By Donald H. Harrison
SAN DIEGO—Currently touring the United States are two young reserve officers of the Israel Defense Force (IDF) who can refute the propaganda often spouted by Israel’s enemies with first-hand facts.
Using their first names only, for security reasons, Ashager, who grew up in Yavne, Israel, and Eyal, who represents the 8th generation of his family to be raised in Mevasseret Zion, are taken by StandWithUs volunteers to churches, campuses, clubs, synagogues, and other venues to tell their stories and to answer questions about their experiences in Israel.
Is Israel an apartheid state? Ashager whose parents immigrated to Israel from Ethiopia, says the charge not only is a calumny against free and democratic Israel, it is also a terrible insult to the people of South Africa who had to live under that country’s former system of strict segregation. It minimizes “the suffering that people who actually lived under an apartheid regime had,” she said. “People under apartheid didn’t have civil rights, they couldn’t vote, they couldn’t eat in the same restaurants, they couldn’t get the same kind of jobs,” whereas in Israel, she said, there is complete integration.
“Israel is a democracy,” she said. “In fact, it is the only democracy in the Middle East, and it extends rights to all citizens – Jewish, not Jewish, black or white, women or men – we are all equal under the law.”
What does she tell people who ask her about discrimination in Israel against Ethiopians?
“Israel,” she responds, “is a government of laws, and a system that doesn’t discriminate between civilians. There are individuals who are narrow minded and have their own opinions, but you can put them aside. The country itself doesn’t do it. I feel like I am living proof of that. My parents didn’t have an academic education, or even a high school education, but I grew up to finish my first degree, and become an officer in the Army. (She taught weapons handling to new recruits) Some people might think I can’t do it, but I can because Israel is supporting me. They have an amazing philosophy in the IDF: it doesn’t matter where you came from; it only matters what you are going to become – and that is Israel for me.”
Eyal served in various capacities in the IDF, among them as a liaison between the IDF and United Nations forces monitoring the Israel-Lebanon border, and more recently as a supervisor in the infrastructure projects department of COGAT, an IDF unit which coordinates government activities in the territories.
Noting that there are a lot of complaints about checkpoints in the West Bank, he said that they really are not much different from the security checks people must undergo when they go to the airport. “I wait in lines, I put my hands up to be scanned, my luggage is checked, and sometimes they are not always so nice to me. The same applies to Israelis, we are human beings, and sometimes we don’t have a good day, but in general I try to be a nice and kind person. Sometimes someone will have less tolerance and so forth, but in my personal service, in the years I was there, I never encountered, and not in my unit, any unlawful act or any action that was not as it should have been.”
Eyal said news media often is one-sided in its reporting, playing up any supposed violation by Israelis and looking the other way when an offense is committed on the Palestinian side. “One of the projects I was involved with was an interim girl’s school—the construction was funded by a non-governmental organization (NGO). One day I received a call from my commanding officer. ‘Did you see what happened in your school?’ he asked. ‘No,’ I said. He said ‘open your email.’ I did and I saw that there were three men on the roof of that school throwing Molotov cocktails at an intersection nearby injuring innocent civilians. These were extremists. Can you imagine if a member of your family was under that roof trying to study”
I asked Ashager and Eyal if they had any Arab friends. Eyal said ‘yes’ and Ahager said “of course.” They both made the point that when you go to school in Israel, particularly to college, there are numerous opportunities for Jews and Arabs to meet each other and become friendly. Whereas the parents of college-aged Arabs and Jews may remain in their separate communities, the children are drawn to big cities by the prospects of better educations and careers.
Said Eyal: “I am going to law school, and if on the first day I sit next to Ahmed, that is the way people become friends.”
Said Ashager: “Let me use an Ethiopian analogy. When we first came to Israel, all Ethiopians were staying together in the same places. They had the same ethnic identity and history, but the second or third generation, we move to Tel Aviv or to Herzliya or other large cities. I think with the Arab population you see the same thing.”
While the media depicts Israel as a completely polarized country, they said, in fact young people of different backgrounds – Jews, Druze, Arab Christians, Arab Muslims—are forming friendships, and not just inside Israel proper, but also in the territories. “I have friends in Jenin, Ramallah and Hebron who are Muslims,” said Eyal.
Our conversation moved on to politics and to military threats facing Israel. The two emissaries have been fascinated by the debate in the United States over whether Benjamin Netanyahu should or should not speak before the U.S. Congress. From Eyal’s point of view, the matter is simple. Netanyahu was invited by the Speaker of the House John Boehner and Congress is a “very big stage” from which Netanyahu can warn about Iran. “This is an appropriate thing for the Prime Minister to do” agreed Ashager.
Do they think his speech in the U.S. will impact Israel’s own election on March 17, in which Netanyahu is running for reelection? They answered that they felt the impact would be far larger in the United States than in Israel.
Of the various forces arrayed against Israel – Hezbollah, Hamas, Iran, and ISIS – the latter has the two reserve soldiers most concerned.
Ashager said ISIS has been able to terrorize the world with its videos of executions which reach “every computer, every iPhone. They make the world scared of them even before they do anything. While Westerners argue international law,” debating their right to attack ISIS and who should be the ones to do it, ISIS continues to conquer more land, she said. “These are people who are not afraid to die,” she said. “For them, dying is an honor. So how do you scare them/ They say, ‘If I die while killing you, I will win.’”
Eyal said ISIS represents a new threat because it is attracting to its ranks not only people from Arab countries who have been force-fed anti-Western propaganda, but also recruits from western nations—young Muslims who were born in the West but felt that they were never accepted, who feel that they are strangers in their own country. When he was studying in Cologne, Germany, he said, he witnessed the phenomenon. Immigrants who wanted to be part of German society felt rejected. Today, he said, ISIS greets them with open arms. “I can make the logical connection.”
Ashager said the strength of the StandWithUS program is that it allows young adults such as Eyal and herself to meet with members of their peer group. “We are students just like them,” she said. “We are the same age. We have the same aspirations in life. We are just getting started. Our lives are like their lives.” Whatever negatives about Israel they may hear from the media or their friends, “they see us, regular students, smiling and happy, and it bursts that bubble. They see something else, and that makes the difference. And then when they connect with us and hear our stories, that is what opens the gate.”
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Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World. Your signed comment may be posted in the space provided below or sent to donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com