Israel troops exhibit tells of harassment
By GAVIN RABINOWITZ
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apmideast_story.asp?category=1107&slug=Is\
rael%20Soldiers'%20Regrets

TEL AVIV, Israel -- The Israeli soldiers speak with
embarrassment about throwing stun grenades at
Palestinian children for fun, harassing a bride and
groom, and standing by as Jewish settlers vandalize
Palestinians' property.

Their photos and stark testimonials are the heart of a
new exhibit that tells a story of the intertwined and
violent lives of the military, Palestinians and Jewish
settlers in the West Bank city of Hebron.

After completing their three years of compulsory
military service, a group of infantry soldiers decided
Israel needed to know about what they call "the crazy
reality" of their experiences in Hebron - a city where
about 500 settlers live in three enclaves surrounded
by 130,000 Palestinians.

The Hebron settlers include some of the most extreme
among the 200,000 Israelis in the West Bank and often
rampage through the city. The Palestinians of Hebron,
who insist that all the settlers must leave, are also
known for their extremism, targeting settlers and
soldiers in shooting and bombing attacks.

More than 80 soldiers who served in Hebron got
together to create the exhibit of photographs and
video testimony, called "Breaking the Silence."

Organizers said the idea of the exhibit was both to
come to terms with their own actions and to serve as a
warning to others.

"It is only now that we realize we did some twisted
things," Micha Kurz, 20, told the Maariv daily. "We
can't be quiet anymore. We want every soldier to see
this and to also talk about it. It must not be allowed
to happen."

The soldiers refused to talk to foreign reporters.

In the exhibition, pictures taken by the soldiers
while on duty in Hebron cover the walls of a Tel Aviv
photography school.

Video plays in two corners of the room of soldiers,
their faces blurred and their voices distorted,
talking about their experiences and their regrets.

They talk of the gradual change the soldier undergoes,
worn down by long hours, tension, and fear. They
describe the process in which they stop viewing the
Palestinians as humans.

"I was taught that an eight-year-old child and a
90-year-old woman are first and foremost potential
terrorists, then Palestinians, Arabs and only at the
end - people," Kurz told the Yediot Ahronot daily.

The photographs range from jovial group shots of
soldiers taken inside barracks to pictures of detained
Palestinian men lying blindfolded on the side of the
road, their hands bound.

But mostly they show the way the soldiers view Hebron
- through the sights of a gun. In one image,
cross-hairs rest on the chest of a Palestinian
standing on the roof of his home. Another shows the
city through the eery green glow of a night scope.

They also show the effects of tense life in the city
on the Palestinians.

In an interview with Israel's Channel 10 TV,
21-year-old Yehuda Shaul, who initiated the exhibit,
pointed to a picture of a soldier standing next to
four small Palestinian boys.

"It takes a moment to grasp what's going on in this
picture, but it's insane," he said. "It's Palestinian
children playing at being soldiers, body-searching
each other. That's the way they live, that's what they
absorb."

The soldiers tell of random violence and humiliation
for the Palestinians.

One recounts how a comrade of his threw a stun grenade
at Palestinian children "just to relieve the boredom."
Another tells of how his commander held up a wedding
procession during a curfew, stopping the bride and
groom, dressed in their best clothes, by taking away
their car keys. He smiled as the bride cried.

A board displays more than 60 sets of car keys. A
small sign underneath says "In the West Bank,
confiscating car keys is a common form of punishment."

The soldiers' focus is also very much on the complex
relationship with the settlers - many of whom are
hardline Jewish nationalists.

Many of the pictures show settler graffiti calling for
blood and revenge, another says "Palestinians to the
gas chambers."

"Hebron is the craziest place, the most paradoxical
the most illogical," a former platoon commander who
served in Hebron, who identifies himself only as Noam,
told Israel Radio.

"The day you arrive, a little Jewish boy comes to
bring coffee and thanks you for defending him, and the
next day you are patrolling and you see the same boy
with a group of other children throwing stones and
beating with sticks an old Palestinian," he said.

The soldiers also tell of confrontations with settlers
as they try to destroy Palestinian property and seize
their homes.

Hebron resident Anat Cohen defended the settlers and
their relationship with the soldiers guarding them.
However, she noted that Hebron "was a complex place."

Cohen told Israel Radio that this particular group of
soldiers was sympathetic to the Palestinians and had
even given them military binoculars to spy on the
settlers.

Military spokesman Capt. Jacob Dallal said the group
was "people who are thinking and are aware of the
complex dilemmas of the area in which they serve," and
the army respected their rights to free expression.

However, Dallal said it was regrettable that the
soldiers only brought up their concerns after their
discharge and did not deal with the issues during
their time in Hebron.







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