"The IDF knew very well what its soldiers did in Gaza. It has long ceased to be the most moral army in the world."
Gideon Levy wrote for Hareetz, on March, 22 2009. He continued:
"The soldiers' transgressions are an inevitable result of the orders given during this brutal operation, and they are the natural continuation of the last nine years, when soldiers killed nearly 5,000 Palestinians, at least half of them innocent civilians, nearly 1,000 of them children and teenagers...Everything [that] occurred during these blood-soaked years as if they were routine events. ..we have trained our soldiers to think that the lives and property of Palestinians have no value whatsoever. It is part of a process of dehumanization that has endured for dozens of years"[1] the bitter fruits of the occupation.
In an interview with the Jerusalem Post on May 24, 2004, Israeli Professor Arnon Soffer, Head of the IDF's National Defense College, was brutally honest about the desired results of Israel's unilateral disengagement from Gaza:
"It's going to be a terrible war. So, if we want to remain alive, we will have to kill and kill and kill. All day, every day...If we don't kill, we will cease to exist…Unilateral separation doesn't guarantee "peace" - it guarantees a Zionist-Jewish state with an overwhelming majority of Jews.”
On January 11, 2009, Reserve Colonel Yoav Gal, an Israeli Air Force pilot, told Army Radio that during Operation Cast Lead, "I believe that it should have been even stronger! Dresden! Dresden! The extermination of a city! After all, we're told that the face of war has changed. No longer is it the advancing of tanks or an organized military. […] It is a whole nation, from the old lady to the child, this is the military. It is a nation fighting a war. I am calling them a nation, even though I don't see them as one. It is a nation fighting a nation. Civilians fighting civilians. I'm telling you that we […] must know […] that stones will not be thrown at us! I am not talking about rockets - not even a stone will be thrown at us. Because we're Jews.[…] I want the Arabs of Gaza to flee to Egypt. This is what I want. I want to destroy the city, not necessarily the people living within it."
"Most of the soldiers who took part in the assault on Gaza are youths with morals. Some of them will volunteer for any mission. They will escort an old woman across the street or rescue earthquake victims. But in Gaza, when faced with the inhuman Palestinians, the package will always be suspicious, the brainwashing will be stupefying and the core principles will change. That is the only way they can kill and engage in wanton destruction without deliberating or wrestling with their consciences, not even telling their friends or girlfriends what they did."-Gideon Levy
While I was in the little town of Bethlehem: Occupied Territory in July, 2007, I interviewed Dr. Rafat-Allawi and four General Practice residents at a pediatric privately funded hospital in the West Bank, during their forty-five minute break time in a 116 hour week. They pulled call at forty hour stretches and were paid $1, 400.00 a month, twice what physicians are paid in the public government hospitals of Palestine.
Dr. Yousef: "Three days ago, I had a critical cardiac patient that required transport to Israeli hospital, as we do not have the facilities or specialists here to treat critical cases. I had to apply for a permit; permission to travel with the child in the ambulance to Jerusalem, but was refused as the Israelis claimed I was a security risk; a threat to the state of Israel."
Dr. Amro: "Yes, a threat with his stethoscope! I had a patient that was one week old with severe heart disease and needed to go to Jerusalem for emergency care. The mother, a paramedic and I traveled with the baby in the ambulance. At the checkpoint, the Israeli soldier; a female laughed and told the mother in broken Arabic, 'You cannot pass through until you admit you are a prostitute.' The mother did not understand what she was saying and why the soldiers were laughing and joking as her baby was blue, but she said what the soldier demanded and we finally were let through. I do not know what happened with that baby and this harassment at the checkpoints is not unusual. At the checkpoints it is usual to wait 3-4 hours and because Palestinian ambulances are not allowed through, we must hire Israeli ambulances for transport. They charge 1,800 shekels [ 450.00 USA dollars] and the parents cannot even make that much money in a month of work."
Dr. Allawi: "The other alternative from going to Jerusalem [a few miles away] is to take the children to Jordan for care, but that trip can take two days. Before the intifada, we were able to go to Jerusalem, but not since. Yesterday, I had a child in renal failure and there is no pediatric dialysis available in the West Bank. It took over twelve hours to locate a hospital in Israel to take him, but it was too late and he is dead."
I asked did any of them have any faith in Tony Blair and the Quartet's initiative to build Palestinian infrastructures, especially in the medical field. They all laughed and Dr. Allawi added, "We have a very weak Health Ministry and there is no state authority. In 1994, when the PA started, its aim was that Palestine would assume authority and responsibility for ourselves and the Israelis present a false front."
When I commented that under International Law the occupiers are responsible for the needs and requirements of the occupied, the doctors laughed again, for it is the law of the jungle that rules the Holy Land.
The doctors examined and treated over one hundred children a day and admited a quarter of them. I was told that in the public hospitals in places like Hebron, the physicians will see five-hundred a day and admit a fourth of them also.
Dr. Hafiri: "We need specialists here; this is a major disaster not having any in the West Bank."
Dr. Amro: "The politicians live in a bubble. We live in the third world, and this is a heaven hospital, the government hospitals in the West Bank are hell! If we need blood for a child, we have to get it from Jerusalem and it takes five hours! So, we are supposed to predict six hours ahead, which child will require blood stat-immediately!"
Dr. Allawi: "There is no plan, no aim to really change this situation. The world leaders are not serious about changing the situation and really building foundations. Some of us get the opportunity to go to the US and get specialized training, but they don't come back here."
Dr. Al-Qaisi pulled out his USA citizenship and said, "In 2004, I won a green card lottery. The USA grants 55,000 green cards a year and if you pass the security checks and all the other criteria, you can get American citizenship. I went to Toledo, Ohio for a while, but I came back home, because my family is the most important thing to me. I don't care about making a lot of money, I want to be with my family."
So do the former Israeli soldiers with Breaking the Silence who have been trying to wake up their fellow citizens regarding how the occupation dehumanizes both sides. The ex-IDF break down the barrier of denial by speaking out:
"Since our discharge from the army, we all feel that we have become different. We feel that service in the occupied territories and the incidents we faced have distorted and harmed the moral values on which we grew up.
"We all agree that as long as Israeli society keeps sending its best people to military combat service in the occupied territories, it is extremely important that all of us, Israeli citizens, know the price which the generation who is fighting in the territories is paying, the impossible situations it is facing, the insanity it is confronting everyday, and the heavy burden it bears after being discharged from the IDF, a heavy burden that hasn't left us.
"That's why we decided to break the silence, because it's time to tell. Time to tell about everything that goes on there each and every day.
"We all served in the territories. Some served in Gaza, some in Hebron, some in Bethlehem and the rest served in other places. We all manned checkpoints, participated in patrols and arrests and took part in the war against terror. We all realized that the daily struggle against terror and the daily interaction with the civilian population has left us helpless. Our sense of justice was distorted, and so were our morality and emotions.
"The reality we experienced was made of: Innocent civilians being hurt, Kids not going to school because of the curfew, and parents who can't bring food home because they can't go to work.
"This reality has stayed us and will not go away. After discharge from the army, we decided that we shouldn't go on.
"We shouldn't forget what we ourselves did and what we witnessed. We decided to break the silence."
"There is a very clear and powerful connection between how much time you serve in the territories and how fucked in the head you get."[2]
Eileen Fleming, Founder WAWA:
Author "Keep Hope Alive"
"Memoirs of a Nice Irish American 'Girl's' Life in Occupied Territory"
Producer "30 Minutes With Vanunu" and "13 Minutes with Vanunu"
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