IDF soldiers have highs and lows on SDSU visit

By Donald H. Harrison

 

SAN DIEGO – Yishai and Ilana are students at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, but they weren’t visiting San Diego County in that capacity earlier this week.  They came as two former active-duty 1^st lieutenants of the Israel Defense Forces, and, as such, could be identified only by their first names under terms of StandWithUs’s sixth “Israeli Soldiers Stories” U.S. tour.  I did learn that Ilana grew up in Ra’anana and Yishai in Jerusalem, but other than that our meeting—and those the pair had with students, synagogue members and Christian groups while touring San Diego County — stayed focused on their perspectives on various policy issues facing Israel and its army.

In their estimate of these two Army reservists, a visit to San Diego State University provided both low and high points of their trip, the low point coming when the student legislature took “testimony” on a proposal to divest student funds from companies doing business with Israel, and the high point coming later that afternoon when Ilana and Yishai walked and talked with pro-Palestinian students from Gaza and the United States and later  had the opportunity to fully answer their charges during a presentation in San Diego’s new Hillel House.

The BDS resolution, which will be voted upon by the student Senate following the Spring break, was the subject of a hearing at which, as Ilana described it, was controlled by one student senator who already had made up her mind to demonize Israel by describing its soldiers as an occupation force who were violating human rights.  There were only a few Israelis and pro-Israel speakers at the hearing, who were given two minutes each at the beginning of the meeting, and when they finished speaking, a well organized phalanx of pro-Palestinian speaker leveled emotional charge after emotional charge against Israel, charges that according to Ilana had no basis in fact nor which could be responded to under the carefully controlled format of the meeting.

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One charge she recalled was that the wall built by Israel between it and the disputed territories was not at all a “security barrier” but instead was intended to enforce racial segregation of the Palestinians in a form of apartheid. In fact, the wall was built only after suicide bombings by terrorists infiltrating from the territories had taken many hundreds of Israeli lives.  In Israel, far from racial segregation, Arabs enjoy full rights as citizens, and occupy seats in the Knesset (Parliament) and take important roles in government ministries and in various Israeli industries.

When the meeting broke up, the Israelis went to the next scheduled event—a meeting at the Hillel House intended for them to share their perspectives.  Members of Students for Justice in Palestine also walked to Hillel, the pre-report having been that they planned to stage a walk out in the middle of the soldiers’ presentation. Yishai told me that during the short walk to Hillel, he spoke with the pro-Palestinian protesters, and urged them not to walk out but to stay in the meeting.  Rather than stage empty demonstrations, he urged, why not listen to each other and begin to make progress on what has been an intractable problem?  To his pleasant surprise, he said, the students agreed.

Frustrated by the inability to answer so many “horrible and untrue charges” that had been made against Israel at the divestment hearing, the former IDF officers were ready for the questions that the Palestinian students and their supporters lobbed at them at the Hillel meeting, and, according to Yishai’s account, he and Ilana were able to answer slogans with facts, and to perhaps get the pro-Palestinians to reexamine some of their assumptions.  He said that some of the pro-Palestinians were surprised to learn how many IDF soldiers are deployed in delivering social services to poor communities in their country, both Jewish and Arab.  And, he said, they were unaware of the vigorous moral training that every soldier in the IDF is required to undergo.

Following the Hillel meeting, the Israeli soldiers walked the pro-Palestinian students to their cars, continuing their dialoguing along the way, Yishai said.

Nevertheless, Ilana said she felt bleak about the prospects of the pending  divestment vote in the student Senate unless the pro-Israel community organizes to talk with each student senator and to meet the other side’s baseless emotional accusations with truth.

In other activities on their tour, the Israelis met with pupils at the Chabad Hebrew Academy, congregants at a pro-Israel Christian church in Oceanside, and members and guests at Congregation Beth El – all activities that went very smoothly.  They also did media interviews, including one with me in which we discussed some other issues with which the IDF is dealing, including conscription of Haredim, a growing movement among Christian Arabs to enlist, and the general  role the IDF plays in the unification of Israel’s various social classes.

Ilana, 24, said that whereas the IDF’s principal mission is to defend the country, it also is a place where 18 year olds are brought together to perform mandatory service (3 years for young men, 2 years for young women) and learn that they are capable of doing things far beyond what they ever imagined. As one who was involved in human services and personnel, at a very young age Ilana was commanding a battalion, with 1,800 people.

“We have a moral code that is instilled in us before we ever take up a weapon in our hands, and we carry a miniature version of that code in our Army identification,” Ilana said.  “We work with endangered youth, we do community service, we go to an old age home regularly on Sundays.  These are not the primary objectives of the army but after doing all these things, people leave the army in a much more mature, responsible state than I think they would in other countries.  And it something that we take with us.”

Yishai, 26, who served in a combat division, said when he was a high school student, “I was probably the worst student in Israel.  When I finished the Army, I got into the best law school in Israel ( his description for Hebrew University’s Law Faculty), and there is no way that I could have got into that school if I had not gone through my Army service.  It taught me so much about myself, that I can do basically whatever I want if I put in enough effort.  So the army gave me a lot.”

Asked about mandatory conscription for the ultra-Orthodox, Yishai said that an IDF unit that already had been established for them “is considered to be a very good unit.  They are good soldiers. They have great abilities and they perform in the right way.”  As for those Haredim who have not yet been enlisted, he said, “the Israel public feels now, more than ever, that there is a need for them to be more of a player in Israeli society, to share the burden of the Army.”  He said his Army service taught him a love for his entire country, and awakened in him the desire to contribute.  “That is something, I think, that they are lacking in a way—the love for the country.”

Concerning protests from Haredi rabbis that the Army may lead ultra-Orthodox boys into secular ways, Ilana responded diplomatically.  “It needs to be acknowledged that they do have a very unique way of life and changing that way of life would be something that could impact that fabric.”  However, she said, the Army will prepare the young Haredim for jobs for which they are ill prepared today, thus permitting them to contribute financially to Israeli society.  Furthermore, she said, Haredim need to know that as an alternative to serving in the military, they can perform community service right in their own communities.  “But they would be sharing the burden and they would be stopping their lives as well for 2-3 years in order to do something for somebody else.”

Both Ilana and Yishai were enthusiastic about more and more Christian Arabs joining the IDF.  “There is a huge embrace by the Israeli army and Israeli society of these Christian Arabs who are being enlisted,” said Ilana.  “There are organizations that support them, especially since this is not necessarily accepted by their own people or by the Muslim population.  And when they are harassed, they get even stronger support from Israeli society and the Israeli army.”

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Donald H. Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World, which seeks sponsorships to be placed, as this notice is, just below articles that appear on our site.  To inquire, call him at (619) 265-0808 or contact him via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com

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