Breaking the Silence Our Blue Identity Card / Arnon Degani
Arnon Degani writes about his experiences at Breaking the Silence
On Thursday Yehudah calls me: “Tomorrow there is going to be a big article in Haaretz, based on testimonies we gathered.” “On which incidents?” I ask, and Yehudah explains: “A medic testifies about a doctor who gave an anatomy lesson on a Palestinian’s corpse, a testimony about a paratrooper who killed an innocent person and everything was hushed up, and a deputy unit commander who got a monetary fine as punishment for killing a child". I nod and ask: “What do you want from me?” Yehudah answers, “Write a response-article for Sunday.” I rolled my eyes when I understood that I've been stuck with the job and I would have less time to study for the test I have next Wednesday. That's how it is in “Breaking the Silence” we take turns doing these things and it is now my turn.
It wasn't always like this. When I first started my activities in "Breaking the Silence" there were still testimonies that shocked me. It seems to me that I, among all the members of "Breaking the Silence", saw the least disturbing things during my military service and when I first encountered our files of testimonies I sincerely asked Yehudah if all this has really happened. After taking up a few testimonies myself for checkups and cross-references, I understood that yes: it's all real; and it happens almost everywhere. Even though I am not easy to shock now, I start working on the article because I know it's important.
We are trying to carry our message to the public for almost a year now. We are volunteers with meager resources, and we don't get much appreciation. Amos Harel wrote about us, and how much our work has influenced the higher ranks of the IDF – much more than the letter sent by the officers in ‘Shaldag’ elite-unit – the contents of which were not publicized in order not to “expose our dirty laundry”. Flattering, but we are not addressing the General staff or Bogi [nickname of chief of staff – Moshe Ya’alon] or Kaplinsky [GOC central command, Maj. Gen. Moshe Kaplinsky] or Stern [Maj. Gen. Elazar Stern, head of Manpower branch]. We are addressing a much higher authority than them: Israeli society.
Who is the military doctor who operated on the corpse? It could be your family doctor when he was on reserve duty. Who is the paratrooper who shot the grocer who was unloading stock from a truck? It could be Ofer, the neighbor's son, who is now smoking himself to death in India. The officer who got a fine for killing a child—who is he? It would be great if we here in "Breaking the Silence" could go back to believing that what we saw was "exceptional incidents". But it just isn't so. That is our goal—to stop blaming the "Druze unit commander", or the "Kafkazi soldier", or the "Bedouin Lieutenant", or the “Moroccan Border police soldier”, and try to explain that this is what is bound to happen, as long as 20 year olds with blue identity cards administer whole populations of orange identity card holders. What can we do with this knowledge? "Breaking the Silence" does not have the answer. Maybe Sharon is right about the disengagement in Gaza; maybe Azmi Bashra, who calls for a bi-national state, maybe Lieberman who wants two states: one totally Arab and the other totally Jewish. Maybe even Arie Eldad is right: blow them all off to Jordan. Everybody is talking about the end of the occupation. We shouldn't let the relative quiet lead us to thinking that the occupation is tolerable, if a long term solution is not found we will know a third and fourth intefada and "Breaking the Silence" will come up with testimonies that are far worse.
Just one last thing in response to the paratroopers platoon commander, who claims that it isn't the situation (the occupation) that is to blame, but the soldier. I wish to remind him, as he himself admits, that when he was a unit commander during the first intefada he "did some things that he is not proud of". The question he should ask himself is: how come you, an officer (not a newly enlisted soldier) in a much less intensive intefada, when the hours of standing were much shorter, the armed terrorists suspects much fewer, and the corpse-count of both Israelis and Palestinians bodies much lower—how come you did things you weren't proud of? Don't misunderstand me; I'm grateful for you and for your soldiers who make it possible that I may live in relative security. It might so happen that my reserve unit will relieve yours at the front. But don't desert a soldier of yours, who put a hole in a solar heater water-tank—it was you, it was all of us, and you know it.
