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Message: <br /><br /> If you are having trouble reading this email, you may view this article online at: http://www.jweekly.com/57401/full/57401/ex-idf-soldier-leads-campaign-to-expose-injustices-in-territories/ <br /><br /> <b>Ex-IDF soldier leads campaign to expose injustices in territories</b> <br /> Friday, March 12, 2010 | by alexandra j. wall <br /><br /><p>When Dana Golan entered the Israel Defense Forces, she spent her three months of basic training learning about the IDF’s mission. That consisted of the IDF’s high code of morality, steeped in Jewish tradition.</p> <p>She thought she knew something about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But when she got to Hebron, she realized everything she thought was wrong.</p> <p> <div class="capDivLeft" style="width: 216px;"><img alt="BAsilence Golan, Dana crm" class="left" height="324" src="http://www.jweekly.com/images/uploads/y_photos_2010/zo03_12_10/BAsilence Golan, Dana crm.jpg" title="Dana Golan" width="216" /> <div class="caption">Dana Golan</div> </div> Golan, 27, is the executive director of the Israeli organization Breaking the Silence (Shovrim Shtika in Hebrew), and was in the Bay Area recently on a speaking tour organized by the New Israel Fund, which is one of its funders.</p> <p>Breaking the Silence seeks to ensure that what goes on in the territories is talked about openly in Israeli homes.</p> <p>Hebron, Golan explained, is the one city in the West Bank where Jewish settlers and Palestinians live in the same city. And the hatred between them is immense.</p> <p>She soon learned it was like “the Wild West,” she said, where anything goes. And when eggs were thrown at soldiers, they were likely to come from Jewish settlers, not Palestinians.</p> <p>It wasn’t long before Golan heard about her fellow soldiers — some of them her friends — looting Arab stores and sharing stolen stereo equipment with their buddies. When she finally summoned the courage to report it to the commander of her unit, she was dismissed with a wave of his hand. Later, she saw her fellow soldiers taking smiling photos with dead Palestinians.</p> <p>While Golan thought she knew the difference between good and evil before Hebron, she no longer was so sure. “The occupation puts us in impossible situations,” she said.</p> <p>Breaking the Silence was founded in 2004 by Yehuda Shaul, an ultra-Orthodox Jew who spent his military service in Hebron. When he was released, he was struck by the fact that soldiers are expected to blend seamlessly into society with no mention of what they’ve been through.</p> <p>Shaul found others who felt the same way, and they collected each others’ testimonies — anonymously, to encourage greater honesty — of what was required of them in the army, and put together a photo exhibit of what really went on Hebron.</p> <p>While the exhibit drew large crowds, it was also widely criticized. Many Israelis believe that the organization is airing Israel’s dirty laundry.</p> <p>Golan’s response? “I believe the way to solve problems is to deal with them, not sweep them away.”</p> <p>While Israeli politicians have long called the IDF “the most moral army in the world,” Golan said that the reality is quite different.</p> <p>Golan herself appears in a new Breaking the Silence booklet of women soldiers’ testimonies. In it, she describes how she fearfully accompanied a group of soldiers to search for weapons in a Palestinian family’s home, waking them up at 2 a.m.</p> <p>She witnessed soldiers kicking the father in front of his children. “You open a drawer and throw all the contents out and leave it like that,” she said. “I asked the commander whether we help them sort it all out afterward. Just so you understand how naïve I was … The owner is following us from room to room asking us questions and none of us even bother to speak to him. And we didn’t find a thing.</p> <p>“This was the first moment I simply understood why they hate us. I would have hated us too.”</p> <p>So far, 700 IDF vets have given their testimonies to Breaking the Silence. The organization gives tours to Hebron — both to Israelis and tourists — with vets accompanying the groups.</p> <p>“This information is missing in the public discussion,” said Golan. “We believe that as long as we keep sending our kids, our brothers, our sisters or whomever into this kind of situation where they are controlling civilians, we have to talk about the moral price.</p> <p>“We cannot solve the problem as long as we don’t know this truth.”</p>

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