This piece was reprinted by OpEd News with permission or license. It may not be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.
A Golani Brigade Sergeant said she attended a class to learn some Arabic, basic things like "open fire instructions (and) Stop! Stop or I shoot!" Five minutes "into class time, a guy stands up (and said to the instructor): "Listen, cutie, forget it....We don't talk. We shoot. Then maybe we talk." They see no one as innocent, so all Palestinians are fair game.
A Menashe Regional Brigade First Sergeant spoke of abused detainees brought in, soldiers guarding them, ordering them around, kicking them. "There were two detainees shackled, blindfolded, the works, surrounded by at least fifteen guys who were harassing them...It's fine, because they're Arabs so they're terrorists."
An Erez Crossing Sergeant said "It's terrible at the checkpoint....Palestinians came with bags of clothes, they'd be ripped....women are stripped" to their undergarments by female soldiers but not gently....they do this all the time." Some are entirely stripped. It's very degrading.
A Qalandiya Checkpoint Sergeant called her checkpoint duty "very shocking. I had a hard time....I felt uneasy from the first, found it difficult to think about."
A Hebron Sergeant said "one girl....slapped an Arab. He answered (her) rudely, so (she) gave him a slap in the face....the mere thought was just shocking. Other girls said they had done it and threatened them. One aimed her rifle at his face and coked it right there. I was shocked that they were my friends....guys do it often, cocking their rifles while threatening children, grownups, everyone."
A Gaza Lieutenant said that to cope you have to see humans as not quite human. "It means if you want to function, you have to protect yourself somehow. You mustn't feel too much. You have to be quite mechanical, quite detached. So I don't think (of Palestinians) as bad people or beasts" or our soldiers who abuse them. "I don't justify it for a second, but I think I would go crazy under such circumstances....I can imagine why a soldier might....beat up people, go home and beat up the whole world....because they've lost it much more than we have....They're constantly in this state of tremendous anger that is directed toward anything."
A Hebron Sergeant said a soldier on this post attacked an Arab boy and broke his leg. "I don't know who, and I don't know how it happened, but I do know that two of our guys got him into a Border Patrol jeep, and hardly two weeks later this kid was moving around with his two arms and two legs in plaster casts, in a wheelchair."
A Hebron Medical Corp Lieutenant described her experience as "Lots of blood. A nightmare....I only wanted to erase everything. Later, after a while, it began to pop up again." In the Territories, it's "a different world, different rules, different manners."
Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
1
1
1
