Students for Justice in Palestine of New York University presented two separate programs critical of Israel’s occupation—the first from a perspective of soldiers who served in the territories and the second from a Palestinian who lives there. Noam Chayut and Avichay Sharon, former Israeli soldiers, presented an Oct. 18 slide show and discussion on “Breaking the Silence: Israeli soldiers reflect on their role in the occupation.” On Nov. 15, Zleikha Muhtaseb, founder of the Ibrahimi Center for Social Development in Hebron, gave “A Palestinian Perspective from Hebron: Coping with settlers and the soldiers who guard them.”

Nearly two years ago, Israeli soldiers who had served in Hebron selected photographs from their personal memory albums and videotaped testimonies for an exhibition in Tel Aviv. They called their organization “Shovrim shtika”—“Breaking the Silence”—and entitled the exhibition, “You need to define right and wrong.” Chayut and Sharon explained how, after serving in the territories, teenaged soldiers who had grown up thinking Israel has the most ethical army in the world came to feel that all their values were put in a blender. The message they wanted the exhibition to convey to Israeli society is “Wake up! The occupation corrupts and has a price.” As Chayut pointed out, the same person who flattens a Palestinian car with an armored personnel carrier drives in Tel Aviv traffic.

The first slide showed then-Lieutenant Chayut and his soldiers smiling and lounging in a well-appointed Palestinian home. The family members are absent. The soldiers had broken in the door to search for weapons and were taking a break. Chayut, now 26, asked what brought him to such a corrupt situation. How would he feel about foreign soldiers relaxing in his family home? Another slide is of a Palestinian teenager on the roof of his home, feeding pigeons. But the photo was taken through an M16 rifle scope, with the cross hairs directly on him. Sharon explained that aiming at Palestinian youths is so routine that it becomes a game. Another slide shows a smiling 19-year-old soldier in Chayut’s unit armed with an M16. He is standing in the rubble of a small store that an Israeli bulldozer demolished by mistake. The soldiers then looted the shop. Yet another slide showed Israeli settlers, including women and children, destroying a Palestinian shop while the Palestinians were under curfew. The soldiers are not allowed to touch the settlers; their orders are, after all, to protect them from Palestinians. Today the place where the shop stood is a parking lot for settlers. The final slide was of settler graffiti in English: “Arabs to the Gas Chambers.” [Continue…]

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