Memo from Jerusalem
March 23, 2007
Memo From Jerusalem
Israeli Soldiers Stand Firm, but Duty Wears on the Soul
By STEVEN ERLANGER
JERUSALEM, March 22 - Some of Jerusalem´s nicest people gathered the other night to
listen to a talk by an Israeli soldier troubled by how he and some of his colleagues had
behaved in the occupied West Bank.
The small crowd on a rainy evening was a bit disheveled, with lots of untamed hair and
sensible shoes. Largely English-speaking, they were generally somewhere on the left of
Israel´s wide political spectrum, and they listened earnestly as Mikhael Manekin, 27,
spoke quietly about his four years of service with the Golani infantry brigade in the
West Bank.
Mr. Manekin and his colleagues spent a lot of their time at security checkpoints around
Hebron and Nablus, controlling the movement of Palestinians to try to ensure that
suicide bombers could not infiltrate Israeli cities. The checkpoints are part of a
security network, including the separation barrier, that protects Israel, but also
deeply inconveniences Palestinians who would never consider strapping on a bomb.
Mr. Manekin is the director of Breaking the Silence, a group of former Israeli combat
soldiers and some current reservists, shocked at their own misconduct and that of
others, who have gathered to collect their stories and bear witness. Since 2004, the
group has collected testimonies from nearly 400 soldiers (available in English at
www.shovrimshtika.org/index_e.asp).
He spoke of how some soldiers humiliate or beat Palestinians to keep crowds in line and
how soldiers are taught to be aggressive, but how most behave within decent moral limits
- and of how the fear that hundreds of people could erupt in anger wears on the soul and
turns young men callous.
"I don´t think this is a problem of the military," he said. "It´s a problem of the
society. We´re sending these kids in our name. And there has to be a space to talk of
bad things. It´s not enough to say, `But there´s Palestinian terrorism,´ which there is,
but that´s too easy."
He felt conflicted whenever he went back into the army on reserve duty, he said. "I love
my soldiers, and I´m a good officer," he said. "But going back into that system is hard.
Still, I see my future here and my children´s future. And I want a safe country, like
everyone, and also a moral country."
In the aftermath of Israel´s inconclusive summer war against the militant organization
Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, Mr. Manekin´s stories struck an ambivalent note even in
this audience at the Yakar Center for Social Concern, founded in 1992 to promote debate
and dialogue among Israelis and their neighbors. Run by Benjamin Pogrund, a
distinguished journalist from South Africa, the center embraces difficult topics like
the status of Israeli Arabs, settlements, religious orthodoxy and challenges to
democracy.
There is a general gloominess in Israel after the war with Hezbollah, a sense that
neither the government nor the army performed very well, and the result is widespread
anxiety and a new mood of introspection.
The government is one thing, but the army is the core institution of this little state,
and a fine new film about the army´s last days in Lebanon in 2000, "Beaufort," is being
praised for its depiction of the sensitive Israeli soldier bravely doing his duty
despite his fear and the usual political and military confusion.
While criticism of the army is quite acceptable in Israel´s democracy, and not just on
the left, Breaking the Silence left some raw feelings here.
At the recent talk and discussion session, one man stood and said Mr. Manekin and his
friends were hurting Israel, especially its image abroad, in order to salve their own
consciences. Many in the audience nodded in agreement. Tall and dignified, about 45, the
man said that he, too, had served in the West Bank, "and I´m proud of what I did there
to defend Israelis."
It is crucial to intimidate people at checkpoints to keep them cowed, he said, his voice
shaking a little, "because we are so few there, and they are so many."
Then he said: "These people are not like us! They come up to our faces and they lie to
us!"
That was enough for Uriel Simon, 77 years old, a professor emeritus of biblical studies
at Bar-Ilan University and a noted religious dove.
"As for liars," Mr. Simon said, then paused. "My father was a liar. My grandfather was a
liar. How else did we cross lines to get to this country? We stayed alive by lying. We
lied to the Russians, we lied to the Germans, we lied to the British! We lie for
survival! Jacob the Liar was my father!" he said.
As for the Palestinians, he said: "Of course they lie! Everyone lies at a checkpoint! We
lied at checkpoints, too."
Everyone is afraid of mirrors, Mr. Simon said, readjusting the knitted skullcap on his
nimbus of white hair. "We hate the mirror. We don´t want to look at ourselves. We don´t
like photographs of us - we say, `Oh, that´s not a very good likeness.´ We want to be
much nicer than we are. But here there are also prophets who are mirrors, who are not
afraid of kings and generals. The prophet says, `You are ugly,´ and we don´t want to
hear it, but we have to look at the mirror honestly, without fear."
Later, Mr. Simon tried to describe the ambivalence and even confusion, as he saw it, in
the room.
The army is central to Israel, and the problems so complicated, he said. At the
beginning of the summer war, as in the beginning of any war, including the war in Iraq,
"there´s a euphoria that derives from an almost irrational belief in power and force,
that the sword can cut through all the slow processes." It is more enthralling if, like
Israel, "you have so much power that you can´t use, and suddenly you can."
But the euphoria is always short-lived, he said, because no army is as efficient as
advertised, and power rarely delivers the clean outcome it seems to promise.
"We bomb southern Lebanon like mad, and still they continue to send missiles at us," he
said.
The frustration is even more intense "for a people like Israel forced to live on its
sword, for who will save this little state?" he asked. "The United Nations? The good
will of America? We´d be overrun 10 times before America awakes, even if it wants to
awake. So every 10- year-old knows the sheer importance of the Israeli Army, and the more
you need it the more you expect from it."
At the end of the evening, Mr. Simon said, he went to talk to the tall man who had been
so upset. "He said to me, `You won´t believe me, but I agree with 90 percent of what you
said.´ " Mr. Simon laughed softly. "It just showed how confused he was."