Brutal Occupation
Takes Toll on Israel's SoulBy
Dorothy Naor
Israeli Peace Activist
Wednesday, May 11, 2005
Today Israel commemorates more than
20,300 soldiers killed since 1948. So many dead, for what?
Neither the establishment of a Jewish
state nor Israel's military victories attained the
Zionist dream of security for Jews. To the contrary
nowhere else in the world since World War II are Jews
less secure than in Israel.
Just the past 4 1/2 years nearly 1,000
noncombatants have died in attacks. Besides, the present
relative calm in Israel is illusory. Violence will again
erupt unless Israel's leaders cease expansion and ethnic
cleansing.
Loss of life is but one cost of
occupation. Israelis pay dearly also in poverty,
violence, and post-traumatic stress. Drastic cuts in
social benefits have reduced Israel's social expenditures
to among the lowest in western countries, leaving nearly
1.5 million Israelis below the poverty line, one of every
five children going to bed hungry, more Israelis than
ever before depending on soup kitchens and more homeless.
At their expense, the Israeli government spends enormous
funds to create the "greater Israel."
The separation wall is being erected
at $4 million a mile, with 400 miles projected
twice the length than had it been built on the
"green line." Six thousand highly subsidized
suburban-type homes are planned for West Bank
settlements. And ample money exists for building
Israeli-only roads in Palestinian territories.
The worsening economic conditions
contribute to escalation of stress and violence. Thus one
of every five elderly Israelis is now subject to abuse,
and the Israeli police record a 36 percent increase in
violence among minors this past year.
A direct cost of occupation and threat
to Israel's welfare is post-traumatic stress. Jewish
youngsters in other countries do not face it, since upon
graduating from high school they may do as they please.
Israeli 18-year olds, however, are doomed by their
government's lust for land to combat a primarily civilian
population.
Consequently, post-traumatic stress
disorder is a persistent threat. In 2003 more soldiers
died from suicide than were killed in battle. Others upon
discharge become addicted to drugs and alcohol. And yet
others become violent.
Three days at the
Huwara checkpoint and my sleep is disturbed by
what I have heard and seen. When I go to sleep I
hear the shouting and the laughing of the young
Israeli soldiers, I see their sarcasm and their
contempt, I see them charging at ordinary people
men, women, children and elders
with their rifles, changing rules as they want,
deciding restlessly of Palestinians
everyday destiny. Basically, at the checkpoints
of Occupied Palestine there are no rules.
Everything is decided in an arbitrary way by
young Israeli soldiers who have a uniform and a
rifle and because of that they can do what they
want.
The only thing that gives me hope and that allows
me to fall asleep is that some of these soldiers
have doubts, some are ashamed of what they do and
some others fear the gaze of the world. If only
one or two thousand of the one hundred millions
people who marched in the streets of the world on
Saturday the 15th of February came to the
Occupied Territories, stayed here for few months,
with cameras and video cameras, talking to the
Israelis, protecting the Palestinians - I am sure
- that would make a big difference. www.brightonpalestine.org |
"This is a ticking bomb," a
counselor at a rehabilitation center relates. Help is
unavailable for many soldiers who have gone "into
terrible distress of drugs, beatings, violence,
impatience, ... soldiers who clashed with a civilian
population, and when they were discharged understood that
they had been wrong."
Hundreds, he reveals, "are
roaming about with the feeling that there is no point to
living, and the path to suicide and drugs is very easy.
We are afraid that former soldiers will commit criminal
acts as a result of their distress."
One discharged woman blames the drug
phenomenon on the "sick Israeli society"
a "society of war." The soldier who killed
"a man or a child" or "entered the home of
an Arab family at night, beat a child, a mother and took
the father into detention" upon release takes drugs
"to try to forget the pictures that are with him all
the time since then." She said that drugs are
"an expression of the strong desire of young
Israelis to escape from the insanity that has been forced
on them."
Yehuda Shaul of "Breaking the
Silence" (soldiers' testimonies of acts committed on
Palestinians) caps it all: "It's a situation that
screws up everyone. ... People start out at different
points and end up at different points, but everyone goes
through this process. No one returns from the territories
without it leaving a deep imprint, messing up his
head."
If Israelis are to experience security
and peace, their governments must relinquish occupation
and force. As Theodore Herzl, the father of Zionism,
wisely observed, "Oppression naturally creates
hostility against oppressors. ..."
The sole hope for a better future for
Israelis lies in justice and freedom for Palestinians. As
Sari Nusseibeh, President of Al-Quds University, has
said: "We either sink together or swim
together."
I did one more hope!
I was born in Jerusalem 18 years
ago, but after that I havent been there,
because I am Palestinian, so I shouldnt go
into the occupied Capital of Palestine!
Yesterday, I have been created
from anew, I went to where I didnt imagine
I could ever go. I went to Jerusalem with a
German woman, she wanted to have more experience
about the life in Palestine, and I wanted to meet
a friend in Ram-Allah.
My father suggested to me if I go
through Jerusalem, because It takes only 15
minutes from Jerusalem to ram-Allah.
We went to Bethlehem checkpoint,
Jessica, the German woman went
through it, but because I am Palestinian I
wasnt allowed to pass directly, so my
father took me through a turning way, but
unfortunately we saw 10 solider booking about 100
Palestinian workers, so my father started
running, and he forgot that I was with him!
Then I followed him, he took me
from another way, which was through a mountain
near that stupid checkpoint, we walked about 2
kilometers through the mountain, and the sun
above our heads
and each 10 meters my
father was checking if the way is safe or
not, and then tell me come! We passed 2
kilometers in about half hour, because we walked
very fast, in order to not let the Israeli
soldiers catch or see us, because they would
shoot us...
I asked my father to be back home
because I got tired, then he said you got
tired from the first time you walk, what do you
think of the Palestinian workers who come every
day through this way at 5 at morning to stay
alive?!
I didnt know what to
answer!
Then we took a bus from there to
Jerusalem, and I started taking video movies for
the walls of The holly rock Dom mosque, I got
sad, because I was not able to go into the mosque
and pray, because I dont have a permission
from the Israeli government to pray
Jessica showed me around
Jerusalem, I felt happy to know Jerusalem, but in
the same time I felt sad, because I didnt
know Jerusalem before
at last the Palestinian people
need some foreigner people who show them their
occupied land
.
Where is the just in that?!
when we retuned from ram Allah,
we went through Kalandia checkpoint, and they
check my ID, that is really shame, a stupid woman
could stop hundreds of people every day, and
return who ever she like to return
if she
did a problem with her boy-friend, then our luck
is really bad, we cant pass through that
checkpoint
!
I suggest if The United Nations
should give those stupid women four boyfriends,
in order not to get angry with us and return
us
We went to find a taxi from
Kalandia to Bethlehem, and that was really
difficult for me..
At last we found a taxi, and the
turning way took from our time about 3 hours!!!!
I hope someday these facts will
be from the history, which is really awful..
I thank Jessica because she came
with me
by
Tamer
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