Content: israel military forces, idf military, hurt israel, combat israel, abusive nature israel, breaking the silence, israel security state, israel check point, military action israel, arab israeli conflict, middle east peace, peace process idf, israel defence forces, israel defence west bank, avihai stollar israel, jewish state military, reform idf, critic idf, combat vetran idf, attack on israel, abuse military gaza, gaza westbank problem To be honest - personally I have never met a jewish person until now, but this guy is one of those, I would remember - I guess. Pretty honest, self critical as an Israeli (former soldier) and also not biased against his own country and people on the typical polarisation points. In other words a non-activist in style working for change in his country and the middle-east. This is a way to get peace than in Israel. Changing and reform the IDF and include arabic people. Interview-Excerpt (?): ............. SS: Your organization, how long has it been around? Have you seen any results because for the moment 'Breaking the Silence' looks rather like a confession community for soldiers willing to clear their conscious from the sins of the military, right? It's not like a political or social force, yet... AS: First of all, we have been around since 2004, actually "Breaking the Silence' started as a photo exhibit of soldiers that were discharged and decided to somehow bring the reality of the service to the Israeli public. So, they did an exhibit in Tel Aviv but doing the exhibit people were coming to them saying we didn't serve the same unit, we didn't serve the same region but we also have stories that we believe that the public needs to hear. So actually for the past nine years that's our main project, you know, bringing those stories to the public. Now regarding the effect - that's the hard question because when it comes to any type of, I guess, social or political campaign, I guess, quantifying the extent of your success is a very hard thing to do, you know, you never know who you affected and how you affected. To say that 'Breaking the Silence' would be the sole organization or body that would end the occupation - probably not, we're a part of a bigger thing, we're a part of a bigger movement, you know that is trying to change the reality that has beenon the ground for the past more than 45 years now. But we believe that we do have a big contribution and that when it comes to making more and more people aware of something which is somehow left outside of the discussion and that what is actually happening on the ground. You know everybody is talking about the peace negotiations, about Abbas and Netanyahu, walking in suits, and air-conditioned rooms in Camp David and Geneva when in reality most people have no idea about what's happening in Calandia or Havurah, you know the checkpoints in the West Bank. We believe that that's definitely our contribution to the debate, to the discussion and when it comes to this we did succeed in somehow getting this, I guess, deeper in the discourse. SS: Are you guys being persecuted by your government, I mean your confession surely don't incite much excitement to the authorities? AS: Well, on the personally level no, I think we have the privilege that I guess mostly Israeli Jews have in the State of Israel, you know, to speak freely. When it comes to the organization that's the different story, I mean the Knesset, the Parliament, even the government is trying to push forward legislation that would limit our ability to fund-raise, and they are putting pressure on our contributors and on our donors not to support us. And when it comes to our public face, they are doing everything in the power to delegitimize our voice, saying that we're self-hating Jews that the testimonies are actually rumors, and all types of accusations that are completely incorrect and are only there in order to basically block our attempt to reach the Israeli public. SS: If you ask an Israeli person, most of them will tell you that Palestinians are terrorists -- you've been there, how many Palestinians are terrorists? AS: Definitely the fringe of the fringe. And when we're talking about the gap between what Israelis think -- and not just Israelis, unfortunately, what a lot of people think -- it comes to what's happening on the ground in the West Bank, and what is actually happening, there is a huge gap: most of the people, when you talk about Palestinians ..... Great interview - feel free to analyse, work on the input of this content (always in compliance with the original content right owner) RT´s DISCLAIMER and fair-use-agreement http://rt.com/legal-disclaimer COMPLET TRANSCRIPT on Russia Today with Shophie Shevadnaze: http://rt.com/shows/sophieco/veterans-group-breaking-silence-822 https://twitter.com/SophieCo_RT Information about this IDF veteran http://www.breakingthesilence.org.il

• published: 28 Oct 2013
• views: 8