[Reader-list] Breaking the Silence

[Taha Mehmood]

Dear All

With respect to Israel and Palestine. One often hears what the people
under occupation has to say and what the people who occupy has to say
but seldom does one hear what people, who manage this 'occupation',
has to say.

Perhaps one saw a bit of that perspective via popular culture in
Spielberg's Munich or in Dance with Bashir. Breaking the Silence is an
attempt to document the testimonies of Israeli soldiers as they talk
about Occupied Territories.

You may visit the site here- http://www.shovrimshtika.org/index_e.asp

The testimony below comes under the category called- Routine.

XXX

Taha


Rank: Staff Sergeant
Unit: 401 Armor unit
Description: What does “crazy mess in the territories” mean?
Crazy mess…I was in a combat division in which – how to say it in
Hebrew? - "there was neither law, nor judge" in this division.
Everybody does whatever he wants. And I, specifically, did whatever I
wanted. And ‘to do what you like in Rammalla’ means, for example, that
you have the possibility to drive on the road… you drive on the road
and there are cars on the sides and you intentionally drive over the
car. But I am not talking about 1 or 2 tanks. I am talking about a lot
of tanks. I had a lot of commanding officers and many of them were
like this. And in Rafiach , when I used to come there, I would just
wake up and shoot 2000 cell.
What is 2000cell?
2000 cell are 2000 machine-gun bullets. Out there they used to shoot
at us a lot. Really: every day. Grenades, missiles, everything. So
there was this order that every once in a while all weapons have to
shoot towards a wall, so it doesn’t hit the houses or anything else.
But the freedom that we’ve had…we fired a lot. And 2000 bullets,
automatic fire, directed at the whole city, at houses and at doors,
was something that everybody did, not just me. I do not know why I did
it.
What were you thinking when you did it?
I do not know. I was with the gun. I did not think. In the army I
never thought. And I used to come home and tell about it to my
friends, which means I was not ashamed of it. Nothing. I did what I
was told to do. And besides, everybody did it. That was the custom -
officers and such, everybody knew. It never happened that they had
told me to shoot here or there… and I would stop to think ‘what if’…
First I took the shot; later, if I thought at all, it would always be
too late. I never thought while I was doing that.