Champion of the Week: Yehuda Shaul

During his visit to the Middle East, Citizen Paul had the opportunity to meet and speak with many young dedicated Israelis that are determined to correct the errors of their Government.

In the following weeks, we will feature each of these individuals for you, in addition to other wonderful Palestinian citizens who are all dedicating their best efforts to bringing peace and hope to their homelands.

Yehuda Shaul is a 25-year-old Israeli who, like nearly all Israeli men, has served three years on active duty in the Army and is now an Israeli Army Reserve. Shaul is also a former Israeli settler who lived on a settlement in the occupied West Bank. He is a religious Jew and continues to wear the traditional Jewish skullcap.

Shaul is the founder, and now the Executive Director, of the organization known as “Breaking the Silence.” This organization is comprised of more than 200 former Israeli soldiers who believe that the way the Israelis treat the Palestinians in the occupied territories is unconscionable and needs to be exposed and ended. “Breaking the Silence” describes itself this way:

BREAKING THE SILENCE

Breaking the Silence is an organization of [over 200] veteran Israeli Soldiers that collects testimonies during the Second Intifadah. Soldiers who serve in the Territories are witness to and participate in military actions, which change them immensely. Cases of abuse towards Palestinians, looting and destruction of property have been the norm for years, but are still excused as military necessities, or explained as extreme and unique cases.

Our testimonies portray a different and grim picture of questionable orders in many areas regarding Palestinian civilians. These demonstrate the depth of corruption, which is spreading in the Israeli military. While this reality, which is known to Israeli soldiers and commanders, exists in Israel’s back yard – Israeli society continues to turn a blind eye and to deny that which happens in its name.

Discharged soldiers who return to civilian life discover the gap between the reality encountered in the Territories, and the silence they encounter at home. In order to become a civilian again, soldiers are forced to ignore their past experiences.

Breaking the Silence has interviewed hundreds of soldiers who served in territories and continues interviewing new soldiers daily. These interviews are published on this website, in testimonial booklets, through different media outlets, and also through lecture and tours in Hebron. The testimonies are published with minimal editing and with complete confidentiality, in order to protect the soldiers and to encourage them to speak.

Breaking the Silence says: “We demand accountability regarding Israel’s military actions in the occupied territories perpetrated by us and in our name.”

EXCERPTS FROM “BREAKING THE SILENCE” SOLDIER TESTIMONIES:

Rank: First Sergeant
Place of Incident: Ramallah
August 2002

We entered Ramallah and we were told to take up positions in a building opposite the Muquatah. A day earlier, a group of soldiers from the Duchifat unit had taken the building. The Palestinian Minister of Communications used the building and it was full of photographs, tape recordings, etc. When we entered the building we noticed that all six floors had been ransacked. There were ripped up pictures and mashed television sets with shit inside them and the window of the recording room was broken.

Rank: First Sergeant (res.)
Unit: Battalion 50, Nahal Brigade
Place of incident: Hebron

Three weeks after the beginning of Homat Magen [Operation Defensive Shield]

Battalion 50 took over the city of Hebron about four months before “Homat Magen” (Operation Defensive Shield). At this time it was to be replaced by Nachal Battalion 932. The changeover started in stages and my company of March 2001 was the first to leave the front. We were replaced by the parallel unit. We went out on regular leave during which time we were called back to participate in Operation Defensive Shield. The rest of the Battalion stayed on in Hebron and that is how we found ourselves with unit 932 while the rest of our company with 932 remained in Hebron.

After three weeks we exchanged in order to reserve our original organization. Two or three days after we had returned, I went up to the “pharmacy” post, (it was near a pharmacy…hence called the pharmacy post) that was next to the Bus parking lot beside the open lot beside the tomb of the Patriarchs.

As part of the procedures, we would go up to the roof of the building in order to watch over the roads coming into the crossroad. While going up to the watch, I noticed that one door was broken into and I remembered that it hadn’t been like that when we had left…We opened the door and viewed a horrific sight…the place was a doctor’s clinic and what we saw were wooden doors that had been completely smashed and glass showcases had been destroyed. Syringes scattered all about along with documents, drawers that had been upended and smashed, and the worst was the used toilet paper scattered all about the two piles of shit smothered on the floor.

Rank: First Sergeant
Unit: Battalion 50, Nahal Brigade
Place of Incident: Ramallah, Bitonia
April 2002

During Operation “Omat Magen” [Defensive Shield], our unit ended up going through and staying in various houses of Palestinians who had been temporarily removed to another place. In just about every place we entered, we did so with good intentions of not taking advantage or destroying, but over the course of a couple or three days, soldiers found themselves resting on the sofas watching television, the furniture was broken. People would wipe their asses with towels from the bathroom, making use of personal computers in the house. It is impossible to point out only one house because this happened to everyone in every house.

To learn more about Breaking the Silence, visit www.breakingthesilenceexhibit.org.

Click Here to see read about last week’s Champion, Hagit Orfran.

July 15, 2008 | Filed Under GFA