Read our Blog

Celebration in Tahrir Square in Egypt (Photo by Ramy Raoof)

Egypt

All patriotic Americans cheer and applaud the wonderful, brave and dedicated Young Citizens of Egypt – who gather together by the thousands in Tahrir Square in the heart of Cairo, Egypt!
- To Shout and Pray for Freedom and Democracy for Egypt!
…and the quick Departure of Mubarak, their Dictator for 30 years.
Remember when Obama went to Cairo and gave the Stirring speech about bringing Freedom to Egypt, the Mid East and the World!

He looked good then…

He made America look good!

Now – after some encouraging words – Obama backed out at the urging of Netanyahu of Israel – including Biden, his own VP, and Hillary Clinton, his own Secretary of State – who were also duped by Israel and Netanyahu and their local Un-American Israeli, AIPAC Lobby, that controls our US Congress!
Sadly our President, Obama has let us down!
So – Here we are with “egg on our face” – put there by Biden, Clinton and an ex US diplomat to Egypt who still “bows and scrapes” and makes America “the Bastion of Freedom” look bad to the Whole World.
With “Friends” like these, Obama does not need Enemies!

Read our Blog

The February 5th edition of the Economist Magazine covers the whole critical situation in Egypt so “tellingly” that I wanted to share the following excerpt from the article EGYPT RISES…

Barack and Mubarak

Despite the undoubted difficulties in the short run, even a messy democracy could eventually be a rich prize—and not just for Egyptians. A democratic Egypt could once again be a beacon to the region. It could help answer the conundrum of how to incorporate Islam in Arab democracies. And, though Israel is understandably fearful of the threats on its borders, an Egyptian government that speaks for the people might one day contribute more to a settlement with the Palestinians than an authoritarian’s “cold peace” ever could.

The West can help win this prize. Its pursuit of stability above democracy has damaged its image, but it can make amends now. America in particular still has influence with Egypt’s political, business and military elite. If it uses that, it could help speed the transition from autocracy through chaos to a new order and improve its standing in the region.

Egypt’s upheaval may make Westerners nervous, but when Egyptians demand freedom and self-determination, they are affirming values that the West lives by. There is no guarantee that Egypt’s revolution will turn out for the best. The only certainty is that autocracy leads to upheaval, and the best guarantor of stability is democracy.

To read the complete article, go to http://www.economist.com/node/18070190

Also, in the same edition of The Economist…

AN END OR A BEGINNING

As Hosni Mubarak fights back, where Egypt’s revolt will go, and how far it will spread, are still unanswered questions

IT IS the greatest drama to shake Egypt since the killing of Anwar Sadat in 1981. Huge nationwide protests have challenged the long rule of President Hosni Mubarak, threatening to dislodge him. As yet, the denouement remains unwritten. Will it match Tunisia, where a popular uprising sent another strongman president into exile, toppled his ruling party and opened the way to real democracy? Or will it look like Iran in 2009, where a hardline regime crushed a popular protest movement with iron-fisted resolve?

To read the complete article, go to http://www.economist.com/node/18063746

As you know Citizen Paul, more than anything else, stands for Liberty, Justice and Humanity for all.

This is hoping for a tremendous and difficult achievement – it could be called the “The Impossible Dream”, but it should remain the driving force behind America — the “Spirit of America” —which means for all of humanity.

However, according to the morning news sources coming from Washington and Egypt, we, our government from President Obama to Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton, and through much of Congress and our “Intelligence” Agencies — this is what is happening now.

The United states of America, under President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is “CAVING IN” to Vice President Suleiman of Egypt, who has long been the source of information and advice for our intelligence agencies and now tells us that we must do nothing until September and nothing at all to honor the brave protesters for democracy in Tahrir square who have given — along with the hundreds of thousands of loyal Egyptian citizens — everything  including their Life’s Blood, their Reputations and their Livelihood in order to Fight for Freedom!

Obama and Clinton have “Caved In. Obama and Clinton have “Rolled Over and Played Dead” not only to Suleiman and Mubarak, but to Netanyahu and the criminal dictatorship that now controls Israel and our U.S. Congress — so that they can continue the imprisonment of the Palestinian people in the West Bank and their horrible outdoor prison of 3 million people in Gaza.

Can Americans allow this to happen?

No! Citizen Paul will not tolerate this contemptuous behavior! Citizen Paul will, if necessary — ALONE, continue to stand with the Demonstrators in Egypt and Tunisia and Burma and Tibet and wherever else in the World our Fellow Human Beings fight for Freedom, Justice and Humanity!

President Obama and Secretary Clinton — please take notice!  You must stand with the Demonstrators in Tahrir Squre — or “Stand Alone!”

He Believes In:

GOALS FOR AMERICA!

(Purpose and Foresight)
Come Along!
Enjoy the Ride — and Help Steer America and the World!

“Just a Guy in the Idea Business who wants to give more direction and purpose to America.”

Let’s first applaud the citizens of Tunisia and Egypt for creating a peaceful revolution in both their countries — and demonstrating the guts and dedication to stick it out until they initiated the beginnings of Democracy for their own Countries!

Let us honor and give our dedication to the 26 year old young man in Tunisia who was so abused and denigrated by Tunisia’s unbelievably horrible treatment that he set himself on fire and died as a result!

The ensuing Protests and the Demonstrations by thousands of Tunisian Citizens caused the uncaring, selfish and mean spirited Dictator of Tunisia to leave the country!

And now in Egypt the mass protest rallies of thousands of Citizens — though attended by Mubarak’s own vicious “police brutality agents — stood their ground — and have finally forced a vital and significant change — with Mubarak vacating the Presidency.

These people rose to the occasion and achieved their Victory as True Heroes For Humanity! We shall always Remember and Honor them!

Now, we must consider:  LIBYA, SYRIA, YEMEN, JORDAN, ISRAEL, PALESTINE (West Bank and Gaza) — plus Lebanon.

See our Heroes for Humanity Calendar

…with Mr. Rosen and Mr. Weissman running the show. They brag that they can have almost all Senators and Congressmen sign letters to President Obama praising Israel for attacking the AID Flotilla Ship (murdering 9 people, including one American) – and then giving them endless money and weapons to keep the Palestinians from ever having Freedom and their own Country in the West Bank and Gaza.

The Final Solution for Israel and Palestine can only happen with your help — but you will bring never-ending shame and sorrow to all of the Jewish people throughout the World if you do not act on this plan to demonstrate that Israel is and can act in a Human way toward other human beings.

As the year 2010 begins, one year into the Obama presidency, prospects for a just and sustaining resolution of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians seem more hopeless than ever. This is the harsh reality we all face! But for the Palestinians in the West Bank and especially Gaza, this hopelessness is a slow-motion death sentence – the death of a better future!

When Obama was elected, moderate Israelis and all Palestinians in the occupied territories dared to envision the resumption of serious negotiations leading to a lasting peace, and the most audacious thought imaginable — the establishment of a Palestinian homeland. Obama represented a fresh and vigorous new beginning – a new American president who would champion the Palestinian Cause as a moral imperative.

Obama represented the end of our duplicity and the beginning of our national redemption! His election represented a new beginning for Israel as well!

Obama is discovering that the generation of Israeli leaders now in power – including you, Mr. Netanyahu – lack the spiritual courage to right this historical wrong – to negotiate and conclude an honorable peace settlement with your Semitic Palestinian brothers and sisters, who are Semitic just as you are, Mr. Netanyahu. You lack the moral imagination to step out from behind your insular shield of victimhood and to see clearly and appreciate the legitimate anguish of your perceived enemies, the Palestinian people. You have sacrificed your collective humanity on the altar of entitlement. You have become inhuman and have become a disgrace to noble American Jews like Anna Baltzer who we feature in our book, and to all Americans for whom I speak.

Mr. Netanyahu, this has been your duplicitous history – your government’s history – right up to the present. You offer vague assurances and desires for peace that ring hollow, then crush any hope for optimism by demonstrating just the opposite. Recently you announced that 700 more apartment units would be constructed in east Jerusalem, in the three Jewish enclaves that have been relentlessly strangling the Arab neighborhoods for years.

The Palestinians, as you well know, claim east Jerusalem as their own, and want it for the future capital of an independent Palestine. Israel annexed the entire city following the 1967 bogus war which you started by bombing the Egyptian and Jordanian air forces on the ground when “negotiations” were still going on, in violation of international law — while a woman Mossad agent kept President Lyndon Johnson busy in her own White House bedroom while your secret prewar bombing surprise attack took place. Your successive governments have been developing, stealing and encroaching into Palestinian communities ever since.

This gross disrespect, and the criminal seizure of the property of your fellow Semitic Arab citizens of Jerusalem, represents the perfect metaphor for Israeli aggression throughout the West Bank. It is emblematic of your blind sense of entitlement, and complete void of honor and humanity, Mr. Netanyahu. It represents who you have been, who you are and what you stand for!

But it doesn’t have to be this way in the future, and it doesn’t have to represent your history in Israeli politics. There is another way, and there is another path for you to take as Prime Minister – a path that can bring redemption to your legacy.

With profound hopelessness comes the opportunity for greatness – for you and the state of Israel! You can break all of us out of this cycle of despair and failure. You can provide the Palestinians in Gaza and Jerusalem and the West Bank with a future. You can save Israel from itself!

The subjugation and domination of the West Bank and East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip have always been predicated on the tragically false notion that the security of Israel required it, and that your historic “religion” falsely allowed you to desecrate your humanity … by killing the native population of Palestinians whose land it really belonged to! If you should somehow succeed in this vile inhumane effort, you and Israel and yes – Jews worldwide will be damned forever more. This has been based on the inhumane and irrational notion that the Palestinian people are the natural and inevitable enemies (and inferiors) of Israel — and that you are entitled to forcibly remove them from the West Bank — and destroy them in Gaza because of your “Religion.”

What Religion would approve of that?

This fallacy – this endless tragedy – has corrupted the moral foundation of Jews and Israel worldwide for far too long. It is time for Israel to radically change course. It is time to remove this poison from your society once and for all. It is time for the Palestinians to be accorded the respect and dignity they have so long deserved. It is time for Israel to begin the road to redemption by doing all that is necessary to establish an independent Palestinian state!

You must belatedly accept that all human beings have Equal Rights!”*

As the Prime Minister of Israel, you alone are capable of moving this process forward. We understand that you would come under criticism starting with political fire from your base, the settlement community and the right wing of the Likud (formerly Irgun) Party that put you back into office. You might very well not survive politically, as fragile as your coalition is. A sincere peace and reconciliation effort on your part might quickly collapse and die under an onslaught from the opposition – from your very allies.

But such an effort is the one true hope if the security of Israel is to be achieved — if Israel is to have any respect throughout the world.

Mr. Netanyahu, you can immediately begin this process by removing the inhumane barriers and strangling restrictions that make Gaza a living hell for its impoverished residents. This deplorable situation is reminiscent of the Warsaw ghetto during World War II, where Jews were surrounded, terrified and starved by the Nazis.

Gaza represents a grotesque contradiction to the principles that Israel and America stand for in so many other ways. The Gaza Blockade – this horrible blight on Israel’s soul – must end now, and it is within your power, Mr. Netanyahu, to do it!

End this travesty and allow humanitarian and reconstruction aid to pour into that beleaguered area. Your redemption can begin with this single act of political courage – and we will stand with you against the outcry that would surely come from within your own radical party personified by Avigdor Lieberman, your own Foreign Minister — imported from Soviet Moldova! The international community of free nations will stand by you and work with you as well.

Great leaders make courageous decisions that often go against the grain – decisions that shape a better future. You can be such a leader Mr. Prime Minister.

The ultimate security for Israel lies in your resolution of the Palestinian Question.

The renewal and elevation of Israel’s moral standing lies in that resolution as well.

Thank you for heeding what I am saying. I speak for all knowledgeable and responsible American Citizens of all Religions and Ethnicity.

Sincerely,

Citizen Paul, President and Founder
Goals for Americans Foundation

An Israeli shell or bomb explodes on a target in the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah on January 13, 2009.

A Palestinian woman holds up a portrait of her son, Nedal, one of 29 members of the Samuni family killed during Israel’s ‘Operation Cast Lead’, as UN lead investigator Richard Goldstone arrived to inspect destruction at the Samuni family home in Gaza City on June 3, 2009.

AAPAC – All American Political Action Committee^®

WWPAC – Worldwide Political Action Committee^™

Many of your admirers during the first 100 days of your presidency have been saying that your administration needs to get out in front with your Middle East policies, especially regarding the Palestinian Question, or Israel will do it for you.

You have always stated your desire for an independent Palestinian state, living in peace alongside Israel. Your sympathies for the Palestinian refugees are well documented.

But your administration has yet to spell out specific strategic goals, timelines, or your definition of the final objective in achieving the ultimate peace between these people.

Time is running short for you, Mr. President! We want to urgently impress upon you the need for your administration to solidify and clarify your goals and objectives with Israel’s new Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. Please refer to our Wall Map showing Palestine Reborn which we have sent.

We know that the new coalition government in Israel is already angling to sabotage the two-state negotiations by redefining the strategic perils in the Middle East. Netanyahu has come to Washington to diminish the importance of the Palestinian Issue and to replace it with Iran as the most pressing issue of the day,

Please don’t let him fool you as he did President Clinton!

This will be an egregious example of diplomatic “bate and switch”, and you should not stand for it.

The May 18 meeting has been the first and most crucial test of resolve and force of personality in dealing with the legendary Israeli intransigence and you have handled it well! Netanyahu knows full well that the international community is committed to the two-state solution. He came to Washington to size you up – to find out if, as Vice President Joe Biden says, you have a “backbone of steel”.

The Israelis will correctly point out that Iran is a growing concern in the region, but they will also incorrectly – and shamelessly – try and convince you that the Palestinian Question needs to be put on hold until Iran has been marginalized or contained – a process that will take years at best.

You have looked Netanyahu in the eyes and let him know that, unlike George W Bush, the Obama administration will not roll over and allow the Israeli right wing to dictate our foreign policy objectives. And you did not blink!

Throwing one roadblock after another to stave off the Two-State Solution has been a disastrous policy for Israel over these many years, and coming up with another excuse to further ignore the problem will not add to their security.

We thank you, Mr. President, for delivering a forceful and commanding dose of reality to Prime Minister Netanyahu. Nothing else has ever worked with the Israelis!

You must be willing to threaten Israel with diminished foreign aid if they insist on embracing the same hollow rhetoric, and continue with settlement expansions in the Palestinian West Bank territory.

The Palestinian people were watching and listening on May 18. You have been their champion from day one! Break out of the eight-year stalemate that has allowed Israel to dodge making the hard compromises – allowed them to dictate the ever-changing peace-talk agenda that has gone nowhere.

Justice for the Palestinians is long overdue. It can be yours to deliver!

Let the true peace process begun on May 18 lead to success during your term in office!

Thank you!

Citizen Paul

Listen to an Introduction from Citizen Paul

Among the brightest and the best, Zohair Shaban was one of seven detained Palestinian Fulbright Scholars who were unable to leave Gaza back in May 2008. Upon learning of this injustice, we published an editorial, “Israel, Please Wake Up!” on our website and received the following email from Zohair Shaban.

July 15, 2008
Dear Mr. Paul,

Thanks to Google Engine that guided us to your article titled “Israel Please Wake Up!” During the past period we used to regularly check what is written on our story in the media and the web. We read your article and are very impressed with it since it described an aspects of the hard life in Gaza particularly, education.

We would like to take the opportunity and express our appreciation to you for your thoughts, support and sympathy. We definitely believe the media is a very crucial tool affecting decision making and public opinion formation.

We share you the opinion that this matter shouldn’t have taken a lot from US to accomplish and this is what was written in the letter addressed to Secretary Rice when she recently visited Jerusalem. (Have a look on it here: deprived-gaza-students.blogspot.com.)

We read many article written in this story and most of them failed to mention that the banning policy is not merely for Fulbrighters but for all students here in Gaza, but your article mentioned this and this is a plus. Luckily, Gazans Fulbright story struck in the media and had widely spread, so our scholarships were reinstated and the US consulate (in behalf of State Department) said it’s committed to us to travel and join our programs at US. But what about the non-Fulbright student? Who will be committed to them and who will work to facilitate their exit? We hope your professionally-written article will have the desired impact on the decision makers in USA to press Israel to facilitate the travel of not only Fulbright Grantees but all students planning to pursue degrees abroad or in Westbank.

Back to our case, the most shocking thing was that we were banned for having “family ties” with Hamas and we think this is ridiculous!! We believe this is a justification that Israel had to mention instead of “No reasons, we want to ban them because we don’t like dictations.” No recent news regarding our travel and we still stranded in Gaza, but despite all what happened, we still have a high soul and we believe we will be able to join our respective programs.

Finally, thank you again for your kind efforts to clarify the truth and rectify the US policy in the Middle East. Please keep us posted if any reactions took place and we welcome any discussion in our issue.

Best regards,
On behalf of the three trapped Fulbright students,
Zohair M. Abu-Shaban

Latest from Zohair

We are determined not to be rendered a dependent people lacking advanced education.

And yet the silence of the world suggests that Israel will succeed in keeping us within the limiting confines of Gaza. Perhaps American students will think of me and my fellow Palestinian students as the academic year begins. We long for a similar opportunity.

HOW DISGRACEFUL! THIS DESTROYS ISRAEL’S AND AMERICA’S REPUTATIONS!

Oct. 9, 2008 — If you’re still looking for the smoking gun that helps explain why our current financial crisis was allowed to happen, one of the most critical answers can be found in a little-publicized Securities and Exchange Commission ruling made in April of 2004. With the unanimous vote of all five members of the S.E.C, an exemption was granted to the investment banks of Wall Street that allowed them to speed down the road to ruin!

Runaway greed was unleashed with this little-known ruling. The damage that has been caused is still beyond measure or calculation.

At issue was a long-standing regulation, (the Net Capital Rule), that required investment banks to have a comfortable and responsible cash reserve on hand for the companies to weather downturns in the market and to guard against excessive debt loads.

Early in 2004, the major Wall Street players all put pressure on the S.E.C. to grant them an exemption – an effort led by Henry Paulson, then at Goldman Sachs and now our current Treasury Secretary. These are the same Wall Street players who are now lining up for bailout money, with their friend and former colleague, Paulson, running the 700 billion-dollar show.

No wonder the public is enraged.

Why did these companies bully the S.E.C. for this exemption at that time? The answer is the housing market, which was riding a bubble, held aloft in part because of the sub-prime mortgage market and the new and unregulated mortgage-backed securities that promised to make everyone rich.

Wall Street investment banks desperately wanted in, but this regulation was in their way!

On April 28, 2004, after less than an hour’s discussion, the Commissioners caved in to Wall Street and approved the exemption. These institutions would now be set free to use their billions of dollars in reserve – their safety net – to be invested in the reckless and uncertain mortgage-backed securities market. In the process, they would be putting their shareholders at great risk, as well as the stability of the entire industry.

The Commissioners reassured themselves that rules embedded in the exemption would allow them greater access to risky behavior on the part of the major firms. They reassured themselves that these firms would successfully self-regulate themselves – that the executives running these Wall Street firms would never allow their personal greed to steer their companies so deeply into dangerous debt that it would threaten their very survival of the institutions.

The commissioners forgot the lessons of the Savings & Loan debacle of the 80s, when deregulation led to massive abuses within the industry. Self-regulation didn’t work then, and, tragically, it wasn’t going to work this time around as well.

The S.E.C. established a seven-member commission at the same time to provide oversight, and to blow the whistle if they thought the huge Wall Street firms were taking on excessive debt and risk.

Former California representative Christopher Cox, a persistent enemy of regulatory oversight of the financial industry, was appointed by President Bush as the new S.E.C. chairman in 2005. One of his first orders of business was to gut the effectiveness of this particular commission as much as he could so his friends on Wall Street could do as they pleased without governmental review.

Earlier this year, another watchdog group within the S.E.C. warned about excessive debt and dangerous practices at Bear Stearns and other companies.

Deaf, dumb, blind and arrogant, Cox said in March: “We have a good deal of comfort about the capital cushions at these firms at the moment.”

Days later, Bear Stearns went belly up, and had to be acquired by JP Morgan Chase, with the assistance of American taxpayers to the tune of 29 billion dollars.

Wall Street firms have been tumbling ever since, weighted down by the gluttonous debt the S.E.C. exemption allowed them to accumulate.

The Securities and Exchange Commission was created during The Depression to restore a sense of trust and decency to Wall Street – investor confidence. That confidence has been dashed once again. The S.E.C. was sitting impotent and disinterested on the sidelines while this crisis brewed – history repeating itself once again.

Chairman Cox, running for cover, and away from his involvement in this disaster, issued a lame postmortem recently: “The last six months have made it abundantly clear that voluntary regulation does not work.”

The exemption oversight commission, that was never allowed to do its job in the first place, was quietly shut down earlier this month.

EPILOGUE:

We are in the opening weeks of what most experts now anxiously conclude will be a serious worldwide recession. We are once again paying the consequences for what happens when you excessively free up the Market Place so it can inevitably respond to its worst instincts. This time, the price will be steep, painful and prolonged. The monetary price we will have to pay as American citizens will make the Savings & Loan bailout seem like pocket change. It will be a price our children will be paying for a long time as well.

On the international stage, the price goes beyond huge amounts of bailout money or loan guarantees. The price concerns our very identity – our very soul as a nation.

For hundreds of millions of our fellow world citizens, America has always stood for integrity and honesty and the rule of common decency. That image, that ideal, has been shattered with this crisis.

We are now being seen as a country that tolerated lawlessness and unbridled greed at the very top of some of our most critical institutions.

If the leader of the Free World doesn’t live up to its own standards, who will?

Listen to an Introduction from Citizen Paul

“Jerusalem-born Shaul was so horrified by what
he witnessed and the kind of person he felt he was
turning into that he decided to do something about it.”

7 October: The Israeli Army — along with the Shinbet and Mossad and Border Police — are the institutions that do the actual repression, dispossession, torture, and killing of the Palestinians.

Those in the Israeli Knesset and Government draft the laws, issue the orders, and pretend to make it all “legal.”

Those in our own government — both the Congress and the White House — make all of us Americans seriously complicitous because we provide ever-greater amounts of money, guns, and the constant political excuses to make it all possible.

I met Yehuda Shaul the second day I was in Jerusalem in May. Knowing that I wanted to meet with serious and courageous Israelis, a dinner with three of them was quickly arranged at “Cafe Europe” on Saladin Street, where I also met the owner, an extremely engaging and interesting Palestinian, Jad. I’ve detailed this long, more than 3 hour, dinner and discussion in our upcoming publication SAVING ISRAEL FROM ITSELF, AND SAVING AMERICA FROM ISRAEL.

This week, a press agency in Rome, Italy, wrote the following about Yehuda and the organization he founded, Breaking The Silence (BTS). This short article further underscores how important it is we Americans know about, encourage, and support these courageous and principled Israelis. As Yehuda says and I so agree, we have to do something about this!

Breaking the silence challenges the Israeli army

RAMALLAH, West Bank (6 October IPS) – An Israeli police commander has called them “provocateurs,” “militants,” and “lawbreakers.” Earlier in the year, the Israeli army decided that their presence in the city of Hebron, 30 kilometers south of Jerusalem in the Palestinian West Bank, constituted a security threat and banned them from the city, stating that any member of the organization caught there would be expelled forthwith.

They’ve been spat at, stoned and assaulted, but these former members of the army, many of whom served in Hebron, are determined to expose what is being done in their name and in the name of Israel’s security.

Yehuda Shaul

The organization’s main aim is to break the silence and taboo surrounding the behavior of Israeli soldiers in the Palestinian territories in an endeavor to enlighten ordinary Israelis on what happens behind the scenes as their sons and daughters, husbands and wives serve the Jewish state.

Hebron is an especially tense city as clashes break out frequently between the city’s approximately 600 illegal Israeli settlers, protected by over a thousand Israeli soldiers, living amongst a Palestinian population of about 170,000.

The Israeli settlement of Kiryat Arba in Hebron used to be the home of the United States doctor and immigrant Baruch Goldstein, who mowed down 29 Muslim worshippers as they prayed in the Ibrahimi Mosque during the holy month of Ramadan in 1994. Survivors beat him to death.

BTS has used the anonymous testimony of more than 500 Israeli soldiers who served in the Palestinian territories to hold photo-exhibitions as well as conduct fact-finding tours of Hebron for the Israeli public.

Jerusalem-born Shaul was so horrified by what he witnessed and the kind of person he felt he was turning into that he decided to do something about it. “As the term of my military service was drawing to a close, I started questioning who I was and what I wanted from life as a civilian and what I had become,” recalls Shaul.

“It’s a very terrifying moment because, in one second military terminology and way of thinking doesn’t apply to you any more, and in one second you lose the justification for 95 percent of actions you took part in over the past two years and ten months,” said the former soldier.

Shaul began talking to many of his fellow soldiers about their mutual experiences. “We all felt that something wrong was going on around us. We started talking about what we’ve done, and that’s how BTS got started,” said Shaul.

The group kicked off their campaign with a photo exhibition Bringing Hebron to Tel Aviv in 2004 which was attended by thousands. The exhibition was put up at Harvard University in the US in 2006.

Shaul explains how many Israeli soldiers changed and eventually grew accustomed to abusing Palestinian civilians.

Following the initial excitement after first arriving in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, the soldiers soon got bored and would invent games to amuse themselves.

“You aim your rifle at kids and see them through the scope of your rifle and take a picture. The rifle is no longer a killing machine, the rifle becomes a part of your game, a way to pass time,” said Shaul.

Palestinian father and son at checkpoint.

“If you call on a Palestinian to show his ID and you don’t like his reaction, you then detain him for as long as you feel like. It just depends on which side of the bed you woke up on that morning,” he said.

At other times the soldiers would randomly spray a suburban area indiscriminately in response to gunshots from the area. Testimony from other soldiers included actions such as tanks randomly driving over parked Palestinian cars even when they were not in the way and the road was wide enough for the tanks to pass.

Stealing from Palestinians and assaulting them in their homes while soldiers conducted searches happened regularly.

“Over time,” Shaul says, “the Palestinians stop being people and simply become objects.”

Following the success of the Tel Aviv exhibition, BTS started organizing weekly tours for the Israeli public in Hebron. More than 5,000 people have participated in over 300 tours during the last three years.

But these tours have been interrupted and marred by attacks by Israeli settlers. The army responded by banning BTS from the area earlier this year. Following a successful appeal to the Israeli high court BTS had the ban overturned, and the tours resumed.

But the resumption of the first tour in June was stopped yet again as Israeli settlers blocked the path of the bus and poured scalding water over several tour participants while the police stood by.

None of the settlers were charged.

Angry Israeli intellectuals and left-wing activists, including internationally renowned Israeli author Amos Oz, signed a letter of protest which was published in the Israeli daily Haaretz. They demanded that the Israeli police enforce law and order in Hebron and make the settlers accountable.

BTS follows in the footsteps of another group of peace activists, Yesh Gvul (Hebrew for “There’s a Limit.”) Yesh Gvul comprises Israeli soldiers who refuse, on the basis of moral objections, to serve in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

Yesh Gvul was established in 1982 following Israel’s disastrous invasion of Lebanon when more than a thousand Palestinian civilians were massacred by Israel’s Christian Phalangist allies in the Beirut refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila.

This followed the assassination of Phalangist leader and Lebanese president Bashir Gemayel. The Phalangists, incorrectly, suspected Palestinian involvement.

Israeli troops were later found to have surrounded the camps, preventing any escape, and fired flares into the night making it easier for their butcher allies. Israel was also largely held responsible for arming, training and financing the Phalangists.

Paul Flum, President, Goals for Americans Foundation

“I refused to be part of an intelligence unit which provided information on the possible bombing of civilian targets in the territories,” Neiman told IPS. “I also began a campaign of letter writing to the then [army] chief of staff, Dan Halutz.”

Halutz was responsible for ordering the dropping of a one-ton bomb on a crowded residential apartment building in a densely populated Gaza neighborhood in 2002. The bomb killed Hamas leader Salah Shehade. Amongst the civilian casualties were 14 children.