Jewish narrative,” she says. “Our tour is more complex and doesn’t ignore either one. We are not coming from the perspective of animosity toward Israel; we care about the country deeply.”
I fully believe it’s impossible to understand the conversation about settlements without seeing the varieties of settlements yourself. I think it’s fully impossible to address the first-hand testimonies of ISM and pro-Palestinian activists without also having experienced East Jerusalem and the territories. And I think it’s disgustingly disingenuous to laud Israel’s civil rights record in relation to her Arab neighbors without paying heed to the pains and struggles of disenfranchised Israelis. We are all dangerously vulnerable of being mindless pundits if we have read only what other people say. (Read our comments exchange about Hebron to see what happens when talking heads fall under the bulldozer of first-hand experience.)
UPZ/NIF’s trip won’t take you to Gaza City. But the closer you can get, the more credibility you bear and the more able you can defend Israel interests — her moral interests and her security interests.
Registration for UPZ/NIF’s two trips are now open at www.israelexperts.com, 1st trip: May 19th-May 30th and open to ages 18-26.2nd trip: July exclusively for ages 22-26, exact dates for this trip will be determined after registration. Email UPZ director Tammy Shapiro at director {at} upzshalom(.)org for full details.
The central message of Breaking the Silence is “it can’t be done differently.”
A humane occupation is not possible in the experiences of these soldiers and if someone is committed to the settlement project, wherein a small number of Jews live amidst and must be protected from a greater number of Palestinians, then the result will be these ugly pictures.
Said veteran Arnon Degani, 25, today in a guided tour to a half dozen UPenn Hillel students, “It’s a slippery slope. You begin doing everything by the book. But then you realize that you can get away with everything. And that’s when enforcing curfew or guarding a checkpoint turns into abuse. You have so much power for an 18 year old. Shooting your gun becomes the most exciting part of the day.”
A very agitated participant, brought in by his son today, confronted Arnon on whether the territories were safer for Israeli citizens as occupied. Claiming the Arabs would kill all the Jews if Israel ended the occupation, he clearly represented a mainstream American Jewish understanding of the conflict.
Arnon said, “If you believe the occupation is necessary for Israel’s security, then you must accept that all of this will continue to happen. For all of the world to see. All of this must happen if we are to keep the settlements. And that’s fine if you think that. But if you think the settlements are for Israel’s security, then you legitimize settlers are military targets by terrorists. They are no longer civilians. I am there to protect civilians from attacks. That’s my job.”
To me, the most enlightening testimonies given by the soldiers are those which explain the realities of military operations.
“How can you tell if a detainee is a terrorist?” asked on student.
“Easy,” Arnon replied. “You radio the secret service and they tell you. You have the man’s ID. There are two kinds of detainees: terrorists and everybody else. I do everything necessary to capture terrorists. But I’m talking about what I have to do to civilians. I know these people are not terrorists. And far more numerous than terrorists. And yet I have to humiliate them to keep order. Every day. It can’t be done differently.”
This is what occupation looks like — not just the Occupation, but occupation in general. This bears an important relevance to Americans rightly concerned about Iraq today. And the message Breaking the Silence is bringing to the States is not how to end the occupation or even whether it should be.
This exhibit poses the question directly to you, asking, “This is what occupation looks like. It can’t be done differently. Are you willing to pay this price?” And the answer is up to you.
An interesting project has been initiated by a group of Israeli students to bring more world attention to the captured Israeli soldiers Ron Arad, Gilad Shalit, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev. The imagery is simple, and powerful: It documents people waiting at an airport with a blank sign.
the contrast between relatives waiting for their beloved ones and meeting them, and between you, the one that stands and wait for someone you know wouldn’t come in the next flight and won’t get to meet his family is shocking. by documenting it and putting it to a designated site (and later on create more out of it) we hope that masses of photos and people participating will bring to a change in the situation
please, whenever you are in an airport and have few minutes, wait for them with an empty sign, document yourselves and send it to us at: info AT missingthem.net thank you
Warning: President’s Day is being hijacked by patriots from other countries. and lovers of foreign cultures. luckily for us, this means more interesting shows, events, and projects and less Uncle Sam costumes…
The central message of Breaking the Silence is “it can’t be done differently.” 
“How can you tell if a detainee is a terrorist?” asked on student.
