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Over
the last year ‘Breaking the Silence’ has collected testimonies given
by hundreds of IOF (Israeli Defense Forces) soldiers who served in
the territories during the last conflict. These testimonies reveal
the impossible reality those soldiers have to face, and the terrible
moral price this reality demands. Selected collections from those
testimonies have been published in testimonial collections produced
by ‘Breaking the Silence’.
The
present collection is not just one more testimonial-collection,
revealing the brutal routine of the territories’ reality, or the
constant moral degradation and erosion of soldiers’ values. The
collection focuses on IOF orders, rules of engagement and
operational procedures. It presents a grave picture of evidently
illegal orders given frequently, and in different times and places:
firing at civilians who pose no risk, revenge operations,
intentionally shooting at rescue-forces, and more. This collection
reveals the depth of the military administration’s moral corruption,
and the dimness of moral sense, which has spread to the highest
ranks. The testimonies in this collection concerns various units
that were operative in the territories in different times and at
different places, and is thus an evidence for the magnitude of the
moral decay, and for the depths to which flawed norms have diffused.
It
is also apparent that the IOF’s self-inspection system has failed to
fulfill its duty. This also applies to the civilian and
parliamentary inspection mechanisms, which, during the last
confrontations, have consistently refrained from criticizing the
army’s mode of conduct in general, and its rules of engagement in
particular. This brings out sharply an urgent need to create a
platform on which the information we have gathered here can be
presented, in order to examine what this information teaches, as
well as the IOF’s mode of conduct during the last confrontations. A
civilized and decent society cannot survive without a continuous
inspection and criticism of the most powerful organization operating
within it. ‘Breaking the Silence’ is therefore calling for the
establishment of an independent public inspection committee, which
will enable a responsible disclosure and examination of the facts.
Listening and taking responsibility is the very least that is
required of society and its representatives in a civilized and
decent society founded on basic moral values.
The Dirty Laundry
Witness: Staff
sergeant, Paratroops.
Place: Hebron
Date:
October 2000
Description:
They
threw stones and we were shooting rubber bullets. I heard live shots
from the lookout position above. The DCO officer from the DCO post –
right next to our hut – came out and asked: -
“Say, are you firing live ammunition here?”
-
“No, why would you think that. How come?”
-
“Say, what is going on up there?”
- “I
don’t know.” I immediately said, “I don’t know; don’t know them,
don’t ask me.” I did only what I had to.
-
“Because their officer (the Palestinian officer) reported that they
were being shot at, that one of theirs got a bullet.”
-
“I don’t know. Don’t know a thing.”
It
took a minute and everyone was there. The company commander and his
vice came and then again: - “Are you shooting live ammunition here?”
-
“No. How come? Are you crazy? We don’t even shoot rubber any more
here.”
He
asks: - “What is going on up there?” I said: - “I don’t know.”
He
goes: - “who is up there?” I immediately faced down, because we knew
the man [up there] was crazy. Everyone knows the man that was up
there was out of his mind.
I
told them the name of the guy who was up there. The company
commander went up immediately, and starts shouting at him: - “Did
you shoot live ammunition here?!” – “No. Does it seem like it to
you?”
I
hear the shouting above me: - “No way!” I didn’t shoot nothing here.
Nothing.”
Suddenly we hear on the radio the outlook post calling us: - “It
seems you should come over here for a second.”
The
company commander goes up. You see a live video recording of someone
loading a live-bullets magazine, cocking, and shooting towards the
square - towards someone who was just unloading some stuff from his
vehicle. A twenty-something year old, relatively young. The man is
being hit in the back. He [the soldier] took several shots – about
three bullets – and missed. His last bullet hit. The man fell, and a
day later we were told he died.
In
our company there is a known procedure – we keep our dirty laundry
inside, so the company commander decided to silence this event –
make the cassette recording vanish. Not publicly, but this is what
he ultimately did. He made the cassette vanish and the [shooting]
soldier had to do 35 days of chores for the company’s Sergeant first
class – after which he came back to the company like normal.
Do you want to
tell me that the battalion commander hadn’t heard of it?
I
believe it did reach the battalion commander, but the battalion
decided to silence the event – to keep the demon inside, so that no
one knows about it. The media did not hear of that. No one knows
that a person was just killed. The whole company knew of it, and
also, when the soldier came back he bragged about what he did.
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